'Tis The Season

In years past, we always cleaned the crab before bringing them aboard, cooked them, and then refrigerated or froze it.  Because they are ubiquitous, we used Zip-lock bags for storage.

But after a disappointingly short time in the refrigerator or freezer, the crab looses it's sweet, just-caught flavor.  And the flesh turns kind of leathery.

So this year, Jane is trying something different.  First, she is picking all the meat.  Tedious work, but realistically, most of the crab we froze last year ended up getting picked anyway to make crab cakes.  So she is just doing this up front.

And here is the big change:  instead of Zip-lock bags, we are using a vacuum sealer.  As opposed to the polyethylene Zip-locks, the Food Saver bags are made of a film that is impervious to oxygen, and presumably also to that common "refrigerator/freezer taste".

Bonus:  out of the shell, the crab takes up a lot less space in the freezer!

And of course, none of this applies to the crab which we eat on board, fresh from the sea!

'Tis The Season