Stir-fried Fresh Crabs

Over twenty years ago, when I gave one of my first cooking classes, I prepared a live crab for the wok. My students were rather taken aback as I went through the process of dismembering the crab. But I was only doing as I had been taught.

Like my many Chinese-American friends, I grew up knowing that the only crab worth eating was one that was alive up to the point of cooking. We were taught, correctly, that crab deteriorates as soon as it dies, to the detriment of its flavour and te