Watermark Soft Shell Crabs

Every crabs that lives in the ocean must moult in order to grow. When the crab outgrows its shell, it pumps itself up full of water to break its shell.

Over a period of about half an hour, the crab then backs itself out of its shell. Once out of the shell the crab (which at this stage looks exactly the same as a crab does not have a shell) continues to pumps itself full of water but this time it wants to make itself bigger, once it is about 30% bigger than what it was it then reforms its shell. This is why when you buy a crab that has a really clean shell there is very little meat in it because this crab has just moulted.

If the crab is removed from the water it cant reforms the shell and is called a soft shell crab and you can eat the whole crab (no meat to pick out of the shell).

Ideally it gets a light tempura batter, light enough so you can see the crab colours through the tempura, into hot oil at 180 degrees celcius and cooked until golden brown. Yuuum!!