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rivkaI'm waiting to post a full trip report of our visit to Edmonton and the Canadian Rockies when we have all our pictures loaded, but I promised ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
therealjae that I would not further delay posting about our adventures in cream of crab.
When she visited Baltimore, we took her to a French-Asian restaurant called the Purple Orchid. Little did any of us know that the cup of cream of crab soup she ordered would change her life forever... but in fact she ended up with a bit of an obsession and a passionate longing for more.curiousangel and I debated whether it would be possible for us to pack an order of cream of crab soup in ice and smuggle it through Canadian customs when we visited. I decided that it would be better to call the restaurant and beg for the recipe. Surprisingly enough, the chef was willing to dictate the instructions to me over the phone.
He began with "cream of crab soup, very easy." And, in broken English, he described a complicated yet vague set of procedures and ingredients. It was pretty clear that he doesn't typically make this soup in small batches, and has never seen a written recipe for it in his life.therealjae and I decided to do our best to decode the recipe and make the soup. I researched some other cream of crab soup recipes online, trying to flesh out the instructions, but most of them don't start with whole crabs so it was a bit difficult to generalize.
We managed it, though.
The "recipe" called for 10 whole crabs.therealjae was incredulous, which I understood only after I'd seen the crabs on sale at her local supermarket. Let's just say that Dungeness crabs are a wee bit bigger than Maryland blue crabs. We bought two Dungeness crabs, weighing in at a total of about 2 1/4 kilos, and had the fish counter person steam them for us.
Back intherealjae's kitchen, curiousangel presented a crab picking clinic for minnaleigh. The two of them (with a little help from me) removed all the meat from the shells - we wound up with a generous plateful, which we set aside. Picking the crabs took a long time. minnaleigh then crushed the leg and claw shells vigorously with a heavy marble rolling pin. The crushed pieces went into the stock pot with a few cloves of chopped garlic and about two quarts of water. We boiled the stock for about forty minutes, reducing it by half, and were left with a sweet and not overly tasty broth. At this point, I think we were all a little dubious that the soup would taste good.
I strained the stock and added 1/3 as much milk - so, in this case, a third of a quart. While I was doing that,therealjae and minnaleigh melted 1/4 pound (one stick) of butter in a skillet and stirred in 1/4 pound flour. This was supposed to make a roux, but it looked more like a crumbly dough. As we heated the soup, we added the roux a little at a time, whisking constantly.
We were supposed to let it boil and then cook it for twenty minutes, but after stealing a few tastes and getting only an impression of floury milk, I got nervous. We decided to go ahead and add the plateful of lump crab meat to improve the crab flavor. We also started seasoning with salt and pepper - add a little, taste, correct the seasoning. By the end of the twenty minutes, it was definitely tasting like crab soup - but incredibly thick and heavy.
At that point, we started adding heavy whipping cream. We poured a little, stirred, and tasted. I think we wound up putting in about 1/3 pint (excuse me, 1/3 of a 500-ml container), but we weren't really measuring - just going by taste and by eye. At some point, a strange alchemy occurred: the taste went from "yeah, that's some decent cream of crab soup" to sudden weak-kneed ambrosial delight.
"I think it's done," I managed to say. Tastes all around. Everyone agreed that it was done, with slightly stunned expressions.
In the bottom of each soup bowl, we put a couple of tablespoons of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry. Then we spooned the soup over the top. It was still very thick, and rich with big lumps of crabmeat.
I can't really manage to express how it tasted. My eyes still glaze over at the memory. For a brief period of time, I considered leavingcuriousangel to be monogamous with my soup. The urge to monogamy passed, but my devotion remained. It's the best single dish I have ever made in my life. I'm still amazed that we were able to replicate that recipe ourselves, in therealjae's kitchen. It was an afternoon of work, but it was so worth the effort. Try it yourself. You'll believe me.
[1] It's the Mock Turtle's song in chapter 10 of Alice in Wonderland.
therealjae that I would not further delay posting about our adventures in cream of crab.When she visited Baltimore, we took her to a French-Asian restaurant called the Purple Orchid. Little did any of us know that the cup of cream of crab soup she ordered would change her life forever... but in fact she ended up with a bit of an obsession and a passionate longing for more.
curiousangel and I debated whether it would be possible for us to pack an order of cream of crab soup in ice and smuggle it through Canadian customs when we visited. I decided that it would be better to call the restaurant and beg for the recipe. Surprisingly enough, the chef was willing to dictate the instructions to me over the phone. He began with "cream of crab soup, very easy." And, in broken English, he described a complicated yet vague set of procedures and ingredients. It was pretty clear that he doesn't typically make this soup in small batches, and has never seen a written recipe for it in his life.
therealjae and I decided to do our best to decode the recipe and make the soup. I researched some other cream of crab soup recipes online, trying to flesh out the instructions, but most of them don't start with whole crabs so it was a bit difficult to generalize.We managed it, though.
The "recipe" called for 10 whole crabs.
therealjae was incredulous, which I understood only after I'd seen the crabs on sale at her local supermarket. Let's just say that Dungeness crabs are a wee bit bigger than Maryland blue crabs. We bought two Dungeness crabs, weighing in at a total of about 2 1/4 kilos, and had the fish counter person steam them for us.Back in
therealjae's kitchen, curiousangel presented a crab picking clinic for minnaleigh. The two of them (with a little help from me) removed all the meat from the shells - we wound up with a generous plateful, which we set aside. Picking the crabs took a long time. minnaleigh then crushed the leg and claw shells vigorously with a heavy marble rolling pin. The crushed pieces went into the stock pot with a few cloves of chopped garlic and about two quarts of water. We boiled the stock for about forty minutes, reducing it by half, and were left with a sweet and not overly tasty broth. At this point, I think we were all a little dubious that the soup would taste good.I strained the stock and added 1/3 as much milk - so, in this case, a third of a quart. While I was doing that,
therealjae and minnaleigh melted 1/4 pound (one stick) of butter in a skillet and stirred in 1/4 pound flour. This was supposed to make a roux, but it looked more like a crumbly dough. As we heated the soup, we added the roux a little at a time, whisking constantly.We were supposed to let it boil and then cook it for twenty minutes, but after stealing a few tastes and getting only an impression of floury milk, I got nervous. We decided to go ahead and add the plateful of lump crab meat to improve the crab flavor. We also started seasoning with salt and pepper - add a little, taste, correct the seasoning. By the end of the twenty minutes, it was definitely tasting like crab soup - but incredibly thick and heavy.
At that point, we started adding heavy whipping cream. We poured a little, stirred, and tasted. I think we wound up putting in about 1/3 pint (excuse me, 1/3 of a 500-ml container), but we weren't really measuring - just going by taste and by eye. At some point, a strange alchemy occurred: the taste went from "yeah, that's some decent cream of crab soup" to sudden weak-kneed ambrosial delight.
"I think it's done," I managed to say. Tastes all around. Everyone agreed that it was done, with slightly stunned expressions.
In the bottom of each soup bowl, we put a couple of tablespoons of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry. Then we spooned the soup over the top. It was still very thick, and rich with big lumps of crabmeat.
I can't really manage to express how it tasted. My eyes still glaze over at the memory. For a brief period of time, I considered leaving
curiousangel to be monogamous with my soup. The urge to monogamy passed, but my devotion remained. It's the best single dish I have ever made in my life. I'm still amazed that we were able to replicate that recipe ourselves, in therealjae's kitchen. It was an afternoon of work, but it was so worth the effort. Try it yourself. You'll believe me.[1] It's the Mock Turtle's song in chapter 10 of Alice in Wonderland.
