Abstract
Kanisuki is the one of the methods for cooking snow crabs (Zuwai-gani) to relish the meat and the stock. Male snow crabs (Ma tsuba-gani) is usually used for Kanisuki. The molted male snow crabs with soft shell (Mizu-gani) and female snow crabs (Oya-gani) are seldom used for Kanisuki, because those crabs are poor in flavor.
We cooked these three kinds of crabs as Kanisuki. The content of the stock essence was in-creased during the cooking, however, the increment was not time dependent. The arginine, glycine, taurine, proline and alanine were the major free amino acids found in the stock and in the muscle extract. The content of the hydrophobic amino acids in the stock was high at the beginning of the cooking with Matsuba-gani. However, the latter stage of the cooking, the amino acid composition was very similar to that of the muscle extract. The crab muscle obtained at middle stage of the cooking was most favored by the panels, even the amino acid content was less than the early stage of the cooking.
