Posted on 04/21/2016 5:43:42 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
We in Maryland heard some good news during the past week: due to conservation efforts and weather conditions, the Blue Crab population is going to be about 35% higher this year. This is good news for crab lovers, but especially good news for the watermen along the Chesapeake, who make their livings from the 'Beautiful Swimmers'.
The first time I encountered a crab, I was a teen, lying in bed asleep, when my brother came into the room, dangled a live crab in front of my face, and yelled, "Wake Up"!
He had come home from a friend's house with a bucket full of fresh crabs and got us all up, late at night, to cook and eat them. My Tidewater-born Granny steamed them, and our Dad showed us how to crack, pick and eat them. They were very nice, but I'm not sure I was really 'sold' (perhaps I was still groggy from sleep, and from the visual shock of arthropod anatomy wiggling in front of my startled-awake eyes!)
I WAS sold, however, on my first real Maryland crab cake, which came from the Phillips restaurant in Baltimore. Long before, I had read in some popular writing that 'ambrosia' (the 'Food of the Gods' in Greek mythology) MUST have been 'oysters and champagne'; but my first taste of a good Maryland crab cake decided for ME the meaning of 'ambrosia', and I have been an addict ever since. (I will even buy the frozen Phillips ones in the supermarket, in a pinch - which frankly don't measure up at all to the ones in the restaurant.)
Here is the recipe for the very Maryland Crab Cake that has been offered in the Phillips restaurants since 1956:
http://www.phillipsfoods.com/recipe/shirley-phillips-crab-cakes/
And here's a recipe for Crab Rangoon, or Crab Wonton - which, in the average Chinese restaurant, is made with surimi - or "krab with a 'K'" - but can be easily made at home with the Real Thing, even though this recipe calls for 'canned':
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/200657/crab-rangoon/
(My favorite books about the Chesapeake are James Michener's 'Chesapeake', and William Warner's 'Beautiful Swimmers', q.v.)
-JT
I’m busy and lazy this week, and haven’t cooked anything new; but I thought we’d celebrate CRAB!
(If you would like to be on or off of this weekly cooking ping-list, please send a private message.)
-JT
I can handle escargot and actually like conch but I don’t like crab
Send me them crabs! Only recently experienced a crab melt, Never had a soft shell crab sammich , but He** yeah!
My parents were both Baltimoreans, born & raised. My mother made crab cakes, but she was a ‘cook by feel’ sort & never wrote down the recipe. Learned that from her mother. Crab cakes are certainly a delicacy! Now that I’m here on the left coast we sometimes get Dungeness crabs, but usually eat them plain. Yum! In fact, my mother got a couple from our local grocer & complained most bitterly that they’d cleaned them & removed ‘the mustard’.
Conch? you mean Scungili!
Maryland Crab Cakes! G&M Crab Cakes from Linthincum Heights, Maryland. Our best friends either bring it up to us or we go down for them. The only binder is egg. Absolutely delicious as are the side of slaw. The rest of the year we do frozen. Or, we go to a shack in Maryland and spread the newspaper out on the table and get cracking.
Love crab here at the ranch. Quiche, salads, various dips, and spreads. Just last week had a stuffed avocado crab salad.
Great eating.
There’s a weird little place outside of Asbury Park, NJ that is sort of a circus-style outdoor diner that serves the best soft shell crab sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. Served on a cheap little roll but the crabs are fresh, delicious and the shells are soft and melting.
Since I’m on a real diet, this thread is making me crazy.
LOL! Do you mean Tomalley, the crab version of ‘hepatopancreas’?
I’ve never been concerned with it; Unless a part looks especially disgusting, I just eat the whole thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomalley
-JT
I know they taste absolutely fabulous but those little guys are safe from me. Can’t eat em. And that is ok. But I know they are YUMMY. More for the rest of you!
Closest kosher fish to shellfish is the ugly but tasty monkfish. And caviar. Caviar and also salmon roe and that other tiny orange roe. Those are my oceany shellfish like foods.
Hey, even the buttah wont make you fat.
Enjoy, I wish I could enjoy wit!
Loves me some whole belly clams,
Try ‘Krab with a K’. It works fine in the Wonton recipe - all whitefish.
-JT
Love soft shell crabs!!!
That may be it. It’s a grey poupon colored substance & we just dip the crab meat in it as we eat.
I think my mother’s recipe for crab cakes was simpler than the one at the link. I remember egg, salt & pepper, a little mustard & a final dusting of paprika, fried in oil. There may have been other ingredients, but...I’ve never tried to re-create the recipe, & at 90 & a little vague, I’m not sure my mother would remember either.
Well, I’ve never had conch or any kind of snail; and I don’t like Lobster; it’s too damn sweet.
I like shrimp, crabs, oysters and clams.
-JT
Actually the Baptist dont forbid it, I just roll with the Catholics because I loves me some fish LOL
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