You BOILED them?! Say two Hail Mary’s and four Our Father’s. LOL!!
I boil or steam hard crabs (liberally sprinkled with old bay seasoning)
sometimes cook them lightly just till they just start to turn red(without old bay) then scoop out the good inards and blend that and put the blended guts and the shelled crab(dead men removed ) into a pot of Italian tomato sausce not cooked too long. Then dump the sauce crabs and all over linguini.
Soft shell gets sautéed in butter
Here on the Gulf Coast we boil crabs, shrimp, and crawfish in a nice spicy mix.
I mostly use Zatarain’s boil bags for my boil spice mix and add salt more red pepper, onions, lemons, celery, garlic and a pound of butter.