Effects of Different Thermal Treatments on Quality and Myofibrillar Protein Properties of Shelled Chinese Mitten Crab (Eriocheir sinensis) Meat

To reduce the difficulty of shell–meat separation while minimizing quality deterioration, this study compared the effects of two thermal treatments, traditional steaming (TS) and a part-specific mild steaming (MS) strategy, on the quality and myofibrillar protein (MP) properties of Chinese mitten crab meat, using raw crab meat (RM) as the reference. Results showed that the MS group exhibited pH and moisture content closer to those of RM, while no significant difference was observed in total volatile basic nitrogen and centrifugal loss compared with RM, suggesting that MS treatment caused less pronounced changes in physicochemical quality and water-holding properties. Meanwhile, electronic nose and electronic tongue analyses revealed that MS closely resembled RM, whereas TS deviated markedly, suggesting that MS treatment effectively preserved the natural sensory quality of crab meat. MS induced only moderate decreases in MP content, total and active sulfhydryl contents, and surface hydrophobicity. Its turbidity, particle size, and ultraviolet absorption spectra remained largely consistent with RM, while endogenous fluorescence and circular dichroism spectra exhibited substantially smaller changes than those in TS. These findings indicate that MS causes only mild conformational adjustments of MPs and less pronounced protein aggregation than TS. Overall, MS effectively reduces shell–meat separation difficulty while maximally preserving the inherent quality of crab meat.