1. Twist off the legs and claws.
2. Take a claw and split it at the joints. Put to one side. Twist pincer off at joint. Crack claw with the back of a knife or a rolling pin. Pick away shell and remove meat in one piece. Take smaller joints and pick out meat. Repeat with other claw.
3. Take legs and split them at the joints. Pick out meat from inside.
4. Take main part of crab and lay shell side down. Remove body section, where legs were attached, by levering it out and pulling away. It can be tough, but it will pull away.
5. From this body section, remove grey gills from sides – the ‘dead man’s fingers’ - and throw these away as they’re not edible. Cut body into 4 pieces and pick out meat.
6. From shell, remove small stomach sac from behind mouth and discard. Scoop out soft brown meat.
7. To serve crab in shell, wash and dry it well. Break away softer shell underneath - there’s a natural groove in the underside where the shell should break cleanly away. Make sure all bits are cleaned out of the shell.
8. Break up whole claw meat into a bowl and add rest of white meat and brown meat. Stir to combine and season with pepper, salt and a squeeze of lemon juice. Stir together and serve in the cleaned shell.
Use your new cookery skills following these triple-tested recipes:
Crab roll recipe
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Hot devilled crab recipe
Knife, crab pickers, clippers, bowl and spoon, chef's own.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
