Roasted Crab with Garlic Noodles

I've been wanting to make Crustacean's signature recipe, Roasted Crab with Garlic Noodles, ever since Crab Season started in November. There's just something about those noodles and the idea of a "secret kitchen" just for making this dish intrigued me. After a quick search, I found a recipe that I liked. Someone actually analyzed the dish and experimented with the recipe until they came up with a very similar recipe. I was excited! It was a very simple recipe but it required a live crab.

The idea of having to kill a crab for dinner was not appealing at all. And I actually had to kill TWO live crabs since it was a surprise dinner for John. I began searches on "how to kill a live crab humanely" and quickly decided I did not want to plunge the crab into boiling water. I found these two videos and both freaked me out! Here's the first and here's the second. Neither video looked humane at all.

I abandoned the web and asked around to see how my friends have killed their crabs. There was one technique that I took to. It required turning the crab onto its back, grabbing hold of the legs and pulling up while holding the shell down. Sounded easier than what I saw in the videos.

I went to Ranch 99 to pick up two live crabs. They packed the little guys up in plastic bags and for extra security measures, triple bagged it in a paper bag and another plastic bag. Which was great because when I got home, the feisty crabs punctured the first plastic bag and water was leaking out. Great...

I put the crabs into a pot of cold water so that they would stay alive until John got home. That's when I got a really good look at their faces. Big mistake! I felt terrible! And they have these tiny little hands right in front of their mouths that come together like they're begging me not to eat them. I poured myself a gin & tonic and ignored them. Hard to do when they are trying to escape and make "tap-tap" noises against the pot. This called for TWO gin & tonics, one for each crab I had to kill.

Hi Guys

It was finally time to prep the crabs. I tapped the crab's head against the sink to "put it to sleep" like the video instructed. I turned the first crab over onto its back and grabbed hold of the legs. At this point, I wondered if I should just keep them as pets. But the potential deliciousness I was about to experience gave me the strength to do it! I said I'm really sorry and thank you so much for providing a delicious meal tonight and ripped the legs up and dismembered it. I was so freaked out by all of the goo inside of the shell that I immediately started cleaning, forgetting that I should have cut the rest of the crab in half to make sure it was really dead.

One down, one to go. The second one was a lot easier. I said, "Sorry! and Thank you!" Cleaned everything up and chopped the crab up into bite sized pieces.

 dismembered crab

I followed this recipe exactly so I'll spare you the details. Thank you Rasa Malaysia for sharing this awesome recipe!

 Serve the noodles in the shell. delish!