Sweet crab, warm garlic butter and plenty of bread for the juices.

New cookbook version · Serves 4

Written to complete the family collection. This is a new version, not a recovered record of the original cook.

Ingredients

  • 2 cooked crabs, about 1.2–1.5 kg total, cleaned and cracked
  • 100 g butter
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 80 ml dry white wine
  • 1 lemon
  • 3 tbsp chopped parsley
  • Black pepper
  • Crusty bread, to serve

Method

  1. Ask the fishmonger to clean and crack the cooked crabs. Keep chilled until cooking.
  2. Warm oil and butter in a wide covered pan. Cook garlic gently for 45 seconds without browning.
  3. Add wine and simmer for 2 minutes. Add crab pieces, cover and heat gently for 5–8 minutes, turning once, until steaming hot throughout.
  4. Finish with lemon juice to taste, parsley and pepper. Toss carefully so the butter reaches the cracked shells.
  5. Serve at once with bread and lemon wedges.

Kitchen notes

This version starts with already cooked crab. Raw crab requires a different initial cooking step.

From preparation to the table

Original photographs from our family cooking. Where the recipe is labelled as a new version, these earlier photographs record the meal and may show variations rather than every exact ingredient or step above.

Crab from the family meal.
Crab from the family meal.