All the work done for you

Spider crab, brown crab, snow crab, velvet crab and lobster have one thing in common: they are among the tastiest shellfish in the Atlantic and among the most laborious to prepare. They have to be boiled precisely, cracked open, the meat picked leg by leg and the shell emptied. Canned, all of that comes done, with the meat picked and ready to use.

White meat and brown meat

This is the distinction worth knowing before you choose. White meat comes from the legs and claws: firm, fibrous and clean in flavour. Brown meat comes from inside the shell: creamy, rich and far more intense, and it is the one that really tastes of the animal. Some tins keep them separate and others blend them, and the result on the plate is entirely different.

Each species tastes different

• Spider crab: the king of Galician shellfish. Balanced, with a particularly prized brown meat. The base of a txangurro.
• Brown crab: the most intense and briny of them all. Its outsized claws give plenty of white meat, and its brown meat is one of the strongest things the sea produces.
• Snow crab: the mildest and sweetest. It grows slowly in the very cold waters of the North Atlantic, which gives it long-stranded white meat.
• Velvet crab: small but concentrated in flavour, highly prized in Galicia. Usually found as pâté.
• Lobster: the most prized of all. Firm claw meat and finer, juicier tail meat.

How to use them

Natural meat is raw material: for filling a shell txangurro-style, building canapés, making a warm salad or folding into a rice dish. The pâtés are the direct version, to spread with no preparation at all, and they go a long way because the flavour is concentrated.

Before serving

At room temperature, never straight from the fridge, which mutes the aroma. And one important note: the meat is already cooked, so if you are using it in a hot dish, fold it in at the end and off the heat. Cooking it again dries it out and leaves it stringy.

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