How to open and eat spider crabs

The velvet crab, a crustacean coveted by the most discerning seafood lovers. Velvet crabs have tender, delicious meat, making them the essential seafood for this Christmas season.

The European velvet crab (Necora puber) lives in coastal areas among rocks, in muddy bottoms, and on sandy bottoms. It inhabits the cold waters of the North Atlantic, in the areas of Galicia, the Cantabrian Sea, and the seas of Ireland and Scotland.

It is medium-sized, weighing between 100 and 300 grams . The velvet crab is an omnivorous animal, and its diet consists of everything from seaweed and fish remains to small animals, and it sometimes resorts to cannibalism.

Thanks to their varied diet, spider crabs offer several health benefits. They are low in fat, contain vitamins and minerals such as sodium, calcium, iron, and magnesium , and are an excellent source of protein . This helps us manage our weight and cholesterol.

Curiosities about spider crabs

Like any other species, crabs are divided into males and females with different characteristics. The most striking features of male crabs are their large claws and smaller body compared to females. They can also be distinguished by the shape of their abdomen : the male has a pointed abdomen, while the female's is more rounded.

Females can lay up to 200.000 eggs during the spawning season (from January until spring). Velvet crabs are found throughout the Atlantic Ocean, but the best ones are those that inhabit the colder waters.

Spider crabs are generally eaten cold in Spain, while in neighboring countries like Portugal, they are eaten warm or hot.

How are raw spider crabs prepared and cooked?

Many people don't know how to clean or cook spider crabs. To prevent this from happening, we'll tell you how to open them properly and get the most out of their juicy, flavorful meat. Pay attention!

First, we need to clean them briefly under running cold water . In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. We should use 5 liters for every kilogram of crabs . Once the water is boiling, we should add 60 grams of salt per liter.

Once the water is boiling, add the spider crabs and start timing when the water returns to a boil. The cooking time varies depending on their size. Smaller crabs will take about 4 minutes, and larger ones about 6 minutes.

If all this overwhelms you, here is a table with cooking times.

If you don't want to go through the whole cooking process, you can buy our cooked dolphin crabs. You just have to defrost them to enjoy them.

¿How to clean cooked spider crabs?

The first step in cleaning a spider crab is to separate the lower part , which is a thin triangle in the case of the male, and a more circular triangle in the case of the female. We remove the triangle simply by pulling and separating it.

The next thing we need to do is separate the shell by inserting our fingers through where we removed the triangle . This separates the shell from the legs, with each going its own way.

The inside of the shell can be eaten directly, or you can season it with a little lemon, wine, or vinaigrette. We give the legs a couple of whacks with the tweezers and finally break them open to extract the juicy meat.