Today I went out to my favorite fishing pier in California, Hermosa Beach Pier. Today the conditions of the water was really good, it was flat calm, the sky was overcast, and there wasn't a whole lot of wind. Even though the conditions were good, the fishing was pretty slow. We caught a few Pacific Mackerel here and there, and I caught a decent sized Calico Bass on a handline with a jighead with a strip of mackerel, but other than that there wasn't a whole lot of action on the pier.
A guy named Pablo who was fishing on the pier reeled up his bottom fishing rod and found that a decent sized rock crab and the crab was a little jacked up, it had a few missing claws, but it was still a nice crab with some good meat on it. He didn't want it, so he just gave it to us.
Here it is:
Lets begin the cooking!
First what I did was clean the crab...Pry the shell off, pulling from the back of the crab first. Remove the gills and scoop out the guts inside the body of the crab. A good rule of thumb is to remove anything that’s not pure white. (The white stuff is meat, and oh boy, is it delicious.) Then, you pry off the abdomen.
After that, I rinsed off whats left of the crab. I made sure I got out any guts, sand, dirt, or any impurities the crab may have. Afterward, I turned on my steamer and filled the bottom with water then put the pot over the water and put the crab in the pot. (Keep in mind there is no water in the pot, the crab is being steamed)
I then proceed to steam the crab for 20 minutes, and by the time my timer went off, I turned off the steamer and took out my crab legs and they were perfect. Then I cut the legs into 2 portions, which looked like this:
Then once you are done with that part, let the crab cool down. Now it's time for the next step.
Making the mouth-watering, hunger-inducing, craveable sauce.
What I did first was take a decent chunk of butter and melted it down in a hot wok. I heated the wok up before I put the butter in. (Use as much or as little butter as you need, it's all up to you.) Make sure when you melt the butter you have your stove on low so it doesn't brown up the butter too much or burn it.
Then, mince up a few chunks of garlic...
Then toss it in with the butter...
Then after you do that let the butter and garlic cook together for about a minute, then pour it out into a dipping tray or small bowl. And now, your sauce it prepared. Then you just wanna put your crab on a plate and get your sauce and you're all ready to go...Oh wait, you need your shell cracker too ;) (You could also use pliers...these rock crab have a tough shell)