When is soft shell crabs in season

If they stay in the water, they grow new, larger shells, but if harvested, that process comes to a halt and the crabs stay soft and almost completely edible. To select the tastiest, use your nose. When fresh, they smell clean and astringent, like sea mist.

Recipe from Goldilocks Finds Manhattan. We also have a few other email lists you can subscribe to. Now on Twitter. Search this website search. It appears you don't have javascript enabled. This is the time of year when a hard-shelled blue crab becomes a soft-shelled one. Found especially off the gulf coast of Mexico, from Louisiana, and from the colder waters of Chesapeake Bay, these crabs are harvested and kept in tanks, monitored for the moment when they molt their hard winter shells.

As the hard shell breaks off -- the term often used is that the crabs have "busted" from their shells -- the crab is left with a paper thin, vulnerable exterior, more like a skin than a shell. This is when the crabs are removed from their tanks and air lifted to fish markets where they're sold usually live. The season usually lasts from May to July. Soft-shelled crabs have a rich flavor and thus one per person can make a perfect first course served on a handful of mesclun or a small stack of wilted spinach, or as the centerpiece of a luxurious sandwich use a tender brioche roll or thick slices of lightly toasted country bread.

Soft shell crab also has a universal appeal and versatile flavor profile, making it suitable for diverse audiences and cooking methods. Party planners rejoice! Here's your guide to soft shell crabs: their production process, purchasing tips, cooking methods including humane ways to prepare live crab , how to eat soft shell crabs, and delicious soft shell crab recipes. Soft shell crabs are actually "hard shell crabs" that are going through the molting process. Unlike humans, whose skin grows and stretches to accommodate growth, a crabs' shell is external and must therefore be shed and replaced or "molted" as the crab grows.

To initiate the molting process, the crab releases enzymes which separate its old shell from the underlying skin. Over the course of several weeks, the crab then grows a new, soft, paper-like shell under the old shell. The crab then ingests enough water to bloat itself, loosening the old shell. A king crab may molt 20 times in its lifetime, molting yearly in adulthood young crabs molt more frequently.

In addition to their shells, soft shell crabs can also replace their legs ie. There's some confusion on how to spell it - they're not soft-shell crabs or softshell crabs, just soft shell crabs.

After molting, the soft shell crab converts its water bloat to protein while the new shell hardens. This "intermolt" period is the worst time for harvesting crabs, since the water bloat affects flavor. Within a few hours of molting, the new shell begins to harden, and within a month, it's impenetrably hard. To access crabs while their shell is still soft, fishermen typically capture and hold them in saltwater tanks before molting.

Soft shell crab season starts in spring through fall along the Gulf Coast, with slightly shorter seasons along the Chesapeake and East Coast. Soft shell crabs are not in season during the winter months, when the water temperature drops. Soft shell crabs come in different sizes. Soft shell crabs are categorized into 5 basic size categories: mediums, hotels, primes, jumbos, and whales.