Chef Paul’s "Cookin' with Passion" Tip of the Week
CRABS
Paul O'Toole: Tip of the Week to you! This is Chef Paul O'Toole, Chief Culinary Officer for all of the Forewinds Hospitality Golf Clubs with this week's tip.
Let’s talk about crabs. Let’s talk about where we’re getting the crab from, what kind to buy. On the Atlantic Coast, we have the blue crab and we have the Florida stone crab. They’re the two that come out of the Atlantic basin. From the Pacific, we have the snow crab and we have a king crab. For our purposes we’re going to go with the backyard blue crab; the blue swimming crab from the Chesapeake off Maryland; it’s a big farming area for the blue crab.
Let’s first go through the variety of crabs that you can buy. We can buy whole crab meat or we can buy crab meat that is pasteurized. Now when I say whole crab meat, I mean fresh crab meat. Pasteurized crab meat comes in 1-pound containers. Now that crab meat, believe it or not, is good between 6 months and a year. They’ve come a long, long way with the pasteurization process of crab meat and really have an excellent product that is available year round – which is a real plus for us. Being in the restaurant business, one of the most frustrating things used to be, years ago, was the availability of crab meat. It wasn’t always available or it wasn’t always of the best quality. Now through the pasteurization process we’re sure of a great product year round.
For our purposes today, we’re going to do a backyard crab boil using soft shell crabs. The soft shell crab is available during the months of April to September, with June and July probably the peak months. The soft shell crab is a blue crab that has shed its shell and is very popular, because you can eat the shell. You don’t have to shell the crab. We sell a lot of soft shell crabs during the summer months. We serve them in our restaurants, and they’re easy. You can fry them, you can sauté them, you can flour and batter them, make them nice and crispy, deglaze the pan with white wine and compounds of butter and shallots. Am I making you hungry yet?
Back to the backyard barbeque. We’re going to take 3 gallons of water right out of the spigot and put it into a big pot. Now you’re going to go to the store and get 2 dozen crabs. The size of the crab will vary and so will the price. The size crabs we’re looking for are called #1 jimmies. That’s a cute name that the distributors use for them, and what it means is that they have between a 5 and 6 inch back on them. If you bought a whole bushel of crabs you’re going to get between 85 and 100 crabs in that size. The price right now for a bushel of crab in the mid-Atlantic states is anywhere from $95 to $115 depending on where you get them.
After you put 3 gallons of water into a pot, take the crabs and hose them off outside. Make sure you have them inside a bushel or something. Otherwise they’re going to be running all over the ground while you’re hosing them down. So after we have them all gathered, you want to take a pair of long tongs and maybe even some thick rubber gloves. They will certainly come in handy. We want to have the water boiling. We’re going to put an herb mixture into the water which is called a crab boil. It can be mustard seed, peppercorns, bay leaves, allspice, cloves, red chilis, ginger and garlic.
If you don’t have crab boil, you can empty out some of the spices you have inside your house. We’re basically going to make a pickling spice and we’re going to add old bay, bay leaves, cloves, oleander, cumin and garlic. We can put that in the pot. For 3 gallons of water you’ll use 2 tablespoons of the pickling spices and 2 tablespoons of old bay. If you don’t have old bay, you can use what they call Florida seasoning or Florida bay seasoning. Basically, it’s ground up spices and herbs that give it a little bit of a spice taste.
We’re going to put those in the water, boil that off and get that nice and hot. Let it cook for about 5 minutes. Then we’re going to take our crab and put it in the water. Let the crab cook in the water for about 8 to 10 minutes. If you’re wondering when the crab is done, just take one of the claws off the crab and snap it. You can snap it off or hit it with a hammer or a mallet so you can get to the meat.
The meat inside should be a snowflake white color. Raw crab meat is very translucent and almost like a grayish color. If it’s white and it’s been in there for 8-10 minutes, it should be done. You’ll need a big mixing bowl or something to put the crab in. Take the crab out of the pot and dust the crab with a little bit of old bay seasoning. Just toss them all around. If you’d like to serve the crab warm, serve them with a little melted or clarified butter, which tastes great.
Pucker up and get ready for a great day, because you’ll be sucking that crab meat right out of that shell, dipping it in your nice warm butter – or you can use a spicy cocktail sauce or maybe your favorite dressing. Whatever you do, make sure you have a great time outdoors and have a great day.
That's my tip of the week. I’m here to make certain your dining experience at any Forewinds golf club is a WOW! Come out and taste the difference for yourself. This is Chef Paul promising we'll deliver Hospitality PLUS! on every visit.
