Yesterday Karl, Alex and I went down to Coastal Seafoods at the Snelling/Grand crossing - a great little spot with seafood, a wonderful cheese shop literally called The Cheese Shop and a Breadsmith. You can get a whole meal (sans vegetable) in one stop. I particularly love their Eauforia Sheep aged Gouda - it's marvelous!.
So we went to Coastal, it was packed and my favorite fish monger was working! This guy is so nice - he gives me the "best", cheery picks the clams/oysters and usually gives me a bakers bakers bakers dozen of muscles. When I first purchased oysters he brought me back behind the counter and showed me how to open them. I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was only wearing a g-string and some pasties. He also showed me how to scale a fish, he dispatches the lobsters for me and picks the best females so they are sweet and juicy. In this regard size doesn't really matter. lol
Anyhizzle - the place was packed and it was late on Thursday so I was worried about what was going to be left. They get their weekly shipment on Thursdays and it seems the only time I can get Kumomoto Oysters or blue-shelled crabs. Today rolled the dice and only won once on the crabs.
Here is the diva part of the story: the place was packed but when I walked in Jeff yells over the crowd "Heya Brandie! How you been? What's going to be on your menu today?". Dude - I know it's totally juvenile and basically socially unacceptable to skip to the front of the line - but hey - I have spent more money than I can freely admit and I totally take their advice so what I can say? They like me.. they really like me!!! Whoot whoot!
I grabbed one of their baguettes (they are the best I have ever had in my life) and some pate (Nueske's) and as we checked out we both held our noses in the air and had a brief discussion about how wonderful Hotel Crabs are, how it was going to be prepared and why charcuterie is so popular. I mean who doesn't like a good wiener right?
So I had my total snobby foodie diva moment and if the idea is stroke people's ego in order to keep them coming back I am totally 100% on board!
So what did we do with the crabs? It's so simple it's crazy and they are unbelievable!!!
The cool story with soft shelled blue crabs is that once a year these little crabs shed their hard shells and for a very very short period of time when they have their old shells off and their new shells have not hardened you can literally eat the whole damn thing - legs and all. I do however recommend dressing the crab by taking out the eyes and gills- but leave the yellow stuff it is really tasty.
Once the crabs are clean (they come that way at Coastal but I do check to make sure it is clean) heat up your grill to med, melt a half stick of butter for 4 crabs and then add 1 tsp. tobasco sauce to the butter for basting.
These crabs will cook super quick and the legs will char first so keep a close eye on thins and bbq then for no more then 5 min. on each side at most - for Hotels or the larger crabs I do 5 min, but if you get smaller ones you will need to reduce the cooking time. Throughout the bbqing you will baste the crabs with the butter mixture.
You can serve then as an appetizer - fun and a good topic for conversation or you can use them in a main dish - if you do that two or three for each person. Or, in order to hide the texture a bit you can brown bread (chibata is good) and eat them as a sandwich - they are really good like that. I would recommend either one large one or two med/small if you do that.
This is absolutely delicious, easy relatively inexpensive at $3-5 per crab and easy to cook - go for it! If you like crab you will love this.
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