All of we local crab lovers (some are crab fisherman lovers as well) wish our fleet safe sailing and a substantial catch.
Break out the champagne, pull out a recipe or two, and celebrate!
Copyright © 2005-2010, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved
Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
It's Crab Season!
All of we local crab lovers (some are crab fisherman lovers as well) wish our fleet safe sailing and a substantial catch.
Break out the champagne, pull out a recipe or two, and celebrate!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas And Dungeness Crab - They Just Go Together
Those points of light out on the horizon are our beloved crab fisherfolk who have been bringing in the catch of beautiful Dungeness crab since December 1st. Click here and here and here for more information about crab and a few recipes that need updating badly. Something I will remedy in the new year.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Copyright © 2005-2009, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Corn And Crab Chowder
Simple, fresh, satisfying.
There's something about the summers up here: One day a little warm and sunny, another day foggy and cool, yet another warm in the sun, cold in the shade. It's chowder weather.
The last of December's crab catch combined with fresh, local vegetables and this gentle corn stock make a very satisfying meal-in-a-bowl. If you don't happen to have crab on hand, use scallops or a thick white fish such as halibut or cod. I think catfish would work as well.
The last of December's crab catch combined with fresh, local vegetables and this gentle corn stock make a very satisfying meal-in-a-bowl. If you don't happen to have crab on hand, use scallops or a thick white fish such as halibut or cod. I think catfish would work as well.
If you're vegetarian, skip the fish business entirely. Vegans can be assured that this chowder will still be wonderful without the dairy.
The important thing is to use the freshest ingredients you can find. Enjoy!
Christine's Corn and Crab Chowder
Ingredients:
1 quart corn stock
2 yellow summer squash, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 fennel bulb, cut in half again and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
8-10 yellow cherry tomatoes, cut into halves
corn kernels and corn milk cut from 4 ears of corn (save the cobs for your next stock)
1 teaspoon dried thyme, heaping, crushed
1/2 cup half 'n half
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 pound crab meat (fresh is best, freshly frozen is a good substitute)
Preparation:
Bring the stock to a simmer in a large pot.
Add the carrots and fennel and cook for about 7 minutes or until they are just tender.
Add the summer squash, corn and tomatoes and cook for 5-6 minutes more.
Add the crushed thyme and crab and cook until the crab is heated through.
Season to taste with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
Gently stir in the cream and half 'n half and your chowder is ready to serve.
Cook's Notes:
Use whatever summer vegetables you have available for this chowder but avoid broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and others of that nature as they will overpower the stock.
The addition of a little dry white wine wouldn't be a bad thing at all.
Copyright © 2005-2008, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
It's Time to Celebrate!
Marking the start of the Holiday season, commercial crab fishing opened on December 1st here on the north coast. On December 2nd and 3rd we got hit by the southern edge of a storm that caused numerous power outages, Internet failure and very high seas. Thank heavens our intrepid crab fisherfolk who risk life and limb to bring their succulent, glorious catch to our tables were not harmed.
Mr CC and I traditionally celebrate the beginning of the crab season with a glass of champagne and a crab apiece, simply boiled, cracked and consumed using fingers and large bibs. It's a messy job but, hey, someone's gotta do it.
Here's to the crabbers! May your catch always be a sweet success.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Dungeness Crab: Worth Its Weight In Gold Plus a Recipe for Golden Balsamic Vinaigrette
A quick Internet search for current prices of mail order Dungeness crab (for those who don't live on the west coast of the United States between San Francisco and Alaska), found that one company sells it for $14.95 per pound, another offers a cooked whole 1.5 to 2-pound crab for $37.99, and Gorton's offers a 2 to 2.5-pound whole cook crab for $39.99. All of these do not include the shipping costs.
You do the math. Anyway you pencil it out, it's darned expensive.
Here in the tiny fishing port village of Trinidad, California, we can buy crab from some local fishermen at the beginning of the season (this year it started just before Christmas) for $5.00 each. That's right, you read correctly: $5.00 each.
At an average weight of 2 pounds per crab, that's $2.50 per pound. (You can't see me but I'm doing a smug little Snoopy dance right now.)
Of course you have to know who to call and when to call, and you have to be on time to pick up your order or the crabs just might be gone when you get there. All part of the fun, excitement and tension of waiting for the season to begin and the crabs to come in.
We had our fill of crab over the holidays, mostly freshly cooked, cracked and slurped down with a glass of champagne. Sometimes in salads like the one pictured here. Dressed with a golden balsamic (recipe below) or champagne vinaigrette, you can't go wrong.
Sated for the time being, it was January before I remembered I wanted to have some crab meat put away in the freezer so I could make crab cakes whenever I wanted to.
And that brings me to the reason for this post: from six large crabs in their shells to 1-pound packages of lovely lump meat, I'd like to show you the process and the yield. If you like crab like I do, I think you'll agree they're worth their weight in gold.
Six crabs, cooked whole with shell intact, weighed a total of 10 pounds. That's an average of 1.67 pounds per crab. Some were lighter, some were heavier. After removing the backs of the shells and cleaning the bodies, the crabs weighed in at 8 pounds total. I don't have photos of the "backing" and cleaning process. It takes both hands and it's not a very pretty sight.
Shelling crabs is time consuming. It took me a little over two hours to pick six crabs.
After all the picking was done I had a total of 3 pounds, 10 ounces of crab meat. I bagged three 1-pound packages to put in the freezer and kept the remaining 10 ounces to use right away in crab salad.
From start to finish it took me about 3 1/2 hours to clean, pick and bag six crabs. For each package I used two zip-lock freezer bags, double bagging and forcing out as much air as possible. Then I put them all together in another freezer bag for good measure. After all that work, you don't want freezer burned crab meat.
Recipe coming...
For now, here's my golden balsamic vinaigrette recipe:
Golden Balsamic Salad Dressing
Christine's original recipe
Makes 1 cup
Ingredients:
pinch kosher salt
3 ounces extra-virgin olive oil
Preparation:
In a measuring cup, pour in the vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt and pepper. Whisk until combined.
Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the walnut oil then the olive oil.
Keep whisking until the mixture has thickened and is fully emulsified.
Taste and adjust seasonings.
Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the walnut oil then the olive oil.
Keep whisking until the mixture has thickened and is fully emulsified.
Taste and adjust seasonings.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
'Tis the Season for Crab Cakes
Finally, after much price haggling plus deferments by Fish and Game, opening day for commercial crab fishing begins today. Pots will be placed in our Pacific waters so we may savor the bounty for which our local fisherfolk risk life and limb - fresh Dungeness crab! That is, of course, if the weather cooperates. Which it's not doing. Nooooo. One storm after another has been hitting us since Tuesday with another one coming on shore right now. This one is supposed to pack high, gusty winds (up to 80 mph), hurling our higher-than-normal high tides way up the beaches, flooding our already swollen rivers to the breaking point, and wreaking general havoc. And in order for our guys to be able to bring the catch in, they must be able to get the pots out. No mean feat in 17 to 25-foot waves along with a churning, frothy, angry ocean. Our prayers go out with them for a save journey and a prosperous catch.
So how, you might ask, do I happen to have fresh local crab for crab cakes? A few weeks ago we had sunny and unseasonably warm weather. Sport crab fishing being allowed, some industrious friends dropped a couple of pots in the harbor. On retrieving the pots and finding they had too much crab for themselves, they offered to share. Could I say no? Didn't even think of it. Took my kettle and went right over. There they were; big, fat, lively crabs set aside just for me. Oooooh, the richness of it all! I still have goose bumps. Clay and I took them home, fired up the kettle and soon were shelling and picking our treasure, packing it in freezer bags for Christmas Eve crab cakes. Well, we did eat one of them then and there as it came out of the boiling kettle. Standing at the kitchen sink. With a bottle of Champagne. It's a tradition at our house. Champagne chills in the fridge at all times. You never know...
I devised a recipe for crab cakes a number of years ago, using ingredients that had been written down and left in a restaurant where I worked for a brief moment in time. The list did not include instructions so I was left to figure the recipe out on my own. And I did. And the restaurant clients loved them! (I did not love cooking in a restaurant, however, and after 6 months went sobbing back to my own home kitchen where I've happily been since, which is another story.) I brought that recipe home with me, have changed it around a bit, adding this and that to suite my fancy.
Christine's Crab Cakes
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 jalapeno pepper, charred, peeled, seeded and minced
1 small white onion, peeled and cut into small dice
1 cup heavy cream
1 red bell pepper, charred, peeled, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives
leaves from 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, minced
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 cup, or more as necessary, ground toasted slivered almonds
1 to 1 1/2 lbs. cooked, picked crab meat (from about 2 crabs)
1 extra large egg, beaten lightly
1/2 cup, or more as necessary, toasted, seasoned bread crumbs
1 tablespoon peanut oil or more if needed
1 tablespoon butter, or more if needed
Place the peppers over a gas burner and char until skin is black and blistered. Place peppers in a paper bag, fold top down and allow to steam for 10 minutes. Using your fingers and a small knife, peel the skin from the peppers then remove the seeds and veins. Use latex gloves to peel the jalapeno.
Place oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onions and saute gently until tender but not browned. Add diced jalapeno and cream. Bring to boil and maintain slow boil until cream is reduced by one half. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, add picked crab, diced red pepper, chives, thyme, salt (if using), ground almonds and cream reduction. Mix lightly but thoroughly with your hands.
Place the toasted bread crumbs (I use Brio seasoned croutons, spun a few times in the food processor) on a plate. Have the beaten egg in a bowl next to the plate. Scoop a scant 1/2 cup of crab mixture into your hands and shape into a patty about 2 1/2 inches across. Brush the crab cake on both side with the egg. Gently dredge it in the bread crumbs, coating both sides. Set on a sheet of waxed paper. Repeat with the remaining crab mixture. At this point you can cover the cakes and refrigerate them up to two days before cooking.
Place the peanut oil and butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Place up to 4 cakes in skillet, not crowding them, and cook until both sides are nicely browned and cooked through. Keep warm in a low oven. Repeat process until all the cakes are cooked.
You may notice that the cakes in the photo above have corn in them. Beginning with the basic recipe, you can add any number of things to your crab cakes. In this case, I added lightly roasted corn kernels. Keep in mind that the more you put in, the harder it is to keep the cake from falling apart. A small annoyance that does not detract from the divine taste in the least.
Top the crab cakes with a remoulade, tarter sauce, or this luscious roasted red pepper sauce, adapted from a recipe in Bobby Flay's "Bold American Food".
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
Char, peel and seed 2 large red bell peppers and place in a blender. Add 1/4 of a red onion, chopped, 1/2 of a canned chipotle pepper in adobo, 3 tablespoons lime juice and blend until smooth. With the blender running, add 3/4 cup of olive oil in a slow stream until the sauce is emulsified. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Cook's Notes:
So how, you might ask, do I happen to have fresh local crab for crab cakes? A few weeks ago we had sunny and unseasonably warm weather. Sport crab fishing being allowed, some industrious friends dropped a couple of pots in the harbor. On retrieving the pots and finding they had too much crab for themselves, they offered to share. Could I say no? Didn't even think of it. Took my kettle and went right over. There they were; big, fat, lively crabs set aside just for me. Oooooh, the richness of it all! I still have goose bumps. Clay and I took them home, fired up the kettle and soon were shelling and picking our treasure, packing it in freezer bags for Christmas Eve crab cakes. Well, we did eat one of them then and there as it came out of the boiling kettle. Standing at the kitchen sink. With a bottle of Champagne. It's a tradition at our house. Champagne chills in the fridge at all times. You never know...
I devised a recipe for crab cakes a number of years ago, using ingredients that had been written down and left in a restaurant where I worked for a brief moment in time. The list did not include instructions so I was left to figure the recipe out on my own. And I did. And the restaurant clients loved them! (I did not love cooking in a restaurant, however, and after 6 months went sobbing back to my own home kitchen where I've happily been since, which is another story.) I brought that recipe home with me, have changed it around a bit, adding this and that to suite my fancy.
Christine's Crab Cakes
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 jalapeno pepper, charred, peeled, seeded and minced
1 small white onion, peeled and cut into small dice
1 cup heavy cream
1 red bell pepper, charred, peeled, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives
leaves from 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, minced
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 cup, or more as necessary, ground toasted slivered almonds
1 to 1 1/2 lbs. cooked, picked crab meat (from about 2 crabs)
1 extra large egg, beaten lightly
1/2 cup, or more as necessary, toasted, seasoned bread crumbs
1 tablespoon peanut oil or more if needed
1 tablespoon butter, or more if needed
Place the peppers over a gas burner and char until skin is black and blistered. Place peppers in a paper bag, fold top down and allow to steam for 10 minutes. Using your fingers and a small knife, peel the skin from the peppers then remove the seeds and veins. Use latex gloves to peel the jalapeno.
Place oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onions and saute gently until tender but not browned. Add diced jalapeno and cream. Bring to boil and maintain slow boil until cream is reduced by one half. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, add picked crab, diced red pepper, chives, thyme, salt (if using), ground almonds and cream reduction. Mix lightly but thoroughly with your hands.
Place the toasted bread crumbs (I use Brio seasoned croutons, spun a few times in the food processor) on a plate. Have the beaten egg in a bowl next to the plate. Scoop a scant 1/2 cup of crab mixture into your hands and shape into a patty about 2 1/2 inches across. Brush the crab cake on both side with the egg. Gently dredge it in the bread crumbs, coating both sides. Set on a sheet of waxed paper. Repeat with the remaining crab mixture. At this point you can cover the cakes and refrigerate them up to two days before cooking.
Place the peanut oil and butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Place up to 4 cakes in skillet, not crowding them, and cook until both sides are nicely browned and cooked through. Keep warm in a low oven. Repeat process until all the cakes are cooked.
You may notice that the cakes in the photo above have corn in them. Beginning with the basic recipe, you can add any number of things to your crab cakes. In this case, I added lightly roasted corn kernels. Keep in mind that the more you put in, the harder it is to keep the cake from falling apart. A small annoyance that does not detract from the divine taste in the least.
Top the crab cakes with a remoulade, tarter sauce, or this luscious roasted red pepper sauce, adapted from a recipe in Bobby Flay's "Bold American Food".
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
Char, peel and seed 2 large red bell peppers and place in a blender. Add 1/4 of a red onion, chopped, 1/2 of a canned chipotle pepper in adobo, 3 tablespoons lime juice and blend until smooth. With the blender running, add 3/4 cup of olive oil in a slow stream until the sauce is emulsified. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Cook's Notes:
These crab cakes are very rich. Two per person with a salad will make a very filling meal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
