To meet with well potted crabs is a very rare occurrence, and, speaking
generally, is attributable to the carelessness of the preparer. Crabs
are very often out of season, that is, cannot be got without great
trouble and expense, and they are very much liked; these admissions
furnish reasons why we should have some well preserved. Take half a
dozen eastern coast crabs――those of Hartlepool and neighbourhood are
always sound and well flavoured, while those on the western coast and
about Ireland are little worth――plug up all the holes with wooden pegs,
throw them into a tubful of salt and water and brush them _thoroughly_,
then wash in pure water and put them into boiling water to be cooked;
then take them up and lay them to get cold; pull off the claws and put
the large shells into a slow oven after having run off any water that
may have collected in them, and when no more steam arises from the slow
drying, set them also to get cold. Take all the meat out of the claws,
pick out very carefully all the little skins and strings, cut it into
dice and pound it in a mortar with clarified butter until of a nice
plastic mass, which cover up in a cloth. Now attack the body shells,
pick out all the solid meat, and, setting the coral aside, throw out
all the skins and refuse you can find, and beat up this also with best
Durham mustard, as for the table, some cayenne, chillie vinegar, and
table salt. Place some of this at the bottom of each pot, and having
ready this seasoning, mix what is requisite with the meat from the
claws:
Mace 1 oz.
Cloves 1½ oz.
Nutmeg 1 oz.
Bay leaf 1 oz.
Table salt 6 oz.
White pepper 2 oz.
Work this well into the mass, and having put a portion of the hard
coral into each pot, fill up with the seasoned claw meat. Set the pots
in a slow oven to evaporate what moisture you can, then set aside and
when cold pour clarified butter plentifully over, which, when cold,
must again be covered with writing paper. If your ingredients were
genuine, your butter sweet, and well managed, and the fish of prime
quality, you will have a choice or rare preparation of these generally
admired fish.