Cape Cod Blue Crab!

So a couple months ago my mom and I were told how to best catch blue crabs.  When I was a kid I would stay out of that murky brackish water while my mom would walk around with a net and catch crabs for dinner.  We would catch maybe 10 for the day.

There were kids saying at a house on our street (tourists), and they would come back each day with a small bucket of them after a few hours.  And then we found out how it's done.  I checked with my Louisianian/Creole/French friend and she quickly verified that the best way to catch crab is to tie chicken to a string (a chicken neck, drumstick, etc), throw it in the water, wait until it's taught (they're trying to walk away with it), pull them in and net them.  It's simple!

My mom probably caught 100 this season.  She and I spent one summer day catching them and caught 44!  We thought there was a problem and that all the crabs were gone.  While scientists debate changes in the Cape Cod waters, we found there were still plenty of male crabs out there.  We steamed them all and it took around 4 hours to pick out all the meat!  Half of it is in my freezer, but not before I could make a couple dinners including crab cakes.

I made them a bit more Asian by adding water chestnuts.  I did not use a recipe but I used mayo as a base, added a little dijon mustard, water chestnuts (cream cheese would have been nice too), cayanne pepper, and breadcrumbs.  I made patties with them and dusted them with panko, pan fried them and served them with a homemade quick tartar sauce.

And there is nothing better (or simpler) than steamed blue crab.