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Soy sauce does not cook the crab in ganjang gejang, which is why only crab sold for raw consumption belongs in this Korean soy-marinated dish. The brine, simmered with apple, ginger, whole garlic, and scallion, has to be chilled to 4°C or below all the way through before it is poured over the crabs; warm liquid changes the texture of the raw meat.
Blue crab starts in cold water and boils for 12 minutes to make the stock behind this porridge, releasing a natural sweetness from the shells and meat. Once the crab cools, picking the meat from the legs as well as the body gives the porridge plenty of sweet flakes to bite into.
A light dusting of flour holds moisture in the cut crab and gives the sweet-salty soy glaze something to grip, and it ends up on your fingers as you work through the shells. Buy the crabs live and clean them just before cooking for firm, springy meat; frozen crab loses water as it thaws and turns soft.
As halved blue crab grills, the innards in the top shell thicken into a rich paste that serves as a dipping sauce for the meat. That is why the crab is split carefully, without letting them run out. Whatever innards and glaze are left, spooned over rice and mixed in, make a meal on their own.
Blue crab in its spring or autumn season is halved and simmered in a radish broth with a little doenjang and chili flakes. The shells turn red well before the meat is cooked through. Crack the claws with the back of a knife beforehand and the meat comes out easily at the table.
The flower crab is not picked; it is halved shell and all, floured, dipped in egg and fried, and you end up eating it the way you would any crab, holding the shell and pulling the meat out. Before frying, minced ginger is rubbed into the gaps between meat and shell and left for a short while to tame the fishy smell and season the thick meat inside.
A local dish of Taean in South Chungcheong: blue crab and aged kimchi in one pot, seasoned with salted shrimp. The broth gets its flavor from the kimchi, and it has to be well-fermented mukeunji. The crabs have the top shell removed and the leg tips trimmed, and the bodies are cut in half before they go in.
Steaming a whole blue crab keeps more of its sweet juices inside the shell than boiling does, and the meat comes out briny and moist. In spring and autumn the crabs are full of roe and tomalley, which adds plenty to eat beyond the white meat. A simple dip of soy sauce sharpened with vinegar brings the sweetness forward. Eating it is hands-on work, cracking each leg joint and pulling the meat out piece by piece.
Unlike soy-brined crab that sits for days, this version coats quartered raw crab in a thick chili paste and is ready after half a day in the fridge. Because the paste does not cook anything, the crab must be sold for raw consumption and stay at 4°C or below from cleaning through marinating.
Ketchup, chili sauce and sugar form the base, and sweet-tangy comes through before any heat. The sauce is thickened twice: first with starch slurry added a little at a time, then with a beaten egg trickled in around the edge of the wok for soft ribbons. Bread or rice goes on the side.
Blue crabs go in shell and all, turning red as they cook and flavoring the radish broth, and with cheongyang chilies for heat the pot goes in the middle of the table for everyone to dip into.
A whole blue crab, scrubbed and split, simmers in a doenjang and anchovy broth, and the shell and meat release a briny sweetness that layers onto the earthy paste. Removing the apron and halving the body lets the broth reach the meat inside.
Doenjang, not gochujang, seasons this crab stew, so it tastes nutty and savory before it tastes hot, with the chili flakes and Cheongyang pepper staying in the background.
Blue crab, clams, squid and shrimp share one pot that keeps simmering on a low flame at the table. The seafood gets fished out first as it's ready; the tofu and zucchini stay in the red broth a while longer.
Blue crabs in spring are packed with meat and taste noticeably sweet. Here they are halved and simmered in their shells with chili flakes and Cheongyang peppers, and the closer to live the crabs are when they go in, the more of that sweetness comes through.
The blue crab simmers first and gives the broth its sweetness; clams and shrimp come after. It is a red, chili-heavy stew, but a spoonful of doenjang underneath keeps it from being only hot.
The flavor of this broth comes from the innards packed in the crab's top shell. That is why the shells go into the pot with the radish before the bodies, so the innards can be stirred loose into the gochujang broth. It sits on a tabletop burner, and as it cooks down, a little water goes in so everyone can keep eating to the bottom.