BAKED BLACK CRABS (1893)
The Jamaican Cookery Book (1893)
Caroline Sullivan
Baked Black Crabs
Carefully pick the meat from all the claws and smaller bones of a dozen boiled crabs; this takes a long time and careful picking. Then open the backs and extract the eggs, throwing away the galls and putting aside the black water which is to be added again at the last minute. When all the picking is done, add two tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon of black pepper, a dessertspoon of sauce or pepper vinegar, a little cayenne and some nutmeg to the meat. Mix well, adding salt to taste, and fill as many of the backs as you can, leaving room for a dressing of breadcrumbs on which dabs of butter are placed to moisten. Before putting the meat into the backs, put one or two eggs in each shell and do not forget to mix in the black water, as that has the full black crab flavour. The twelve crabs ought to make ten good crab back fillings.
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