How to Cook Chesapeake Bay
Blue Crabs

How to Pick a Blue Crab

• Flip the crab over

• Flip open the apron

• Flip off the top shell

• Pull out the gills and innards that are hanging out.

• The yellow stuff is called the "mustard."  It's actually the crab's fat and many people enjoy eating it.

• Break the body in half, leaving the legs and claws on.

• Squish down the flipper end (backfin) and twist it to produce a  big piece of backfin meat.

• Pull off the swimming legs and claws one by one.  Suck out the little piece of meat at the end of each.  Save the claws.

• Take a paring knife and split each half of the crab through horizontally, exposing chambers of crabmeat.  Use the knife to pick out the meat. 

• Take a claw and break it apart at the joint.  Break the claw with a mallet and pick out the crabmeat.

• Keep repeating the process until you're full.

Buy Crab Meat Online
The Crab Place sells five different types of crabmeat: premium Jumbo lump, delicious Backfin lump, delicate Special, flavorful claw meat, and legendary Smith Island Deluxe picked locally by Smith Island watermen's wives. Their handpicked Maryland blue crab meat is shipped overnight for absolute freshness. Their pasteurized crabmeat comes in hermetically sealed cans. Click here to order your crabmeat fresh or pasteurized.

Old Bay Seasoning

No kitchen in the Chesapeake Bay region should be without a can of Old Bay.  Old Bay is a staple ingredient for steamed Chesapeake Bay crabs, crab cakes, and other seafood recipes.  Cooks have found other creative uses for Old Bay including on french fries, fried chicken, and bloody marys. 

McCormick's Old Bay site.

Crab Cakes

Crab cakes... The most popular of crab dishes.  Chesapeake Bay area restaurants serve them in many forms and varieties and residents have their favorite recipes.  The one thing they all have in common is Chesapeake Bay blue crab. 

There are three basic ways to cook  crab cakes.  The first is very simply prepared.  It uses jumbo lump crab meat mixed very gently with very little filler.  These crabcakes are fragile and must be broiled rather than fried.  The second basic method mixed the crab with a spiced, mayonnaise based batter with bread or cracker filler.  These crabcakes are either broiled or fried.  The third method uses a lightly seasoned cream sauce to bind the crabmeat.  The crabcakes are chilled prior to cooking to firm them up and then they are lightly coat in bread crumbs and fired. 

Preparation Tips

Picking the crabmeat:  As in picking out the shells.  Very gently pick through the crabmeat for shells.  Be careful not the break up the lumps while you are picking through the meat.

Mixing:  Mix the batter (eggs, mayonnaise, seasoning, etc) in a separate bowl from the on the hold the crabmeat.  Sprinkle the bread crumbs or cracker crumbs over the crabmeat and then pout the batter on top of the crumbs.  Gently toss or fold together the ingredients, being careful not to break up the crab lumps.

Forming the crabcakes:  Gently form the crab mixture into slightly flattened cakes.  Do not pack the mixture together firmly, it hold together loosely.  Chilling the crabcakes in the refrigerator for at least an hour prior to cooking will help them hold together when you cook them.

Crab Cake Recipes

Patti La Belle's "Make-You-Wanna-Hooler" Maryland crab cakes.  As featured on Good Morning America.

Phillips' Maryland Style Crab Cakes.  How to cook Shirley Phillips' Maryland-style crab cake recipe - simple and delicious.

Senator Barbara Mikulski's crabcake recipe.  Senator Barb's (Maryland) favorite crab cake recipe.

Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes.  A collection of crab cake recipes.

Mail Order Crabs and Crab Cakes

Fresh Chesapeake Bay crabs and crab cakes can be express shipped to you for enjoyment anywhere in the country.  Here are some companies that ship out their products.

 Buy Crab Cakes Online

The Crab Place mixes exactly the right spices with the finest crab to produce a crab cake with exquisite flavor. They gently blend a few simple ingredients into their sweet, tender crabmeat and then shape the mixture into patties or balls. Both are homemade from all lump Maryland blue crab meat, delivered to your door individually wrapped, frozen, and ready for your frying pan. Click here to buy them individually, or in packages of 6 or 12.

Angelina's of Baltimore.  Angelina's has won "Baltimore Best Crab Cake" awards for more than 20 years and more than any other place in town.

Chesapeake Bay Gourmet.  A leader in mail order crab cakes.  Featured regularly on QVC.

The Crab Place.   Crisfield, Maryland business specializing in crabcakes, plus hard crabs, soft crabs, oysters, scallops, and more.

The Great Gourmet.  Features Maryland steamed crabs, soft crabs, and crab meat delivered fresh to your door.

J.W. Faidleys.  Founded in 1886, Faidley Seafood is one of the oldest and best-known purveyors of fresh and prepared seafood in the Chesapeake region.

Obrycki's.  An established crab house in historic Fell's Point, known for it's excellent crab cakes.