King Crab Boil

The other day, Cheryl suggested we have a crab boil. Now, I’ve cooked crab legs before, but never gone full on crab boil. So, with the help of my friend, the internet, I found a bunch of recipes that were all basically the same, with minor alterations here or there, depending on whether the cook was from the east coast (Maine or Maryland) or the gulf coast (Louisiana). 

Here’s the thing. This is a very special treat, because king crab legs are really expensive. For a cheaper alternative, you can use snow crab clusters or make a shrimp boil. But frankly, nothing comes close to the large succulent pieces of crab you get from king crab legs. Anyway, this recipe is basically Old Bay’s own recipe, with a couple modifications that seem very common in other seafood boil recipes.

And if you don’t have a giant pot, you need one. Oh, and a spider strainer.

Spider strainer and large pot, duh

Ingredients

5 quarts (20 cups) water

1 can beer (optional)

½ cup Old Bay

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons salt

1 lemon, divided

1 ½ pounds of little potatoes (I like the Dynamic Duo)

2 large onions, cut into wedges, or 2 cups of thawed frozen pearl onions

12 oz package of smoked sausage (andouille preferred), cut into 2-inch pieces

5 ears fresh corn, shucked and halved crosswise

4 pounds of thawed frozen crab legs

Getting ready

Process

Bring water, beer, Old Bay, cayenne, salt, and half of the lemon (quartered) to rolling boil in a large stockpot (mine is 16 quarts) on high heat. I have a high BTU burner, and this still takes about twenty minutes. While this is going on, prep your vegetables, cut your sausage, and break down the crab legs at the joints (so they will fit in your pan).

Boiling broth, co-starring floating lemons

Add potatoes and onions. Cook 8 minutes. 

Add smoked sausage. Cook 5 minutes. 

Add corn. Cook 4 minutes.

Place the crab legs in the pot on a rack or colander over the boiling water. Cover with a lid and cook for 6 to 10 minutes, or until the crab is completely heated. When they are almost too hot to touch, they should be ready to eat.

Crabs getting a little steamed

Use your spider strainer to fish out all the vegetables. Dump everything on a large platter, like a 13 by 18 baking sheet, for instance. Sprinkle some Old Bay on the corn.

The gang’s all here!

Serve with remaining lemon, melted butter, some of the reserved cooking broth, Old Bay, whatever, and a nice warm baguette. A pair of kitchen shears couldn’t hurt. Oh, and lots of napkins.

Dig in.

The aftermath

And that’s your crab boil. I think we’ll make this about once a year, for a special occasion. It was just plain delicious.

Special thanks to Barbara for taking the pictures (I had my hands full)!

Fusilli Bolognese

For those of you that don’t like a story with the recipe, I apologize, but this one needs a little explaining. First off, it’s not fusilli, which is usually called rotini in the US. Neither is it in a bolognese sauce. And here’s why.

Some years ago, when we were members of a local country club, there was a dish on the menu called “Fusilli Bolognese”. It was one of our favorites. When that chef left, he took the recipe with him, and the dish disappeared from the menu. So I set about trying to recreate it on my own.

First the noodles. They were definitely gemelli, which look like this:

Gemelli

(and a quarter)

By the way, if you want to buy Meijer’s store brand gemelli, it isn’t currently gemelli. I mean, it has gemelli pictured on the box but there are casarecce noodles inside. If you can’t find gemelli, you can use casarecce. They are about the same size and hold the sauce just about right. Or you can use campanelle. Nevertheless…

And then there’s the sauce. After playing around with different things, it’s a pretty simple combination of Italian sausage, tomatoes, and a splash of milk or half and half. That’s it. And the whole dinner only takes about a half hour. No simmering your bolognese sauce for hours. That said, here goes nothing.

Ingredients

3 or 4 links Johnsonville Hot Italian Sausage

3 cups gemelli

1 can Red Gold Roasted Garlic and Onion Diced Tomatoes or whatever brand and flavor you like. This one just tastes right.

Half and Half

Shredded Parmesan Cheese

Process

Start a pan of boiling water.

Peel the sausages.  Brown in a skillet, breaking down into crumbles.

Add the can of tomatoes to the browned sausage, let cook down.  When I originally made the dish, I used to smash the dices while it was cooking. I find it’s a lot easier to just dump the tomatoes in a blender and puree them before adding to the sausage.

While the sausage/tomato mixture is reducing, cook gemelli according to package directions. The package will probably say 8 to 10 minutes. I have found that 9 minutes is basically the perfect texture. Drain the noodles.

After the sausage/tomato mixture has reduced, add a splash of half-and-half.  The resulting sauce will have a nice orange color.

Dump the cooked pasta in the sauce and toss to coat. Put the mixture into a large serving bowl.

Cover the pasta with a good layer of shredded Parmesan. Mix thoroughly.

Add another layer of Parmesan on top.

And you’re good to go!

A Greek Dinner

This is a bonus recipe! Instead of just one, you get three! Because they all go together to make a very nice meal.

Full disclosure: I am not Greek, but I know people with Greek heritage. And yet, I did not learn any of these recipes from them. The shrimp recipe is basically a NYT recipe. I found the spinach rice recipe while following a link about the Mediterranean diet. The fasolakia recipe is a mash-up of two recipes I found on the internet.

I am presenting them in the order you should start. 

Pro tip: Prepare the green beans, potatoes, and spinach before you start anything. Oh, and be sure to dump the potatoes in a large bowl full of water, so they don’t turn brown before you are ready to use them. You could also do all your measuring of spices and whatnot beforehand, mise en place and all that.

Fasolakia (green beans and potatoes braised in tomatoes)

This is the mashup of two separate recipes for fasolakia. One had more interesting seasoning, but involved cooking in an oven-worthy dutch oven. The other was stove top, but rather tamely seasoned.  So I opted for the stove top method and the oven based seasoning.  And anyway, your oven is going to be busy broiling the shrimp.

Ingredients

12 oz package fresh green beans

2 medium potatoes

1 can diced tomatoes with garlic and olive oil (or whatever)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup water

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 bay leaf

Dash of oregano

Dash of cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

Process

Rinse the green beans. Trim the ends and cut into bite size pieces.

Peel the potatoes and cut each into 16 half wedges (i.e. cut each potato in half, then cut each half into eighths). If you are following my earlier recommendation, this is when you dump them in water until you are ready to continue.

You should basically have about as much potatoes as beans. Or close.

Heat the oil in a large pan. Over medium heat, saute the onions until translucent.  Add the garlic and spices.

Add the beans and stir to coat. Add the can of diced tomatoes and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 15 minutes. Stirring occasionally.

Stir in the tomato paste.  Add the potatoes and salt and pepper. Simmer covered another 25 or 30 minutes until potatoes are fork tender. Add additional water if necessary.

That’s it.  You can garnish with fresh parsley if that’s your thing. As leftovers, this is really good with some crumbled feta cheese.

Spinach Rice

Ingredients

10 to 16 ozs of fresh spinach, coarsely chopped

¼ cup olive oil

1 medium white onions finely chopped

2 garlic cloves (or 1 teaspoon prepared minced garlic)

1 cup long grain white

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 bay leaves

2 cups chicken stock (low-sodium preferred)

salt and pepper to taste

Process

I like to use one of those large-ish plastic containers of baby spinach, which is usually 10 or 12 ounces. You can use more spinach depending on taste. Do you want this to be a spinach dish or a rice dish?

Most packaged spinach does not need to be rinsed. But I do like to give it a coarse chop.

In a large saucepan heat olive oil over medium to medium low heat. Add onions, garlic and rice. Saute until onions are translucent. Stir in tomato paste and then add spinach, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Just as if you were sautéing fresh spinach, you have to add it a bit at a time, and keep stirring while it loses some of its volume. I didn’t add the bay leaves or S&P until the spinach had cooked down a bit.  I didn’t want to break the bay leaves.

Pour in chicken stock and cover the saucepan. Simmer until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. This will take 20 to 25 minutes.  Note, this is longer than rice would normally take, but don’t forget that you have fried it a bit. Be careful to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn near the end. Remove bay leaves and serve.

Greek Style Broiled Shrimp (the star of the show)

Ingredients

3 or 4 (or more) garlic cloves (or 1 ½ - 2 teaspoons of minced garlic)

1 teaspoon salt

2 or 3 teaspoons of oregano

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

Black pepper

½ can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano, drained

1 ½ pound peeled shrimp

Feta cheese crumbles

This is a slight modification of a recipe I found on the NYT’s Cooking site.

Process

Move the oven rack close to the broiler. Turn on your broiler.

Mash the garlic into the salt to form a paste. Add the oregano, lemon juice, olive oil and black pepper. Mix well. The original recipe suggests this will still be a paste. It is more like a slurry. Coat the shrimp in the slurry and place on a shallow baking dish.  I just dredged them through the mix. Seemed pretty easy. Add extra oregano if you like. Sprinkle about half a can of the drained tomatoes on the shrimp.

Broil the shrimp 2 to 3 minutes per side. Obviously, this depends on how hot your broiler is and how far away your shrimp are. In my oven, 2 ½ minutes per side is basically perfect.

Sprinkle with feta. Serve.

Pro Tip #2: Serve this with a crusty bread (like warmed ciabatta rolls), so you can sop up the drippings in the pan with your roll. Make everyone know this is allowed. Like the olive oil they bring with your bread at restaurants.

Καλή όρεξη

An Ode to Meatloaf

Unlike most of my posted recipes, this one is going to actually have a couple paragraphs of blog entry. Sorry to those who can’t stand that. But I like meatloaf and want to write about it.

I love meatloaf, as long as it’s good. And my mother made a good one. And that statement is from someone who thinks his mother was not an especially good cook. She never met a steak she couldn’t turn into leather, and she put tomato sauce in macaroni and cheese, for heaven’s sake! But she made a pretty good meatloaf. I asked around the family if anyone had the recipe. The answer was no. But it was probably relatively basic with whatever she had around: ground beef, chopped onions, ketchup, egg, garlic powder, and crushed Ritz crackers instead of breadcrumbs. As an aside, I didn’t ask anyone what my grandmother’s recipe was. Who wants a meatloaf with green olives in it? Exactly.

I was motivated to come up with a meatloaf recipe during a recent trip to Florida. I decided to drive the coastal route through Charlotte, because I was so done with Atlanta traffic. My hotel in Charlotte was just across the street from McKoy’s Smokehouse. Their special of the day was meatloaf, and I am always up for meatloaf. It was terrific. It had a powerful herb flavor to it, which I eventually identified as thyme. I loved it. So when I started tinkering with meatloaf recipes, thyme was an important element.

The recipe I finally settled on was initially based on the Beef Council’s recipe (Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.). Then I combined it with some tips from a NYT recipe by Nigella Lawson (mainly the ground pork). Finally, I added my own modifications, mainly in terms of fresh thyme and chili sauce. And here you go. It takes at least two hours from start to table, in part because I have no concept of a faster way to pluck thyme leaves off of thyme stems.

Ingredients

1 ½ pounds of ground beef 80/20 or 85/15

12 oz ground pork

1 egg, slightly beaten

¼ cup low sodium beef broth

3 teaspoons prepared minced garlic

¾ cup ketchup

2 tablespoons chili sauce

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 cup chopped onion or roughly one medium onion chopped - not more than 1 cup - finely chopped

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

¼ teaspoon dried thyme (I like it thymier but not leafier, hence the additional dried)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

3 or 4 slices of bacon

chili sauce for glaze

Process

Heat oven to 400 degrees. 

Combine meats, garlic, ketchup, beef broth, breadcrumbs, thyme, egg, Worcestershire, chili sauce, onion, salt, and pepper

Put in a 9X5X3 loaf pan. Cover with the bacon strips.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Remove bacon strips and glaze with chili sauce, however much you need to give it a good cover.

If it is drowning, carefully pour off some of the liquid. And I mean drowning. If the liquid has not covered the meatloaf, don’t bother. It will help it stay more moist. Nobody likes a dry meatloaf.

Continue baking another 25 minutes or more until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Keep an eye on it. Because of all the extra liquid ingredients, you may have to eventually do a careful pour off. I did not.

Let cool.

Serve with mashed potatoes and some green beans, and you are in comfort food heaven.

Montreal Steak and Heartland Pepper and Garlic Crusted Pork Tenderloin

No long blog post here either.

I’ve made pork tenderloins dozens of ways, mainly using different types of marinade and then roasting in the oven. This one I kind of made up on my own after reading a recipe that used a cast iron skillet. I used my Dutch oven. This is super savory!

You can find McCormick Montreal Steak everywhere, and Urban Accents’ store locator suggests you can find their products at Walmart, among others.

Ingredients

1 to 1 ½ pound pork tenderloin

2 teaspoons McCormick Montreal Steak seasoning

1 teaspoon Urban Accents Heartland Pepper and Garlic seasoning

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil (not olive oil)

Process

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Prepare the tenderloin by trimming off the silverskin. This is the connective tissue visible along one side of the tenderloin. Also remove other connective tissue on and around the end. There are Youtube videos on trimming tenderloins if this makes you nervous. I promise, it’s easy.

Rub tenderloin with combined seasoning

Sear tenderloin in Dutch oven over medium high heat, 1 ½ minutes per side

Put Dutch oven in oven uncovered.

Use the following times as a guide. Since the tenderloin is being cooked by both the hot air and the hot metal of the Dutch oven, it will cook quickly. Make frequent use of your meat thermometer.

After 7 minutes turn the tenderloin. Cook for another 7 minutes and check the temperature. 140 is fine.

Remove the roast from the Dutch oven and let the meat rest at least 5 minutes before slicing.

Joe’s Famous Ham & Beans

This is a very simple recipe. Long ago, I switched to the quick soak method and have never looked back. Good luck finding dry beans right now, though.

Ingredients

1 16 oz package dry Great Northern Beans

6 cups chicken broth

1 bay leaf

¼ tsp minced garlic

2 tsp parsley flakes

3 Tbsp dried minced onion (or ½ cup chopped fresh onion)

Dash of cayenne pepper

1 12 oz package ham steaks cubed

Chopped onion for garnish

Shredded parmesan or cheddar for garnish

Hot sauce if you like it

Preparation

Pick through beans and rinse well

Put beans, chicken broth, minced onion, garlic, bay leaf, parsley and cayenne in large pan

Bring to a boil

Boil covered 2 minutes

Remove from heat.

Let stand at least an hour (hour and a half would be better) covered.

Return to heat. Add the cubed ham.

Simmer for about an hour or until beans are tender.

Serve with diced onion, shredded cheese and hot sauce as desired.

Goes really good with fresh cornbread or jalapeno cheddar biscuits (as pictured)

Chicken, Italian Sausage, and Rice Soup

There will not be some twenty paragraph blog about how I learned this from my grandmother. The only grandmother I knew put green olives in meatloaf. I rest my case.

Ingredients

2 Italian sausage links, hot or mild, sliced (hot is better)

2 skinless boneless chicken thighs

4 cups low sodium chicken broth (divided)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

½ cup of rice

1 can cannellini beans with liquid

1 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed

Shredded parmesan

Process

Sausage links are easier to slice (and/or peel if you prefer) if they are frozen or particularly cold.

As for the spinach, if you cannot find a large bag of loose chopped spinach, you can use a large butcher knife to cut a frozen package into quarters. The remaining pieces can be bagged and put back in the freezer.

Cook the sausage slices in a saucepan large enough to hold all the ingredients. You may want to add a splash of olive oil. Remove the cooked sausage slices.

Brown the chicken thighs in the remaining oil. A minute and a half per side.

Add 3 cups of chicken broth and the cream of chicken soup. Add the herbs. (I have use dried, but if you like fresh better, go ahead. Can’t translate amounts, sorry.)

Blend it all together. It might be easier to remove the thighs, but I make do without removing them.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 15 minutes or until thighs are done.

In a separate small saucepan, combine the rice and the other cup of chicken broth. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer covered for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Let stand 5 minutes.

When thighs are done, remove them to cool, then cube or shred.

Add everything (chicken, sausage, beans, rice, spinach) back into the pot. Simmer for a few minutes so everything is heated through and the flavors have melded.

Serve with shredded parmesan (optional) and/or croutons.