King Crab Legs with Melted Butter
Overview
Alaskan king crab legs, steamed briefly and served with melted butter and lemon. There is no African connection here and none is claimed: king crab is a cold-water North Pacific species fished off Alaska and the Russian Far East, and this is the standard American way of serving it. The single most useful thing to know is that king crab legs are sold already cooked. They are steamed aboard the boat or on the pier immediately after they are caught, then frozen, because crab meat spoils very quickly once the animal dies. What you are doing at home is reheating, not cooking, and that is why every instruction here is measured in a few minutes rather than tens of them. Treat them like a raw ingredient and you will get rubbery, stringy meat. The source is right to steer away from submerging them in water, which waterlogs the meat and washes out the flavour that the initial cooking sealed in. Steaming and a foil-wrapped spell in the oven both work because they warm the meat through without soaking it. Africa has a long coastline and a serious crab tradition of its own, Ghanaian akotonshi, stuffed crab served in the shell, is on this site, but it is built around warm-water species, and king crab is not one of them.
Ingredients
Dietary tags are provided by contributors as a guide, not verified by AFN, and they depend on the products you buy. If you have a serious allergy, check every ingredient yourself. Cooking, allergies and your own judgement
Directions
- 1
Melt the butter in a small pan and keep it warm on the lowest setting.
- 2
Set a steamer tray inside a large pot and pour in about an inch of water, you are reheating the crab, not cooking it through, so no more is needed.
- 3
Bring the water to the boil, lay the crab legs on the steamer tray, bending them at the joint if needed to fit, and cover the pot. If the lid will not sit properly over the basket, cover the pot with foil and crimp the edges to seal.
- 4
Steam for about 5 minutes, or about 10 minutes if the legs are still frozen. They do not need thawing first.
- 5
Alternatively, wrap the legs in a sealed foil parcel, set the parcel on a baking tray and warm through in a hot oven for 15 to 18 minutes.
- 6
Cut the shells with kitchen shears, at the joint and along the length of the leg, to expose the meat. You can open them fully or just start each one and let people finish them at the table.
- 7
Serve at once with the melted butter, lemon wedges and parsley.
Africook’s Notes
- The legs arrive already cooked. Everything you do at home is reheating, and overheating is the only real way to ruin them.
- Do not submerge them in water. Waterlogged crab meat loses both texture and flavour, which is why steaming beats boiling here.
- Frozen legs go straight in without thawing, just allow roughly double the steaming time.
- Kitchen shears are the right tool. Snip between the joints and along the leg rather than trying to crack the shell.
- Cut the legs into shorter lengths before reheating if they will not fit your pot. It makes them easier to eat as well.
- Serve the butter warm rather than hot, and keep the lemon on the side so people can judge their own.
Reviews
Be the first to rate this recipe
Cooked it? Your rating helps the next person decide whether to try it.
No reviews on this one yet. If you have cooked it, yours would be the first.
