The darling and I were out window shopping, and chanced upon a frozen pack of four King Crab Legs. Not exactly sure if the crab's from Alaska or perhaps from Japan's northern waters, but since it was priced at an almost 40% discount, we decided on a whim and fancy just to buy it and bring it home for dinner. Without knowing a single thing about cooking crab!
Anyways it turned out to be really easy. Unless you know for sure you're buying a whole, raw, King Crab, any frozen King Crab legs you buy have almost certainly been cooked prior to freezing. So we don't actually need to cook the crab, just reheat it.
First step - the defrosting, which you can do either by leaving the crab legs in the fridge overnight, or soaked in tap water in a sealed bag. It's best not to soak the legs directly in water as the water gets into the shells and soaks into the flesh.
There's a few different methods of reheating - microwave, oven - but we decided to just steam it. It took a mere 5 minutes of steaming over a medium-low flame for the meat to be warm all the way through - once you can smell the crab aroma wafting out of the steamer, it's done.
From there use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut open the shells and take out the luscious meat. The flesh is already sweet and a little salty, so not much condiments needed - we decided to play it simple and just add some melted butter and freshly cracked black pepper, paired with Japanese Koshihikari rice with vegetable-themed furikake (rice seasonings). Lovely.
So hopefully this post helps if you fancy buying some crab legs in the future - no need to worry, it's quick, simple and no-brainer to reheat the legs - the flesh of the King Crab legs is a strong enough ingredient to basically stand on its' own without needing any fancy cooking skills!
