OT - grilled crab legs... suggestions?

caliking

caliprince requested "grilled crab legs" for his birthday dinner (he'll be 7yo in a couple of days). OT because he wants me to pull out the Simspons Weber kettle for the cook.

Picked up ~4 lbs of King crab legs/clusters, and am thinking of Vietnamese-style roasted crab, with garlic, butter, and other stuff in the mix. But, I'm looking for pointers.

Recipes I've found call for steaming then roasting in the oven, or straight grilling for 5-ish minutes on high heat. The crab is basted with the garlic butter mix as it roasts.

Questions:
1. Throw the legs/clusters on whole? Or break 'em up, and toss 'em in the garlic butter first?
2. Crack the shell so the garlic butter goodness can hit the crab?
3. Time and temp on the grill? I'm thinking 450 or so, until the shell browns up.
4. Soak them before grilling, to keep it all moist?

TIA!

  

hoosier_egger

Preamble: I have no experience with this.

BUT This sounds like a perfect SV then finish on the grill cook

dmchicago

Remember that all commercially available king crab legs are already cooked. So even if they’re frozen they won’t need much time regardless of the heat source.

Mattman3969

I’ve egged snow crab legs b4.  Lil spritz of oil and direct on a 400° egg about 5-7mins per side.  Your king crabs will take a lil longer.  I didn’t season the outside because I didn’t think it would help taste for the way I was using it.  You could season the outside If you’re going to let the prince break his own at the table and he would get the seasoning taste from his fingers as he grabbed all the goodness from the shells.   

caliking

ColtsFan said:

Preamble: I have no experience with this.

BUT This sounds like a perfect SV then finish on the grill cook

From what I can tell, they should get done pretty quickly on the grill. And as @dmchicago, they're cooked and frozen. I think the grill time is basically to warm them up and set the seasoning.

fishlessman

i dont like smoke on lobster so i might foil them with some lemon slices, butter, spices, garlic.  then just steam them abit.  now to get the flavor in there i could see slicing the shell on soft shells but no idea what to do if hard shell. never had these, im not a fan of crab except for stone crab legs and they were steamed fresh

caliking

Mattman3969 said:

I’ve egged snow crab legs b4.  Lil spritz of oil and direct on a 400° egg about 5-7mins per side.  Your king crabs will take a lil longer.  I didn’t season the outside because I didn’t think it would help taste for the way I was using it.  You could season the outside If you’re going to let the prince break his own at the table and he would get the seasoning taste from his fingers as he grabbed all the goodness from the shells.   

I like the way you think I was even considering skipping the seasoning bit, but you make a compelling point.

4TheGrillOfIt

All I can say is this is far from off topic.
This is a good one: https://howtobbqright.com/2017/03/02/smoked-crab-legs/

dmchicago

caliking said:

Mattman3969 said:

I’ve egged snow crab legs b4.  Lil spritz of oil and direct on a 400° egg about 5-7mins per side.  Your king crabs will take a lil longer.  I didn’t season the outside because I didn’t think it would help taste for the way I was using it.  You could season the outside If you’re going to let the prince break his own at the table and he would get the seasoning taste from his fingers as he grabbed all the goodness from the shells.   

I like the way you think I was even considering skipping the seasoning bit, but you make a compelling point.

Also, season up the melted butter...maybe have 2 or 3 different flavored butters or "ghee" 'cause you people.

nolaegghead

I usually try to split the shells while they are frozen with a cleaver - it makes getting the meat out simple when they're hot. 

Insofar as seasoning goes, draw some emulsified butter and add any spices (usually just garlic for me) to it as typically everyone plucks the crab from the shell and dunks in butter while they are eating.

Throwing them on the grill isn't something I've ever done, but I could see doing that to get some color on them, maybe dump some butter in the fire and let it flare up a bit.  Either way, I would not leave them on a grill long lest they dry out.

frazzdaddy

Steam em, prepare a large tub of drawn butter blended with a dollop of sour cream and you are good to go. Open them with a good pair of scissors. BTW you can't eat as many as you think you can. Very filling. 

caliking

frazzdaddy said:

Steam em, prepare a large tub of drawn butter blended with a dollop of sour cream and you are good to go. Open them with a good pair of scissors. BTW you can't eat as many as you think you can. Very filling. 

That's what my initial plan was! But, I was reminded that it's not my birthday dinner

td66snrf

I like to steam them that way you can't burn them. I wouldn't baste them since it won't penetrate the shell. Serve the with a ramiken of melted butter for eack person ,clarified if you want to go to the extra effort. Just did 10lbs for New Years eve. 

SmokeyPitt

I have not done this before, but found this video and his technique looks pretty good. He uses kitchen shears to cut out a section of the shell so he can brush butter on the crab. 

Best Way to Make Crab Legs - YouTube

He is comparing the legs cooked on a blackstone griddle vs a PK with lump. Griddle vs grill. 

Grill wins.

nolaegghead

td66snrf said:

I like to steam them that way you can't burn them. I wouldn't baste them since it won't penetrate the shell. Serve the with a ramiken of melted butter for eack person ,clarified if you want to go to the extra effort. Just did 10lbs for New Years eve. 

I much prefer emulsified butter.  When I worked as a "chef" and served butt-loads of king crab, we would emulsify it and stir regularly to keep it combined.  Inevitably on a busy night the butter would separate.  People complained if they got separated or just the clarified part of the butter.  Clarified can be tolerated by lactose intolerant.  Great for cooking. 

Emulsifying is a PITA, but not that hard to do.  But so is clarifying.

nolaegghead

The cooking term (just looked this up) for emulsified butter is Beurre monte butter.

caliking

SmokeyPitt said:

I have not done this before, but found this video and his technique looks pretty good. He uses kitchen shears to cut out a section of the shell so he can brush butter on the crab. 

Best Way to Make Crab Legs - YouTube

He is comparing the legs cooked on a blackstone griddle vs a PK with lump. Griddle vs grill. 

Grill wins.

This is the winning post. Provides the MO for what I had in mind. Thanks!

dmchicago

nolaegghead said:

The cooking term (just looked this up) for emulsified butter is Beurre monte butter.

..and you call yourself "chef"...

caliking

nolaegghead said:

The cooking term (just looked this up) for emulsified butter is Beurre monte butter.

Learned me something else today. 

But, I might disagree that making clarified butter is a PITA. If clarified butter= ghee, then it's super easy. Mom taught me how to make it when I was 6yo.

GrateEggspectations

ColtsFan said:

Preamble: I have no experience with this.

BUT This sounds like a perfect SV then finish on the grill cook

This was my thought exactly. Something as delicate as crab’s legs seems destined for SV. 

nolaegghead

GrateEggspectations said:

ColtsFan said:

Preamble: I have no experience with this.

BUT This sounds like a perfect SV then finish on the grill cook

This was my thought exactly. Something as delicate as crab’s legs seems destined for SV. 

Good luck trying to seal the shell.

Lit

Just here for a pic of the simpsons kettle

stv8r

nolaegghead said:

I usually try to split the shells while they are frozen with a cleaver - it makes getting the meat out simple when they're hot. 

Insofar as seasoning goes, draw some emulsified butter and add any spices (usually just garlic for me) to it as typically everyone plucks the crab from the shell and dunks in butter while they are eating.

Throwing them on the grill isn't something I've ever done, but I could see doing that to get some color on them, maybe dump some butter in the fire and let it flare up a bit.  Either way, I would not leave them on a grill long lest they dry out.

Good advice.  I typically score the legs with a sharp knife, pour a few beers in a large deep pan, cover with foil and cook in the oven.  Keeps the legs moist and you can season the melted butter.  I would be very hesitant to put on the grill as the precooked legs would dry out quickly

blind99

You’re just reheating them so throw them on for a few minutes and don’t overdo it. 

Squid ink pasta with spicy king crab. That’s the ticket.  Super easy and the heat of Fresno chiles cuts the richness of the crab. 

Photo Egg

Lit said:

Just here for a pic of the simpsons kettle

Here you go

BUFFALOMOOSE

Bought a 10 lb box for my wife birthday back in July used half of them. At that time I separated each section and with kitchen scissors cut the sections into a canoe like structure so they could hold melted garlic butter while on the grill. I thought it would be easy peasy. It did work out pretty well. However this Christmas I went to use the other half and the wife said that her birthday dinner was great but it took all the fun out of Breaking the legs apart and trying to get the whole peace out. Kind of a challenge so to speak as to if you can get the whole piece out at once. Then dipped in garlic butter and achieve the same results.
Personally I like to Easy Peasy part but obviously the wife rules the roost.

Wolfpack

I would grill in shell to warm.  I like to use seafood shears to split the legs as it eliminates pieces of shell that can come with using a chefs knife. Then pour your Vietnamese butter sauce over the opened pieces. I found online showing 

JRWhitee

I have not made them on the egg, sorry no help here.

PigBeanUs

Wolfpack said:

I would grill in shell to warm.  I like to use seafood shears to split the legs as it eliminates pieces of shell that can come with using a chefs knife. Then pour your Vietnamese butter sauce over the opened pieces. I found online showing 

This is what we did too. 

I used a knife and yeah, be careful of shell bits. 

In our case, I did a meat-side-down sear to get some grill marks, but not to cook them. 

Then flipped them over like boats and brushed liberally with butter until they were warmed up

no *need* for grill marks really. But it was a nice rustic look

MasterC

I'm going to need a bigger egg 

caliking

@Wolfpack - that's a nice presentation. Now I'm tempted to do some without cracking/cutting the shells, and comparing the two methods.