Dishing It Up!

by Victoria Mattson

Victoria Mattson is a local cook, confectionaire and writer. She offers healthy and nutritious recipes and food tips in each issue of North County Outlook. Phone (360) 658-9903 or e-mail victoria@northcountyoutlook.com.

My husband Jim and I are blessed to live where fresh Dungeness crab can be caught and freshly cooked. Jim has much success filling his crab pots during the recreational crab season in the waters of Port Susan. Jim credits his success to a small paperback book that has provided him with a wealth of information (and humor!) on Dungeness crab. The book is "How to Catch Crabs - A Pacific Coast Guide" by Charlie White. This 62-page booklet also offers many helpful tips for cooking and cleaning these delectable creatures.

Of course you can purchase, rather than catch, live crab. Prior to cooking, Jim removes the back shell and entrails. He learned this cleaning technique from Charlie White's book. Crab can also be cooked with the back shell still on.

Either way, to cook fresh crab, bring a large kettle of salted water to boil. Add the crab and cook it in gently boiling water for 15 minutes. Once cooked, cool the crab immediately by putting the kettle under slow-running cold tap water.

To clean the crab, start by pulling off the back shell, if it's still present, and removing the entrails. Next, separate the cooked body meat from the attached leg and claw segments. Body meat can usually be extracted in whole segments after using the heel of your hand to crack and open up the body shell. For the legs and claws, Jim uses the side of a metal meat mallet to gently crack claw and leg shells, making it very easy to extract the crabmeat. Keep a small bowl of cold water on the cracking table and dunk the whole leg and claw segments into the water to rinse away the small shell fragments. With gentle cracking, not many small pieces should be present, but there usually are some.

Since Jim has such good luck catching crab, I have the frequent "challenge" of putting our catch to great use. One of my current favorites is this Crab Cake recipe, patterned after Maryland Crab Cakes. "Authentic" Maryland Crab Cakes do not include onion, celery, or green and red peppers as many recipes call for. This is a very delicate cake, with an intense crab taste, which will fall apart easily if not gently handled.



Dungeness Crab Cakes

1/2 pound lump crabmeat from the claw and leg segments

1/2 pound shredded crabmeat from the body cavity

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 large egg

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley



In a medium bowl, add the shredded (but not the lump) crabmeat. Knead the shredded crabmeat with your hands and remove any shell fragments. Add the mayonnaise, eggs, mustard, breadcrumbs, lemon juice, Old Bay and parsley. Stir until all the ingredients are mixed together. Gently fold in the lump crabmeat.

Fill a 1/3 cup measuring cup with the crab mixture. Tap the mixture out onto a lightly oiled baking sheet and flatten slightly. Continue with the remaining mixture, making a total of 8 cakes (each of which will weigh 3 ounces). Bake at 375˚F for 12 minutes or until lightly brown in color. Once baked, serve immediately by using a spatula to deliver the Crab Cakes gently onto individual plates.

You can also individually wrap each cake in plastic wrap and freeze them prior to baking. To bake the cakes from frozen, double the baking time.