Soft Crab Heaven: Spilled Milk #215

Four recipes on one plate!

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The Maryland blue crab is renowned for its sweet and succulent meat, and I love steaming them in their hard-shell stage during the cold weather of early spring, when their meat is dense and beyond anything you can imagine. In the late spring and early summer months the crabs undergo a fascinating transformation, shedding their hard shells to become the coveted soft-shell crabs. Or as they are properly called, soft crabs.

This molting occurs during the crab's growth cycle as the waters of the Chesapeake Bay warm. Maryland's watermen eagerly await the migration of blue crabs to shallow, warmer waters, a process crucial for their growth and survival. During molting, the crabs secrete enzymes that soften their hard shells, and they dig their claws into the soft sand and mud, which allows them to wriggle out of their confining exoskeletons.

Seafood aficionados prize crabs at this time, when their texture is delicate, their flavor is rich and you can use 100 percent of them on the plate. The demand for soft crabs surges accordingly, as restaurants and seafood markets clamor to procure these delicacies. Live primes (my favorite size) can fetch well over $100 for a case of 24 wholesale. They are worth every penny.

In Maryland alone, the soft crab industry is a significant contributor to the local economy. Each season, the Chesapeake Bay harvest of blue crabs is in the millions of pounds. And while exact figures fluctuate, on average, Maryland's watermen harvest between 25 and 30 million pounds of blue crabs per year. Of these, a substantial portion are soft-shell crabs.

The watermen harvest the crabs by gathering them in a late-season hard-shell stage, keeping them in temperature-controlled tanks and then forcing them to molt by raising the water temperature before harvesting them quickly. I have eaten soft crabs taken in the wild as they molt, and there is nothing better. But that is so rare, it’s almost a symbol of a long-lost era. Twenty-four hours after molting, the crab shell becomes leathery, and the delicate nature of the soft crab is gone.

The versatility of soft crabs makes them a favorite among chefs and home cooks alike. Last year in these pages I pan-fried them; this year I am deep-frying, but you can grill them, too.

Note: The herb oil and the resulting aioli (as well as the salad) can be used a hundred ways all summer long.

Recipe: Soft Crabs