The Dungeness crab topic

[David Ross]

2 hours ago, David Ross said:

Way, way back in 2001 I entered the MasterChef USA competition on PBS.  This Dungeness Crab salad was the opening dish in my final 3-course menu.  This photo doesn't do it justice because I didn't dice the cucumber smaller.  It looks like big chunks of zuchinni.  For the competition I served it with dried, sliced pear chips.  I think it's much better with homemade potato chips. 

 

At any rate, the base layer is diced cucumber and tomato, then a layer of Dungeness crab tossed in homemade mayonnaise.  I usually top it with a crab leg and another dollop of the mayonnaise.  I change the mayonnaise flavors, this time it was lemon and thyme. Sometimes I'll use fresh tarragon or fresh marjoram.  I love marjoram and wish it was used more in restaurant dishes these days.  When people taste homemade mayonnaise for the first time they wonder what it is since their palate has always been trained toward bottled commercial mayonnaise.  

 

 

Ingredients-

For the Crab Salad Mosaic-

1 1/2 cups Dungeness crab meat

1 cup seeded, diced tomato

1 cup seeded, diced cucumber

1 tbsp. grapeseed oil

 

For the Lemon-Thyme Mayonnaise-makes 1 cup mayonnaise

1 large egg

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup grapeseed oil

1/2 tsp. chopped lemon zest

1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme

salt and white pepper to taste

fresh thyme sprigs for garnish

 

Instructions-

Make the Lemon-Thyme Mayonnaise-

Place the eggs, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste in a blender. Process just until ingredients are combined, about 20 seconds. With blender running at low speed, slowly drizzle in the oil in a slow steady stream. Continue to add enough oil until the mayonnaise thickens. This will take about 2-4 minutes. 

Refrigerate the mayonnaise at least one hour before using to allow it to cool and the oil to set.

 

Make the Dungeness Crab Salad and Serve-

Place the diced cucumber and tomato in a bowl and spoon in the 1 tbsp. of the oil, and toss to coat. Spoon some of the diced cucumber and tomato in the bottom of a ring mold and gently press down. Place the crab in a bowl and add a spoon of the mayonnaise and toss gently to coat. Spoon a layer of the dressed crab on top of the cucumber and tomato layer.

 

Gently remove the mold. Add a crab leg on top of the salad and spoon over a dollop of the mayonnaise. Spoon some mayonnaise on the side of the plate, then garnish with fresh thyme and serve with chips.

This time rather than make my own chips I bought bagged Kettle Chips.  I think it was a special Holiday deal at $1 a bag for Tim's Chips in the regular size.  They're usually about $4.  I'll take it rather than the time and energy to make chips home, (at least this time). 

[lindag]

My market has fresh Oregon Dungeness Crab on sale this week for $6.99/lb.

Sign me up!!!

[heidih]

Oh!!!  Just spoke with my favorite seafood market. The California ones just coming into season = live in continuous sea water flow tanks are $28.99/lb. When I asked if there was a male v female cost he laughed and said "females are illegal!". I didn't know.

[Smithy]

Okay, you Dungeness Crab aficionados -- I need advice.

 

The local grocery store has frozen, cooked Dungeness crab available.

 

 

This topic has been haunting me. I don't think I've ever seen live Dungeness crab, and if I got it I wouldn't know what to do with it. But there are some mighty fine-looking dishes in the pages of this topic. I'd like to try some of them. However, the consensus seems to be that the frozen cooked crabs aren't all that great. For the kind of money they cost (even with a loyalty discount card) I'm leery of trying one. Yet I'd like to try some of the dishes in this topic.

 

What say you? Is it worth the effort and risk, or would I be better off buying crab meat in a can or plastic deli package?

[Dave the Cook]

People rag on frozen Dungeness because it is clearly inferior to fresh. If you buy canned or deli-packed crab, well, you might not be allowed nice things ever again. 👀 Just be sure of the source. If it wasn’t caught, cooked and frozen within a few hours, find something else for dinner—but then, that goes for any crab, doesn’t it?

[cdh]

My (sadly now retired) fish guy had a favorite brand of frozen cooked dungeness that were really good.  Icicle brand.  I have no idea where the brand gets mentioned in crab marketing, but if you have a fish guy, even at your supermarket, maybe ask what packer they came from... and ask if icicle is a brand that rings any bells... That all said, I find the cooked, frozen and then thawed for display crab that Costco offers is plenty delicious as it is. Go for it.

[liuzhou]

An aside, but even as a crab lover, the concept of Dungeness crab scares me. The original village of Dungeness near London is most famous for its nuclear power stations, among England's most well known. 

 

The village is actually now a bizarrely beautiful tourist attraction and the area known for its presumably non-nuclear seafood. But the now decommissioned power plants (also open to visitors) remain best known.

 

https://www.historyhit.com/locations/dungeness/

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[cdh]

Well, thinking of power plants and crab scariness... the most jarring crab experience I ever had was in Wales, where the crabmeat tasted of the smell of a coal fire burning.  really unpleasant... I chalked it up to all the coal in wales obviously leaving them with a burnt coal ash disposal problem and a big ocean as the most ready solution to it... 

[weinoo]

10 hours ago, Smithy said:

I don't think I've ever seen live Dungeness crab, and if I got it I wouldn't know what to do with it.

 

You'd boil or steam it, as you would a lobster. Nothing is ever going to taste as good as cooked from live product, but just as I suffer with picked and packed blue crab meat to make crab cakes, the packed product works in a pinch.

Edited December 1, 2023 by weinoo (log)

[lindag]

Having lived in Portland for many years I've been spoiled by the abundant fresh crab available there.  Since living here I am no longer so fortunate.

Tried the canned stuff a couple of times in a pinch, but won't be buying more.

Now I wait for the occasional offering of fresh in the grocers.  

I have noticed that the Costco here offers it only in the frozen form but I've never been willing to buy it.

[weinoo]

2 hours ago, lindag said:

Tried the canned stuff a couple of times in a pinch, but won't be buying more.

 

Yeah, it's sorta glorified cat food.  

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Our season still is not open here.    We've been pretty satisfied with picked Dungeness out of Washington state.    Good fresh taste and close to zero shell bits.    Last ( a couple of weeks ago) at $60/lb with liberal leg and claw meat.    I have always found that in terms of net meat, picked and in-shell run about the same price.

[Katie Meadow]

Just in case anyone swallowed that trickster @liuzhou's recent post about the UK city of Dungeness, know that Dungeness crabs are only found on the US west coast. You are as unlikely to see them in England as in China:

 

"The name “Dungeness” comes from one of the most fertile habitats of this species: the Dungeness Spit, a sandy stretch of land in Northwest Washington. The Spit and surrounding community is located on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and named after a desert-like beach of the same name in England."

 

I moved to CA in the mid 1970's. Growing up I thought all crabs were blue claws that we we fished for as kids on Long Island with butterfly nets. What a shocker to discover Dungeness crabs! The big meaty Dungeness were plentiful then and the season, November thru early spring was reliable. Over the years one thing or another has caused these crabs to decrease in number. Periodic oil spills could ruin a season, but most years I couldl go down to Oakland Chinatown and buy them live for under $2 lb. Those days are, of course, long gone. The price of picked crabmeat as per @Margaret Pilgrimis pretty scary. For many years now the season has been either cancelled or delayed. This year it is for two reasons: the meat quality is poor, and there are a great many Humpback whales migrating along the coast who can get tangled up by the crab-trap lines. 

.

When my daughter was little she needed to go to a ENT specialist in SF and we would treat ourselves to a whole crab at a Chinese restaurant near her doc's office.  I thought of it as a splurge, but a relatively modest one. And I learned how to cook live crabs at home, overcoming the ick factor. I haven't  had Dungeness crab for several years now. It was awfully good.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Katie Meadow (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Two crab stories.   As a child, I used to visit my aunt in San Francisco, traveling by train and alone.   My father would book me tickets in the bar car because there was always an attendant.   I would always get my aunt to take me to Fisherman's Wharf to buy a couple of crab for my mother.   I later laughed at the scent that must have emitted from my package for those three hours in a warm train car.  

 

Fast forward some 25 years, my husband used to help out an elderly neighbor with small tasks.   One night, the doorbell rang and this neighbor handed in a gunny sack full of crab!  Small crab.   What to do with several dozen probably undersized/underage crab?   We had friends over at the moment.   Sent one out to find French bread.   Start a tomato base.   Wash crab.   Finally combine with sauce -> 2am cioppino.    Husband had gone to bed in the meantime, but staggered out for a bowl.    A night of guilty pleasures.

[liuzhou]

7 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

Just in case anyone swallowed that trickster @liuzhou's recent post about the UK city of Dungeness, know that Dungeness crabs are only found on the US west coast. You are as unlikely to see them in England as in China:

 

Indeed, but like many places in the USA, it was named after immigrants' home towns and villages as the text quoted says. Dungeness in the UK will be amused to see itself described as a "city". As I said, it's a village, dating back to pre-Roman times (as is Washington). York (the OLD one) is a city.

 

While both England and China have plenty of crabs, indeed they don't have "Dungeness crabs", nor did I ever claim so. Trickster? 

 

I never bought a crab in my life until I moved to London to start university. We just picked them up on our doorstep, as kids. Parts of my family in the UK still do.

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[FauxPas]

7 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

 Dungeness crabs are only found on the US west coast.

 

That's a surprise to all the crabs and crab fishers along the British Columbia coast in Canada.  🙂

 

https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/species-especes/profiles-profils/dungeness-crab-crabe-dormeur-eng.html

 

[FauxPas]

23 hours ago, Smithy said:

However, the consensus seems to be that the frozen cooked crabs aren't all that great. For the kind of money they cost (even with a loyalty discount card) I'm leery of trying one. Yet I'd like to try some of the dishes in this topic.

 

What say you? Is it worth the effort and risk, or would I be better off buying crab meat in a can or plastic deli package?

 

I should eat more crab than I do, given where we live, but it's not really a big thing for my husband. We can get fresh here but I have used some frozen over the years. It's usually just the legs though, not the whole crab. Your photo looks like whole crabs. When I did legs, I just steamed them for about 5 - 6 minutes or so.

 

But if you have a whole frozen crab, you might want to quickly thaw first and then cook 2 or 3 times longer. I did a quick search and it looks like cooking time suggestions vary quite a bit. You want the meat warmed through but not left too long. Frozen crab will almost always be pre-cooked so you are really only heating, not cooking the meat. 

 

I also see our local store has a suggestion for foil-BBQed crab:

https://www.thriftyfoods.com/recipes/recipes/foil-barbecued-dungeness-crab 

 

If you don't want to commit to a whole crab, maybe ask if they have legs only and just buy one or two to try? They can still be fairly pricey but I think they are worth it now and then. I like to dip them in a simple melted butter-lemon mix. 

[Katie Meadow]

36 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

That's a surprise to all the crabs and crab fishers along the British Columbia coast in Canada.  🙂

 

https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/species-especes/profiles-profils/dungeness-crab-crabe-dormeur-eng.html

 

sorry, yes, correct: west coast US and Canada

[Dave the Cook]

I always see instructions to steam frozen Dungeness. But surely this is not an optimum temperature for them. Most of the Dungeness (and King and Snow) crabIi see at restaurants is stringy and disappointing. This seems like a perfect application for sous vide.

[gfweb]

1 hour ago, Dave the Cook said:

I always see instructions to steam frozen Dungeness. But surely this is not an optimum temperature for them. Most of the Dungeness (and King and Snow) crabIi see at restaurants is stringy and disappointing. This seems like a perfect application for sous vide.

 

Never occurred to me , but yes it is.

Unfortunately , all I have to work with are blue crabs which aren't meaty enough to test the concept

[MetsFan5]

I’ve never had Dungeness crab, as mentioned it’s not really available on the East Coast. I do love King Crab so I am curious how they would compare (or differ). I’d likely go with the legs versus a whole crab. Can someone who has had both explain the difference?  

[Katie Meadow]

5 hours ago, Dave the Cook said:

I always see instructions to steam frozen Dungeness. But surely this is not an optimum temperature for them. Most of the Dungeness (and King and Snow) crabIi see at restaurants is stringy and disappointing. This seems like a perfect application for sous vide.

I admit I know absolutely nothing about sous vide, but wouldn't cooking a live crab sous vide mean a long slow death?

[MetsFan5]

1 hour ago, Katie Meadow said:

I admit I know absolutely nothing about sous vide, but wouldn't cooking a live crab sous vide mean a long slow death?

I think they mean using SV on the legs to warm them, as they’re already actually cooked. It would be hard to find live King or Dungenss crab for most. SVing the legs would bring them back to a hot temperature bath without getting the potentially water logged, which steaming can do. 

 

That said I’d be worried about punctures. Large crabs aren’t easily handled without a few battle wounds. 

Edited December 2, 2023 by MetsFan5
It’s late and I’m baked. My apologies I refuse to edit this again! (log)

[weinoo]

6 hours ago, MetsFan5 said:

I’ve never had Dungeness crab, as mentioned it’s not really available on the East Coast.

 

Any of the 5 or more Chinatowns in NYC are loaded with Dungeness. Live.  They are ridiculously expensive these days...

 

https://www.aquabestnyc.com/products/dungeness-crabs

[Katie Meadow]

3 hours ago, weinoo said:

 

Any of the 5 or more Chinatowns in NYC are loaded with Dungeness. Live.  They are ridiculously expensive these days...

 

https://www.aquabestnyc.com/products/dungeness-crabs

Do you think it was always the case that NY Chinatowns had live Dungeness from across the country? My parents did not shop in Chinatown when I grew up. There were many  Chinese restaurants within a short walk from our apt and my mother was not an adventurous cook. If memory serves, which it often does not, if Dungeness crabs were on the menu, my mother would have ordered one. The creative mix of culture, habit and memory grows ever more entwined and unreliable.

. 

@MetsFan5, the best technique I learned was to put the live crab in the freezer for just a few minutes after which time they are very easy to handle.