Soft Shell Crab Sandwich

I am a sucker for a season change. In the fall, a tinge of color on a leaf sends me straight for the pumpkin recipes. In the winter, the first hint of a flurry has been buying the largest hunk of meat I can roast. But spring, spring is intoxicating. It is a test of patience and wills, staring at farmers market tables where an early spat of warm days or a sudden cold snap can alter by weeks the arrival of food you want so badly. You spend your time willing asparagus to show, or being disappointed by the lack of strawberries (as our heroine was last week, desperately wanting to make strawberry ice cream).

But it was not at the farmer's market, this past week, that I knew it was really spring. It was in the fish shop. They're here! They're really here! Finally, after waiting and wishing and hoping, there in perfect little rows were the soft shell crabs. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, when I made the Crab and Asparagus Tart, I'm a little crustacean crazy, by way of a generational tendency to crave them. When I was a kid and the Little Mermaid was my favorite movie, I didn't really understand why the Le Poisson song was supposed to be so shocking. Of course he'd want to cook the crab. They're delicious.  Sorry Sebastian. Now shut up and get in the pot.

Soft shells, on the East Coast at least, are blue crabs in their molting phase. They molt their shells, and then can only be eaten as a soft shell for about four days before it grows back. During this time you can cook and eat them, shells and all. This is not to say you can eat the whole thing. Soft shell crabs do need to be "cleaned". And by cleaned I mean you have to cut it's face off. And rip out its lungs. While it's still alive. Here, let the chef from the Mermaid Inn show you how it's done. I'm certainly not going to. I make the fish monger do it.

Yeah, if you have a really nice fish salesman, you can make him do it. The crab then needs to be cooked the second you get home. If you want to store it in the fridge and cook it later, then you better buy them live and get ready to snip its face off.

Once the faces are off the little buggers, they are actually really easy to cook. You can batter and fry them, or bread and saute, I go with a milk soak, a seasoned fouring, and then sauteing in garlic, olive oil, and butter. Completely unhealthy, completely fantastic. The legs get all crispy and crunchy. The insides burst with flavor. And the best way to eat them, in my opinion, is to stick them on a really good roll, toasted, with mayo. Mmmmm.

Soft Shell Crab Sandwiches

Ingredients:

-4 Soft Shell Crabs

-1/2 Cups Milk

-3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

-1 tsp Old Bay

-Salt and Pepper to Taste

-2 Tbs olive oil

-2Tbs Unsalted Butter

-2 Tbs Chopped Flat Leaf Parsley

-4 High Quality Rolls, cut and toasted

Directions:

Place crabs in shallow container in a single layer. Cover with milk. Let soak refrigerated for 1 hour. Drain and discard milk. Whisk together flour, salt, pepper, and Old Bay. Lightly dredge each crab in the mixture.

Heat the oil and butter together in skillet over medium high heat and saute the crabs until golden, about 4 minutes per side. Do not crowd the crabs, cook in batches if necessary, adding more oil and butter to the pan between batches.

Place one crab on each roll. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top. Add mayo if desired.

My one regret is that we had no lemon in the house. I think a squirt of fresh lemon juice on top of the crab would have been tasty. It has been enough to hold me over until the grown up crabs come in. You can't eat those shells. Therefore you just have to rip the crabs apart. Poor Sebastian.

Lemon Raspberry Martini

It's time for another Video Blog. The fruity sweetness of this drink makes it perfect for the warm weather we've been having this week. Admittedly it's kind of a girly drink but every now and again, that can be a good thing. Sometimes girly drinks can be the most refreshing...especially if you put a little umbrella in them. Enjoy.

If you're interested in infusing liquor with fresh fruit, check out this past entry on the subject.

Scallops with Asparagus

Last weekend my best friend since babyhood crashed at my apartment as she stopped through New York after a writer’s conference upstate. Stef has the single girl status that I never really tried on in adult life since I met Will when I was 20 years old. Her stories are fun, her going out wardrobe is built for the hunt, and I enjoy the vicarious thrill of knowing her. Not only did she have a new crush to dish about, she actually brought him with her for the first few hours of her stay. He was gorgeous, Irish, and an honest to God poet. They met at the writer’s conference and he had the day to kill before his flight back to Ireland. Being the generous person that she is she decided the polite thing to do was to keep him with her as long as humanly possible. I was given 20 minutes notice of his visit, and had to do the apartment scan pretty fast. I had planned on a guest who had known me since diapers, so shoes on the floor and some empty wine bottles wouldn’t have been problematic. Now I had to make her gentleman caller believe he wasn’t in the apartment of both an alcoholic and a slob. The imposition was forgiven at the introduction, however. The man’s brogue alone was nearly enough to cause a girl’s clothes to just fall off. Stef and I could barely keep from swooning, and I think I even caught Will in a half swoon once…maybe three quarters of a swoon…it was at least five eights. I know that.

When I asked for the details, however, they were a bit disappointing. The connection had stayed one of artistic respect and cerebral discourse. So much for my vicarious thrill. When I delved for details I'm not sure what she would have done with that boy anyway, he was a vegetarian who abstained from both caffeine and alcohol. I’m not so sure he’s Irish…or a poet…let alone both at the same time. Damn him for not fitting into any of my cultural stereotypes. His dedication to forgo booze and coffee made it somewhat difficult to keep him entertained for 4 hours as it took both my cool bars and indie coffee shops off my list of “New York places to impress out-of-towners.” Thank God I didn't try to feed him.

Honestly, what does one do (outside the bedroom) with a man like that? Especially considering that you are immediately handicapped because you can't ask him up for a cup of coffee! Even if you get past the fact that you can't temper nerves and talk over a glass of wine, what do you do when your go-to seduction meal involves the death of a small animal? When one has a skill, they like to share that with the people they love. I find there to be two main reasons for this. The first is to win returned affection, to impress, to win praise and perhaps, yes, to seduce. The second is the belief that good food is good for a person, not necessarily in the nutritional sense—though that is certainly part of it—but in the sense that a well made dish will smooth away life's edges and create a feeling of safety and happiness. Like my mother before me I am fully committed to the idea the food can fix problems and heal pain. When Stef settled into my apartment I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Stef, like all those who graduated college in the past three years, has had the extreme misfortune to hit this workforce in the most god awful recession this country has seen in generations. On top of that she is 24, which just means the unpleasantness of navigating a mine field of men, life changes, and general grown up fuckery that they don't warn you about in the dorms. Under extreme stress lately she confessed that her appetite had completely abandoned her. I pulled on my apron (I own 2 aprons, yet another reason the women's movement should stone me) and prepared to fix things the only way I knew how. Sauteed Scallops and Asparagus in a White Wine Butter Sauce.

Stef and I share years of our mothers feeding us a steady diet of seafood every summer of our formative years; she's the only person I know other then myself who can rip a crab apart neatly in under three minutes flat. While Will mixed drinks and Stef tried to convince herself that a transatlantic booty call was a brilliant idea for the unemployed, I sliced asparagus into half inch pieces. As she dreamed about his gaze following her as we exited Penn Station in a scene similar to a 1940’s movie earlier, I sprinkled salt and pepper on scallops. And as she expressed displeasure over the fact that if fate didn't deal her a guy who was a distant emotional jackass then it just dealt her a guy who was just plain off at a distance, I simmered white wine and swirled in butter. One catharsis later and we sat down to dinner.

Scallops with Asparagus
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine

Ingredients:
- 1 lb medium asparagus, ends trimmed, cut into 1/4 inch thick diagonal slices, tips whole
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 lb large sea scallops, tough ligament removed from side if attached
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup white wine
- 2 teaspoon white-wine vinegar
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions:


Pat scallops dry and sprinkle with pepper and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add 1 Tablespoon oil to skillet and heat over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then saute half of scallops, turning over once, until browned and just cooked through, 4 minutes per side. Transfer scallops with tongs to another plate as cooked.

Wipe out skillet with paper towels, then add remaining Tablespoon oil and heat until hot, but not smoking and cook remaining scallops as before. Do not wipe out skillet after second batch.

Carefully add wine and vinegar to skillet (might spatter) and boil, scraping up brown bits, until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons, about 1 minute. Add any scallop juices accumulated on a plate and bring to a simmer.

Reduce heat to low and whisk in butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, until incorporated. Add asparagus and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until heated through, about 1 minute.

Serve scallops topped with asparagus and butter.

The dish was a savory, buttery, indulgent, and satisfying medicine. It didn't replace the man from Ireland, but it was delicious and it expressed exactly what I wanted it to express: That her best friend loved her and would exert effort to create something that would bring her happiness, if only for a few delicious minutes. On that night, that is what my cooking was all about. . Using food as a means of emotional healing. Well, that and I make damn good scallops. While being a culinary healer, why not satisfy yourself in the process?