Oyster Stew

Julie, over at Kitchenography, said something the other day that I'm sure most of us on the Eastern Seaboard have been thinking. She said "The making of soup is almost mandatory on snow days." This is part of the prelude to her amazing Carrot and Ginger soup with Lime Creme Fraiche. I must admit, I didn't even know that there was such a thing as Creme Fraiche before reading that recipe. Now I have to go out and find some. I got all the rest of the ingredients this morning.
Anyways, I had a hankerin' for soup as well, and since the kids wanted cheap-o sandwiches, I swung by the grocery and picked up a pint of select oysters. There are precious few "comfort" foods that are more comforting to me than oyster stew. The biggest gripe I have with either store-bought or restaurant oyster stew is that they seem to use so few oysters. This is a very simple, but very focused soup. The oysters are the only substantive ingredient, so don't skimp on them.
It seems a little weird telling someone how to make oyster stew, because around here, it's kind of like telling someone how to make toast. I think everyone in this part of the country knows how to make it. But I'm listing it anyway. It's one of my favorites.

1 pt. select oysters (with the liquor)
1 cup milk
4 Tbsps margarine

First, you'll want to pour off some of the liquor, and save it.
Bring the milk and margarine to a low boil, just until the margarine's melted. Then turn it down to a simmer.
Add about 2 good pinches of salt, (I use kosher salt, but use what you have) and a few turns of fresh ground pepper to taste.
Now add your oysters. Stir all this gently, and taste the broth. If it's real milky, add some of the liquor, a little at a time, until it's got a good oystery flavor. You'll want to simmer this until the edges of the oysters begin to curl.

That's all there is to it! Put it in a bowl, sit in front of the window, and enjoy a good hot bowl of oyster stew while you're watching the weather do it's thing. You really can enjoy winter around here.

Crab Pretzel

When we first moved back here, somebody told my wife about crab pretzels. I hadn't heard of any such thing, but there are a lot of things I haven't heard of. So we went to an Italian place nearby, called "The Olive Tree". It's quite popular locally, for good reason.

One thing about living on the Chesapeake -- every eating establishment makes the "Best crabcakes in Maryland". It doesn't have to be a seafood place. I've seen the signs at bars, family restaurants, truck stops, Italian restaurants, Greek restaurants, you name it. Well, the Olive Tree is no exception.

But a friend of my LCB told her that their crab pretzels were "to die for". (I always hated that phrase). So we went, and she tried it, and of course, she loved it. It's a soft pretzel, smothered in a very rich cheese sauce, with lump crab meat all over it. I enjoy picking the crab meat out of it, but the whole thing is way too rich for me.

Anyway -- I have a recipe for a hot crab fondue, and after trying this crab pretzel, I thought, -- That's not so different from the crab dip I make. If I used a heavy cream in lieu of the wine, it would be just like this.

My recipe for crab dip comes from Recipe Source, and instead of the cayenne, I use Old Bay. So here's how we make the crab pretzel:

Use your favorite soft pretzel, and fix it according to the directions, then put it in a pie pan.

8 oz. cream cheese
1 jar cheddar cheese spread. (like Olde English)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 lb. good crab meat. (none of that artificial stuff here)
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce.
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp Old Bay seasoning.

Set up a double boiler, and melt the cheeses together. Once they melt together, and are nice and smooth, add the cream while stirring. This will thin it out just a bit. Now you can add everything else. Once it's all heated up, pour enough of it over the pretzel to cover it, letting it drip into all the spaces. Now if you like, you can sprinkle some shredded cheddar, or grated parmesan over it, and pop it into the oven at about 400 until the cheese melts. If you're not adding any more cheese, just put it in there for a few minutes to let everything heat up together. When it comes out, just use a spatula to slide it onto a plate, and get all the sauce on there.

This is a really easy dish, and folks will love it.

Seafood Ranchero

Well I promised a west-coast treat, and this is one of my favorites from a grocery store in Alpine, Ca. Daniel's Alpine Creek Market. We always just called it the creek. They had a great deli section, and one of their fish folks used to mix up a type of salsa they called "Seafood Ranchero". I could eat a whole tub of it in one sitting if I wasn't careful. It had teeny tiny shrimp in it, they called them bay shrimp. But here on the Chesapeake, I've never seen them. Maybe they're from the San Francisco bay. Folks here like big shrimp. Shrimp aren't used so much for an ingredient here, as they are the main dish, or a snack food. Around San Diego, they use those tiny shrimp everywhere. Shrimp burritos, shrimp dip, and of course, my favorite salsa. It's all good.

There's something else about this recipe that might make some Marylanders cringe. I use artificial crab meat in it. There's a good reason though, I picked some up today, I believe it was about 3.50 / lb, maybe less. A pound of good lump crab meat on the other hand, was going for around 27.00 / lb. Now you're putting this stuff into salsa. The other flavors are going to wreak havoc on that delicate sweetness that the real crab meat has. Use the fake stuff, it's mostly for texture.

One last thing -- I've seen holy wars break out on the internet over salsa. What makes a "real" salsa, what something should or shouldn't be called. I should tell you up front, -- I don't care. If you think this is more like Pico de Gallo, call it that, you won't hurt my feelings. If you think it's something else, call it that. Heck, for all I care you can call it french-fried apple danish. I really couldn't care less. -- But DO make it and try it. It's really delicious, and one of the things I missed the most when I first moved away from Southern California.


Some notes:
1. I run two of the three tomatoes through a chopper to get a better texture.
2. Chop the onion by hand. DON'T run it through the chopper. Don't chop it too fine, either. A food processor or mechanical chopper will cause a lot more cellular breakdown in the onion, causing more of the onion juice to be released, and the salsa will end up bland.
3. the serrano peppers should be chopped really fine. Use the chopper for them if you like.
4. I can't remember the count for the shrimp, but they should be really small.
5. You can add other seafood to it if you like. Fish, scallops, whatever.

OK, here's the recipe:

3 Big Tomatoes
1/2 - 1 onion
1/4 C. chopped cilantro
1-2 tomatillos
3 Serano peppers (seeded!)
1/2 - 1 clove of garlic (chopped)
2 tsp. cumin (more or less to taste, I probably use more)
juice from 1 Lime
1/2 lb tiny shrimp. (bay shrimp or salad shrimp)
1/2 lb imitation crab meat

Dice your tomatoes
Dice the onion
chop the peppers
quarter the tomatillos and put those through the chopper.
Take 2/3 of the diced tomatoes and chop them further in a chopper or food processor. Put the tomatoes, onion, cilantro, peppers, lime juice and garlic in a bowl and stir it all together.
If the shrimp are small enough, (about the size of your thumb nail) put them in whole. Otherwise, cut them in half or thirds, then put them in the bowl.
Put the imitation crab meat in a chopper or food processor and chop it up. Put it in the bowl.
Add the cumin
Stir everything up again.
Cover and put it in the fridge. The longer it cools, the better it gets.

Gi-Gi's Oysters

Hi everyone. Thought I'd start this off with one of my favorites. When I was a kid, our maternal grandmother was called Gi-Gi. Her name was Georgia, and that's what our grandfather called her, but my older sister couldn't say it that way, and it came out gi-gi. So it stuck.
They lived right behind us in a gorgeous fieldstone house, and every Thanksgiving and Christmas we'd go over for dinner. It was quite the event. Gi-Gi would roast a terrific turkey, complete with all the sides. My favorite side dish was the oysters.
Being from Maryland, I grew up to love oysters. We had blue crabs in the summer, and oysters in the winter. I'd have fried oysters, scalloped oysters, oyster stew, and sometimes you could buy some oysters from a guy selling them out of the back of a pick-up, and take them home, shuck them over the sink, and slurp them off the shell. Winter in Maryland has some horrid weather, but it's pretty much off-set by the fact that you can get fresh oysters in any month that has an 'r' in it.
Anyways, back to Gi-Gi's. Sometimes I'd try to forego the turkey and just fill up on oysters. They were that good. Gi-Gi never looked at a recipe the entire time I knew her. (that I know of) And she surely didn't write anything down. So I asked my sister one time if she knew how to make some of Gi-Gi's dishes. Of course she didn't. Gi-Gi didn't like much help in the kitchen. So we were left to try to figure it out on our own. It took me a while, but this past Christmas I finally figured it out. It's incredibly simple, and I thought I'd use it for my first contribution to this site, as it's a quintessential Chesapeake dish.
For this dish, you'll want to get good oysters. What I mean is, don't try it with those cans of smoked oysters, or other canned oysters that they sell next to the anchovies and sardines. Hoof it over to the fish counter, and look for pint jars of oysters, probably on ice. These oysters are in a briny, viscous liquid, which is called the "liquor". I don't know where it comes from or why it's there. I don't really care. (there are some things it's best not to know) But you're going to need that, so don't get rid of it. When you get ready to put it all together, pour the oysters into a strainer or collander, and collect that liquor in a bowl or measuring cup under the strainer. The directions I'm going to give you will make enough of Gi-Gi's oysters to fill an 8x8 or 9x9 casserole dish. If you have a 9 x 13 dish, you'll probably want to double up. OK, here it is:

1 - 2 pints of good oysters (enough to cover the bottom of your casserole dish)
2 cups of milk
2 sticks of margarine
Saltine crackers.

Preheat your oven to about 350.
Drain the oysters in a collander, and reserve the liquor. Then put the oysters in the casserole dish. In a saucepan, heat up the milk and margarine until the margarine is melted. Once the margarine has melted, pour in some of the liquor, but not too much. Probably about 1/4 cup. You'll want to taste it as you're adding it. It should have a definite oystery taste, but not overpowering. (I made that mistake). Add some salt and pepper to taste. Once this broth suits you, pour it over the oysters, until they're just covered. You'll probably have some left over. Now, take out a sleave of the Saltines, put about 4-5 in each hand, and crush them over the oysters. Do that until the crushed crackers cover the oysters about 1/4 inch thick. The cracker bits should be about dime-sized, not crumbs. Now put them in the oven for about 5-10 minutes. All you want to do here is heat up the oysters. If you cook them too long, they'll shrivel up to itty-bitty things like you see in those cans. (I made that mistake, too) The crackers on the bottom will have soaked up some of the broth, and taste kind of like oystery dumplings. The crackers on top will be crisp, and the oysters -- oh man, the oysters will be like a taste of heaven itself.

Eventually, I'll post some pictures of this. Eventually, I hope this will be a proper food blog. But for now, I just wanted to get things going, and this was always one of my faves. I was so excited when I finally got it right, I had to phone my sister and tell her. You'd have thought I won the lottery.

So that's my first contribution from the Chesapeake, where we currently live. Next I'll post one of my favorites from the West Coast.