Weekly Fish #3: Crab Three Ways

Before The Wire, Maryland was best known for its crabs. Crabs are to Maryland as Cheese is to Wisconsin. As Moustaches are to Chicago. As Passive Aggressive is to Minnesota. The premier crab accoutrement, Old Bay Seasoning, bears a "Made in Maryland with Pride" stamp on each tin. The locally favored potato chip, Utz, offers The Crab Chip flavor. (Alert viewers of The Wire will see a bag make a cameo roughly every fifth episode.) Crabs are everywhere.



So it's not really any wonder that, back in late 1970's, The Seafood Marketing Authority within the Department of Economic and Community Development decided to release a cookbook, heavy on the crab recipes.

I present you with the original Maryland Seafood Cookbook. Not to be confused with "The Maryland Seafood Cookbook, Vols. I, II, and III" found on Amazon. Nay, this bad boy bears no ISBN:



The recipes themselves are very simple, and do not fuss with anything so fancy as smoked paprika (which I ended up adding to embellish the dish below). Why bother dicing an onion when you can just use some instant minced onion? It's all the same. Why bother specifying a particular species of fish? It's all the same. Margerine? Butter? Oil? It's all the same. These recipes are so unfussy that this book may well have been written by a bunch of impatient crabbers inbetween pulling up their pots.



Incidentally, Jess gave me this book for my birthday, having stumbled across it in a thrift store here in Minnesota. The happy surprise was two-fold, because I remember this very same book from my Maryland years. Crazy.

On to the weekly fish dish itself.

We decided early in the week to do some crab cakes, and I thought I'd prepare a couple of other crab dishes while I was at it. So, the trio of crab dishes were:

• Avocado soup with a crab tomato salad
• Crab cake
• Crab Imperial

My local grocery store didn't carry the Phillips brand canned crab, so I settled for something else. (When I asked for Phillips, the monger said "I haven't heard that name in years." Sad.)



Readers of The Flavor Bible will know that crab + avocado is one of the Best. Food. Pairings. Ever. I've wanted to validate that claim, so this was a natural first course for our weekly fish. There isn't much to the soup itself; just avocado, ramps, garlic, lime juice, sour cream, water, salt and pepper, blended to oblivion. I mixed up some lump crab meat, cherry tomatoes, front-yard chives, olive oil, salt and pepper into a basic salad, and dropped it into the soup when served.

Protip: chill the soup bowls in the fridge prior to serving.



Everyone has a different recipe for crab cakes, but everyone agrees on the First Fundamental Theorem of Properly Caked Crab: use as little filling as possible. Use just enough egg, mayo and bread crumbs to bind the crab into a patty that is ever on the verge of falling apart, and rely on the crab molecules' van der Waals forces to do the rest. Following that, recipes will vary on the details; my recipe this time included a healthy amount of dijon mustard and Old Bay Seasoning, but no onion, green pepper, or Worchester sauce this go-round.

The cakes were crabby, mustardy and delicious. I decided to add some oil to the butter for the saute, which I think helped crisp them up much better than usual.

The last of the trio was straight from the Maryland Seafood Cookbook. In honor of the recent royal nuptials, I just had to go with the recipe entitled "Crab Imperial." Crab Imperial, according to The Seafood Marketing Authority, is crab, seasoning, and filler, baked and broiled in a ramekin (or a scallop shell, which I lacked). I did my best to dress it up with some smoked paprika and other spices, but in my opinion the mayo in the recipe was too dominant. And if you know me, you know well that mayo is one of my least preferred foodstuffs. Next time: less mayo, more Old Bay. But then again, why not just make more crab cakes instead?

So, lovers of The Wire, bear witness to the original Baltimore gangster, prepared three ways.

After heavily-smoked salmon last week, and dressed-up crab this week, I feel a need to return to a basic, white fish dish for Weekly Fish #4...

Onion Carbonara - May 6, 2011

This interesting recipe is another from Dorie Greenspan's book, Around My French Table. In it, thinly sliced onions, which are steamed until al dente, are used for the 'noodles.' This idea intrigued both Nick and I and we decided we had to try it. The onions were prepared as directed and then we went on to make the carbonara sauce using bacon, cream and egg. Once the bacon is cooked and the sauce prepared, we tossed the steamed onions in to coat with the creamy sauce, and to warm everything through. We topped with fresh Pecorino-Romano, cracked open some wine, and enjoyed a delicious dinner. This was fun and inventive, easy to prepare on a weeknight, and can be used as both a main dish, as we did, or a side, as is described in the book. Quite a nice little dish to have in one's repertoire, no?

Thai-style steak salad - May 3, 2011

This is a dish inspired by yet another recipe from the Everyday Food series, but I've made it enough times now that I just do it from memory. I think the original recipe also calls for bean sprouts which I totally love, but didn't have any available. The lettuce is from our container garden and I also mixed in some arugula, mint leaves, and a few leaves of Thai basil from the patio. Unfortunately, I did not grow the carrots or raise the beef!

I first mixed up a combination of lime juice, soy sauce, vegetable oil, a bit of sugar, and some red pepper flakes for the marinade and dressing. Because it was a nice day, I grilled the steaks outside and then assembled the salad, topping it with some peanuts. I love the combination of warm and cold that comes from salads like this. And it is such a treat to pick lettuce right outside the kitchen door!

Hello Veggies! - May 5, 2011

Our first box of vegetables has arrived! Pictured above are my fresh lovelies. They are a mix of early spring growers, overwintered root vegetables, and foraged goodness. Starting in the upper left are some fresh chives, which are almost always the first of my perennial herbs to appear in the yard. next up are beautiful ramps, true harbingers of spring. Ramps are a wild leek and must be foraged since they do not take well to attempts at domestication. I've heard some recent chatter that these spring delights are being over-foraged and that sustainability is a genuine concern. I feel incredibly lucky that Harmony Valley is such a responsible steward of the land and I can enjoy my ramps guilt-free. This delivery also brings us some 'super chilies,' which are new to us this year, and more old favorites including red Russian kale; black radishes; sunchokes (!!); parsnips; and lemony sorrel. Not pictured is our big bag of overwintered spinach. The farm plants this in the fall and leaves it in the field all winter. The cold weather we have here makes the leaves extra sweet. If any of you Dinner Clubbers find yourselves with similar ingredients in your kitchen feel free to search this site to see how we've used these vegetables in previous seasons, or check the Harmony Valley blog for lots of inspiration.

Welcome back to our kitchen Harmony Valley! Thank you for this beautiful spring delivery.

Beet and Wild Rice Salad - May 3, 2011

This meal was an attempt to use up some of our CSA root vegetables from last season in time to clear out some fridge space for our first CSA delivery of 2011, which is today Dinner Clubbers! I can't believe it, especially when I look outside and see that our trees don't even have leaves yet here in Minnesota. I'm telling you, Harmony Valley Farm is amazing. Okay, on to the beets. I boiled them until they were fork tender and then peeled them when cool enough to handle. Once peeled, I sliced them into half inch coins and placed them on a bed of wild rice. I topped the beets with some toasted hazelnuts, chevre cheese, quick-pickled onions and some fresh oregano leaves that I scrounged up in the back yard. We drizzled our dishes with some orange infused olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. This was a happy combination of flavors with the earthy rice and beets playing nicely with the richness of the cheese and nuts and everything complimented perfectly by the sharpness and bite of the onions.

Weekly Fish #2: Smoked Salmon

Our second installment of Weekly Fish highlights the new smoker that Jess found at the thrift store for a steal. We previously tried some smoked mushrooms and deemed it a success, so naturally we wanted to take it to the next level. Salmon came to mind as a fish that could handle the heat, and so it was to be.



The smoking process begins with heating up some soaked wood chips for a while, then throwing the fish on a rack above the wood chips, and sealing the whole thing for a while. The smoker was quite effective at infusing the fish with a strong smoke flavor, and the house with an equally strong smoke aroma. That's the price of a stove-top smoker: the sensation you've just stepped away from a campfire.

I followed the directions included in the smoker, but found that the fish was undercooked. I ended up finishing the salmon in a grill pan, which didn't seem to take away from the smokiness at all. And I do think the salmon could have stood a little less ... smoke.



Not too shabby, though. You see it plated here with a bit of quinoa, wild rice, dried fruit, pecans, and kale.

I think the next thing we ought to smokeshould be a bit heartier than salmon (itself quite a hearty fish). Ribs anyone? Oh yes.

First Grill Out - April 24, 2011

Nick and I marked the beautiful day last Sunday with our first grill out of the season. We kept things really basic and opted for some 1/5 lb grass fed beef patties topped with avocado and fresh mozzarella (I was trying to make sure we used up some things that needed to be used, hence the slightly strange combination of toppings). For a colorful side dish we had sweet potato 'fries' that Nick cooked up on the grill as well, in an aluminum packet, with coconut oil. Obviously this meal presents nothing new or revolutionary, but I don't care. It just felt really good to cook food outside in the sunshine, which is something that's been in short supply around these parts. Hey spring, could you please get your ass in gear already?

Easter Brunch - April 24, 2011

Nick and I had a quiet brunch for two this past weekend, and that might be my favorite kind of brunch. On the menu, which was semi-made-up-on-the-fly, was Polish poppy seed pastry, a mustard tart, and ginger-citrus mimosas. I had planned ahead for the poppy seed pastry, and long time readers might think it looks pretty familiar to last year's Easter pastry. Indeed, I used the same pretty pastry braiding technique that I originally found here. And, I used poppy seed filling again, but this time I did a little extra Internet research to find a true Polish recipe rather than the hamantaschen recipe I used last year. It was an homage to my Grandma Mae (see my sister's tribute here, complete with fun pictures), whom we just lost, and the delicious makowiec she used to make. My intent is to make a true makowiec in the very near future, but in the meantime, I cheated and just used the filling here. Oh, and just to be clear, my Grandma never actually called what she made 'makowiec,' which is why it took me a little longer to find a recipe online. Also, I'm pretty sure she just used the store-bought canned poppy seed filling, but since I was already using store bought pastry dough, I thought I'd better at least make the filling up from scratch. Anyway, I'm delighted that I now know what it's called and that it's part of my Polish heritage.

Nick was in charge of our main dish, which kind of just fell into place. We had picked up Dorie Greenspan's new cookbook, Around My French Table, from the library the day before and were paging through it while waiting for the poppy seed pastry to cook. We happened upon her recipe for 'Gerard's Mustard Tart' and realized that if we cheated and used the second sheet of puff pastry for the crust, we could whip this up in no time flat. Nick jumped into action, and with minor assistance from me, we had this ready in time for our main course. It was light and quite mustard-y with that nice bite of horseradish that hits you in the back of your nose.

And of course, no brunch would be complete without some cocktails. I love how the term 'brunch' makes it not only okay, but expected, that you start drinking before noon. We had chilled some cava and I used the same ingredients as my citrus-ginger soda from a few weeks ago. Some freshly squeezed grapefruit and lime juice, a little ginger-lemongrass infused simple syrup, and cava replacing the soda, and we were in business. The bubbly cocktail was the perfect Easter egg hue and accompanied the mustard tart well, cutting the bite of the horseradish nicely.

I hope you all had a tasty holiday weekend!

Hand-applied Erratum

When the publisher hand-applies a note inside the cookbook to acknowledge its omission, you know that the ingredient is important. Thank you, publisher, for keeping us all safe from flat, eggless speculouses (speculi?).