How To Shell a Hair Crab
- 1 or so Boiled hair crab
- 1 pair Kitchen scissors
- Cut off all the legs except for the claws with the kitchen scissors.
- Cut the curved thick part of the legs with the scissors.
- If you do this all at once you won't have to keep picking up and putting down the scissors several times.
- Open up the cut parts.
- Insert your thumb between the shell and the meat, and take out the meat.
- Do this with all the legs.
- Turn the body over.
- Open up the triangular part (the "pants") and take it off.
- (In the photos the "pants" are still on up to Step 7, but...)
- Insert your right thumb in the hole left by removing the "pants".
- Hold onto the shell from below, insert your left thumb in the hole too and pull up.
- Then the shell and shoulder will pop right off.
- Here is how it looks when the shell and shoulder have come off.
- If there is water in the shell, throw it out so that the brown meat doesn't get diluted.
- The triangle and the thin little bits shown in the photo aren't edible, so pull them off and discard them.
- This is how it looks after the inedible parts have been taken off in Step 8.
- Hold onto the base of the legs with both hands (although just one hand is shown in the photo) and break it apart in the middle.
- The brown part on the left top is brown meat too.
- Scoop it out using chopsticks or a spoon, and add it to the brown meat in the shell.
- Here's how it looks with the brown meat removed.
- Holding onto the base on the legs on the opposite side from the claws, break them off following the direction of the meat.
- Break all the legs off.
- Here's how it looks after the right side legs have been broken off.
- Do the same to the left side legs.
- Maybe it's easier to do the left side first?
- Here's how it looks with all the parts broken apart.
- Holding on to the hard part of a leg...
- Peel off the thin skin.
- Pull the meat with your right hand.
- The shoulder meat will come out in a lump.
- Do the same to all the legs.
- When you get used to it, the meat will come off without having to peel the thin skin.
- The meat removed from the shell is on the upper right in the photo.
- The leg shells are on the top left.
- Below are the crab shell with the brown meat, claws and joints.
hair crab, kitchen scissors
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/149327-how-to-shell-a-hair-crab (may not work)