The Dungeness crab topic

[La Niña]

So I'm heading out to Chinatown this afternoon in search of live dungeness crabs. What to look for when buying them? And how shall I cook them this evening? I'd prefer not to fry them - should I just steam them? Some kind of dipping sauce? Should I try another kind of crab in addition?

Thanks.

[Jason Perlow]

Make Blue Heron's thai dungeness crab salad.

Other than that, maybe a saute with garlic and chow fun noodles, like China 46 does in Jersey.

Personally, my favorite is just to steam the sucker and eat it straight up with cocktail sauce.

[Steve Plotnicki]

If you want to steam them, put them on a colander atop a pot of boiling water but put some aromatics on the crabs (lemongrass?) My favorite preparation is salt and pepper or salt baked like they do it at Yuet Lee in SF. Cut the crab into bite size pieces and just use any Chinese salt and pepper recipe and then sprinle with some thinly sliced jalapeno. But that means frying them in peanut oil.

[La Niña]

No salads.

Jason, you mean sautee the big crabs with garlic? In oil? No steaming?

Steve, you mean frying the jalapenos in oil?

I like that idea - just steaming them with some aromatics - ginger, scallion, garlic, lemongrass...?

Edited November 26, 2002 by La Niña (log)

[Schielke]

That salad is pretty damn good, you might want to take a peek at it. It really isnt that much of a salad really.

Ben

[La Niña]

I'm sure it's great, but we want to have that eating the whole crab experience, right outta the shell...

[Jason Perlow]

No salads.

Its a pain in the ass to pick out the meat for the salad, but I assure you you're gonna have to do it anyway. BH's dish is really quite worth the hassle.

Jason, you mean sautee the big crabs with garlic? In oil? No steaming?

I beleive it is partially steamed and then stir fried. He might steaming it, then hacking it into peices and then stir frying it to finish it off, because it is served cut up over the noodles. The crab back has some of the garlic sauce and is mixed with some of the roe and is used as a meat dipping container.

Tommy/Rachel, you've had this dish as well... comments?

[Simon Majumdar]

I mentioned this on the "dinner" thread

But

When you are done eating, keep the shells

Sweat a cinnamon stick, some cumin, turmeric, Chilli powder, garlic and ginger in a little oil and butter mix. Add the leftover shells, two tins of tomatoes and two pints of water and simmer over a very low heat for at least six hours ( I guess a slow cooker would work as well )

Strain the liquid and add chunks of fish ( Mackerel is wonderful ) and potatoes ( not for me for, as we all know, Carbs = Death ) and sprinkle in a large amount of chopped Corriander

The most delicious soup ever

S

[Jason Perlow]

If you want to steam them, put them on a colander atop a pot of boiling water but put some aromatics on the crabs (lemongrass?).

Yeah the Thais do something similar when they steam mussels. The mussel juice flows into the aromatics and and makes a great dipping sauce with chili.

The deep frying sounds like a bit of a waste for dungeness... better for prawns.

[La Niña]

No salads.

Its a pain in the ass to pick out the meat for the salad, but I assure you you're gonna have to do it anyway. BH's dish is really quite worth the hassle.

Jason, you mean sautee the big crabs with garlic? In oil? No steaming?

I beleive it is partially steamed and then stir fried. He might steaming it, then hacking it into peices and then stir frying it to finish it off, because it is served cut up over the noodles. The crab back has some of the garlic sauce and is mixed with some of the roe and is used as a meat dipping container.

Tommy/Rachel, you've had this dish as well... comments?

I repeat - we want to have them WHOLE on the dinner table. No salads. No picking out the meat ahead of time.

Simon, that soup sounds wonderful...

[Steve Plotnicki]

No the jalaneos are fresh, seeded and sliced thin. But the crab is chopped into small pieces you can pick up and suck the meat out of the shells. Don't you have a Chinese cookbook? The ingredients are just corn stach, salt and pepper. Pm Toby. She's the expert on this stuff. Maybe you can have two types of crab. One steamed and one salt and pepper. That sounds yummy to me. Get a gewurztraminer.

[Priscilla]

Nina, Margaret Pilgrim posted this classic fabulous Dungeness meal in the Dinner! discussion the other day. (Way down at the bottom of the page.)

I love mayonnaise-type sauces with cracked crab--something that seems to me very San Franciscan, I guess because I was introduced to it by San Franciscans. But I almost always offer both a mayonnaisey one and a cocktail-type, as Margaret indicates.

Enjoy your crabs...Dungeness season is very exciting.

[La Niña]

Steve - Okeydoke. Should I use another kind of crab in addition to dungeness?

Edited November 26, 2002 by La Niña (log)

[Blue Heron]

I think steaming is ok for small crabs but dungeness crabs are always boiled in salt water (at least on the west coast) to my knowledge. Buy the biggest and heaviest ones you can. 2 pounds is a good one. I think it's fine to buy them already cooked as long as they've cooked them the day you are buying them. My favorite way to eat them is just boiled and cracked w/ a homemade herb mayo (tarragon is nice) and homemade cocktail sauce, or dipped in melted butter. Or one can also do a stir fry with it. Crack cooked crab, break into pieces (still in the shell), and stir fry it with ginger, garlic, green onions, lemon grass, add some broth, white wine, w/cornstarch to make a thin sauce (or one can do a garlic black bean sauce), and serve alongside rice.

My rec is to buy it already boiled (that day). Clean it (or have the store do it) and serve it cracked w/ the sauces I mentioned.

[La Niña]

Thanks Everybody!

[Jim Dixon]

I grew up pulling Dungeness crabs out of rings on the piers in several little Oregon coast towns. We would boil a pot of seawater on the beach and toss them in. When the shells are pink (probably about 10 minutes, but any west coast cookbook should have cooking times), pull them and cool.

Pull off the shell, clean (and while some folks like the roe, I don't really care for it) under running water, and pile on a table spread with newspaper. Use pliers, nutcrackers, or other heavy-duty squeezers to crack the leg pieces, and nut picks or crab forks to extract the meat.

Eaters usually divide into two camps: Those who pick and save, then eat when the crab meat pile reaches some criticval mass, and those who eat while they pick. I'm in the latter category.

While fresh Dungeness is sweet, I still like a little cocktail sauce and lemon.

If you ever go crabbing, save the little red rock crabs that most people toss back. Picking the meat out of them is even more work, but they really taste great.

Jim

[Stone]

Any thoughts on a crab/squash pairing?

I'm making sqaush soup for Thanksgiving. I use 50/50 butternut and spaghetti, so it has a nice buttery taste. (The stick of butter I toss in helps with that also.) We've got oodles of Dungeness crab in SF right now and I thought that a dollop of crab meat in the bowl of soup would look nice.

[southern girl]

I've always boiled mine...water to cover by an inch...add a bottle of beer, 10 or so thickly sliced garlic cloves,salt, two lemons halved, squeezed and add to the pot. Add the crabs when the water is boiling, cook for 12 minutes after the water returns to a boil. Cover the table with newspaper and go at 'em!

Edited November 26, 2002 by southern girl (log)

[La Niña]

Ever go to a Vietnamese crab house called Thad Long (sp?) in SF? I used to go a lot when my sister lived there...I think they were served just steamed with butter, as I recall - with these thick long noodles swimming in garlic and butter...

[Stone]

Ever go to a Vietnamese crab house called Thad Long (sp?) in SF?  I used to go a lot when my sister lived there...I think they were served just steamed with butter, as I recall - with these thick long noodles swimming in garlic and butter...

Been there a number of times. Excellent food at astronomical prices. Horrible bridge and tunnel crowd (why do all cities have bridges and tunnels?). But fun for a night out with the crowd. They have a full Vietnamese menu, but focus on the crabs. About 4 styles if I recall. All very good. But expensive for a night spent picking out tidbits of food from the shell. I prefer the Maryland crab feasts.

Thanh Long. I believe the same people own Crustacean on Polk at California. And I'm pretty sure the family owns a place or to in La La Land.

(Those garlic noodles -- which are suprisingly good for such a simple dish -- are about $7 a plate.)

Edited November 26, 2002 by Dstone001 (log)

[Blue Heron]

One more tip on buying dungeness crab in chinatown. If you have a chance to check them out in more than one store, buy from the place that keeps them in the cleanest water tank (obvious, but easy to forget at the time). If the water's so murky that you can hardly see them, move on to the next place. I find the stores with the best overall reps keep their tanks the cleanest. The crabs may cost a bit more, but I think it's worth it.

[bushey]

I'm mad for salt and pepper seafood but beg to differ on the gewurz recommendation -- to me it cries out for a frosty pilsner-type beer.

[Mrs. Meadow]

Here is my mother's recipe:

Heavily salt the water, add 4 bay leaves, 2 halved lemons, 2 Tbs. black pepper corns, 4 separated heads garlic, 2 celery stalks, 2 carrots, 1/2 bottle white wine. Boil for 10 minutes before adding the crabs, cook for 10-15 minutes. Serve with fresh sourdough, a green salad, and drawn butter.

Mr. Meadow was invited out last weekend (the opener) and brought back his limit-10 crabs. 5 adults and 3 children devoured them in under 20 minutes. I made a batch of Blue Heron's Thai crab salad leaving out the crab, and we used it as garnish. Outstanding!

[bellaS.F.]

Melt butter and olive oil in a large shallow roasting pan with a nice amount of chopped garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Put in cracked/cleaned/cooked crab pieces. Stir up well. Bake at 500 for about 12 minutes or so, till heated through.

Put crab pieces in a bowl. Add some lemon juice and chopped Italian parsley to the liquid. Taste for seasoning. Pour over crab. Have some wonderful, warm crusty bread to sop up the yummy juices.

A DRY Gewurtz. goes wonderfully with that. (If you can get Navarro, try it.)

[Priscilla]

Happened across big lively well-priced crabs; bought two; wrote about it in the Dinner discussion. All on account of what I read here!