CR A B
Recipes with the Fresh Taste of the Sea
CYNTHIA NIMS
Photography by Jim Henkens
To Bob, who means the world to me
O N T E N
BASICS
Iconic Crab
A Brief History
West Coast Crab
East Coast Crab
Seasonal Crab Harvest
Sport Crabbing
Sustainability
What to Drink with Crab
In the Kitchen
Buying & Storing Crab
Live Cleaning
Boiling & Steaming Crab
Cleaning & Portioning Crab
About the Recipes
RECIPES
Breakfast & Brunch
Fines Herbes Omelet with Crab
Breakfast Bruschetta with Crab & Goat Cheese
Crab & Leek Quiche
Hash Brown Cakes with Crab
Crab Benedict
Crab & Mushroom Dutch Baby
Savory Crab Blintzes with Dill
Crab & Artichoke Frittata
Sourdough Bread Pudding with Crab
Appetizers
Fresh Spring Rolls with Crab
Firecracker Crab Cocktail
Crab Pizza with Arugula & Fresh Mozzarella
Stone Crab Claws with Mustard-Horseradish Sauce
Choux Puffs with Curried Crab
Chirashi Sushi with Crab
Crab Cornmeal Fritters with Lime Aioli
Crab & Corn Soufflé
Crab & Avocado Tostadas
Pan-Fried Soft-Shell Crab with Salsa Verde
Sherried Crab & Mushrooms on Toast
Soups & Sandwiches
Chilled Tomato Soup with Crab
Lemongrass Broth with Crab Wontons
Callaloo
Whiskey Crab Soup
Pea Soup with Crab Mousse
Crab Stock
Crab Club Sandwich
Green Goddess Crab & Watercress Sandwich
Crab & Cheddar Melt
Salads
Crab Louis
Crab & Soba Noodle Salad
Crab & Green Bean Salad with Brown Butter Dressing
Shaved Fennel Salad with Crab & Blood Oranges
Stone Crab & Mango Salad with Chipotle Dressing
Spinach Salad with Crab Toasts
& Roasted Onion Vinaigrette
Spring Farro & Crab Salad
Cucumber & Daikon Sunomono with Crab
Main Courses
West Coast Crab Cakes with Rouille
East Coast Crab Cakes with Old Bay Tartar Sauce
Northwest Crab Boil
Rosemary Roasted Crab
Cold Cracked Crab with Lemon Mayonnaise
All-Crab Cioppino
Beer-Steamed Blue Crab with Mustard Butter
Fresh Pasta with Crab & Cilantro
Stir-Fried Snap Peas with Crab & Ginger
Salt & Pepper Crab
Crab & Chanterelle Risotto
Steamed King Crab with Garlic
Grilled Crab with Charred Orange-Rum Butter
Acknowledgments
A S I C S
ICONIC CRAB
When captain george vancouver explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the north edge of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula in the late eighteenth century, he happened upon a stretch of land that reminded him of a point on the English Channel called Dungeness. When he gave this Washington spit the same name, Vancouver inadvertently established the namesake for what would become one of the Northwest’s most iconic foods. The beautiful Dungeness crab was at rst known simply as “edible crab” or just “crab.” But as the shery for this delectable, sweet crab became more signi cant in the early twentieth century, it took on the name “Dungeness.”
Today the Dungeness crab is one of the foods mostly closely identi ed with the Paci c Coast.
This is just one of many crab that grace dinner tables and backyard summertime spreads around the country, though. Of them, I know Dungeness best and will, without apology, call it my favorite. But devotion to other crab species runs just as strong elsewhere. In this book I take my love of Dungeness as a starting point and branch out to contemplate a number of crab that contribute to some of the most delicious eating experiences available. Blue crab from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, stone crab from Florida, and king and snow crab from Alaska: they’re all iconic in their own ways.
When it comes to enjoying crab, simple is best for most seafood fanatics: freshly cooked, with melted butter and/or lemon wedges, plenty of napkins, and a crisp, cold beverage. It’s hard to imagine ever tiring of that brand of delicious. From this minimalist starting point (see Northwest Crab Boil, page 146), crab proves to be surprisingly versatile in the kitchen. In the shell crab can be boiled, steamed, stewed, roasted, and grilled. The rich, sweet-briny meat adds panache to recipes from breakfast, through lunch (in soups, salads, and sandwiches), into cocktail hour, and nally on the dinner table. I stop just short of making crab ice cream, but trust me, it’s out there.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Of the dozens of crab species found in the waters of the Paci c Coast, three contribute most to the commercial and culinary character of the region: Dungeness, king, and snow crab. The latter two are shed primarily in the deep, frigid waters of Alaska, while Dungeness are found from Alaska to California.
The San Francisco Bay area reported some of the earliest commercial activity with Dungeness crab along the Paci c Coast. Early shing records date back as far as 1848, when Italian settlers to the region began harvesting and selling local sh. This dawning industry grew quickly as the California Gold Rush gained steam, bringing new customers to the region as well as disillusioned prospectors who turned their attention from hopes of gold to heaps of seafood. It is believed that crab were initially an incidental catch— shermen intending to catch anchovies, sole, or sardines would sometimes nd crab trapped in their nets.
By the early 1860s crab were being marketed along the San Francisco waterfront and crabbing had become a more targeted shery. Early crabbing records farther north on the Paci c Coast don’t appear until near the end of the 1800s. Those early commercially harvested crab didn’t make it far from the dock where they were landed, though, since there weren’t yet systems in place to reliably distribute the perishable shell sh.
It wasn’t until the 1920s and 1930s that a more signicant crab shery developed up and down the West Coast, in tandem with advances in refrigeration and processing techniques as well as development of transportation networks. It was about this time too that the name “Dungeness” became attached to the distinctive reddish-purple crab so abundant here. Today the Washington coastal town of Sequim, which grew out of an early settlement on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, embraces the crustaceous critter that shares its name with the nearby Dungeness Spit, the historic New Dungeness Lighthouse, and the Dungeness River that spills out into Dungeness Bay. The Cedars at Dungeness golf course in Sequim even boasts a crab-shaped sand trap they call “Old Crabby” on hole number three.
Substantial domestic commercial harvest of king crab in Alaska wasn’t really rolling until the 1940s, though Japanese and Russian shermen had been catching the crab in good volumes from the north Atlantic the decade prior. By the 1960s American harvest of king crab was dominating, with important operations out of the Bering Sea and around Kodiak Island. This is about the time that commercial harvest of snow crab was just beginning.
Commercial harvest of blue crab goes back well over a century on both the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Though just as for Dungeness, the crab didn’t make it very far from where they were harvested until advances in refrigerated transportation took shape. By the early 1900s that began to change, and the industry became well developed—particularly in the Chesapeake Bay area—in the rst half of the century. In more recent decades the commercial harvest has extended down the coast and around into the Gulf of Mexico. Today the top states harvesting blue crab are Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Louisiana.
By contrast to these long-exploited crab, the stone crab industry is a more recent development. Though the crab themselves had been proli c, and caught for subsistence and personal use, for countless generations, early forays into commercial harvest had limited distribution and not great consumer demand. It was later into the 1960s when the shery and burgeoning market for the claws (beyond what could be consumed at the original stone crab–claw mecca of Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami) began to boom.
WEST COAST CRAB
While editor of Simply Seafood magazine, I had the rare treat of spending a week on Alaska’s Kodiak Island, traditional home to not only the great Kodiak brown bear (of which I got a disarmingly up-close, though safe, view) but also to king crab. A most unforgettable feast during my visit was prepared by my hosts—seasonal salmon shing families from the Lower 48 as well as locals from the village of Akhiok at the southern end of the island. The centerpiece in the midst of the salmon pirog (a pastry-topped savory pie), salmon quiche, and salmon pasta salads was a huge bowl of king crab legs, which only hours earlier were still scurrying along
the ocean oor. I’d been out in the skiff when the pots were brought up and was absolutely abbergasted at the sight of those creatures, so big (they can attain up to ve feet or more from the tip of one leg to the other) and intimidating with their thorned shells.
Back on shore, a huge pot of seawater was brought to a boil over a propane burner while the crab were cleaned. In no time we were all gorging ourselves on the incredible brinysweet-rich meat. It was enough to have me swearing off king crab prepared any other way (experiences like that are once in a lifetime, and rightfully so). That was until a more recent development that saw more king crab being transferred live to markets and restaurants in larger cities. Crab are rather sturdy creatures and can survive a day or more out of water in the proper conditions. The king crab are put in large boxes and well chilled, which in addition to preserving the quality of the meat, dulls their senses to keep them docile in transit. Upon arrival at their destination, generally less than twenty-four hours later, the crab go into saltwater tanks and are fully revived. Now it can be possible to enjoy freshly cooked king crab without making that trek to Alaska.
These deep-sea creatures thrive in the frigid waters of the North Paci c, and treacherous ocean conditions there have helped make king crab shing among the most dangerous professions in the world. Back in the mid-1960s, Kodiak Island was Alaska’s largest producer of king crab, landing nearly ninety-one million pounds in 1966. But stocks in those waters declined signi cantly in the couple decades since peak harvests of Alaska king crab were recorded in the 1980s. Today there is no commercial king crabbing on Kodiak (it’s primarily out in the Bering Sea now), but limited subsistence crabbing allowed on the island maintains the tradition.
