Snow Crab

Snow Crab

Snow Crab parts [Alaskan Snow Crab, Chionoecetes opilio and other Chionoecetes species]
Snow Crab is too large and spindly to sell fresh so like King Crab they are cooked immediately after capture and sold as "clusters" of legs and claws attached to the meaty part of the body. The photo cluster was 13 inches and weighed 6.7 ounces.

C. opilio is found in the North Atlantic from Main to Greenland and in the Pacific from Canada through the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean around to the Sea of Japan. Several other Chionoecetes species also live in that Pacific range and as far south as California.

Crabs

The ideal tools for eating Snow Crab legs and claws are a pair of kitchen shears and a pair of chopsticks. A chopstick can be used to push crabmeat out of tubular leg parts and the pair can be used for dipping small pieces or crab in whatever sauce you may be using.

You'll be buying arms and legs and steaming them lightly to reheat so the yield is better than for whole crabs. A 13 inch 6.7 oz cluster yielded 2.4 oz of crabmeat (36%).