Growing up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, crabs were a real treat when I was a kid, and being only a hundred miles or so from the New Jersey Coast and the Chesapeake Bay, that meant Blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus. They were always cooked live and the meat was…sweet, sweet, sweet – of course, I’d always tear my hands up trying to get every last morsel. My first job out of college was in Northern Virginia, a stones throw away from Washington, D.C., Blue crab heaven. It wasn’t long before I was introduced to both King crab and Snow crab legs, but since they were always the frozen variety, they never stood a chance. I also spent a summer in those first few professional years working in San Francisco, and even though I remember having at least one Crab Louis on Fisherman’s Wharf, the Dungeness crab didn't make a big impression on me. Even when I moved to Chicago, it was freshly boiled Blue crabs or nothing - I eventually, experienced the joys of Florida Stone crab claws, but that’s another story.
I knew Dungeness crab, Metacarcinus magister, was king in the Pacific Northwest even before I moved to Seattle, after all the species is named after Dungeness, Washington. During the years I worked as a banquet chef for a catering company we went through tons of Dungeness crab claw meat, all from No. 10 cans. Even though no preservatives were used, and the meat tasted pretty good, it never seemed to even come close to my Blue crabs. Over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed the delicious flavor of Pacific Rock crab pulled fresh from the California coast near Santa Barbara and cooked the same day without even connecting these experiences to my history with Blue and Dungeness crabs.
I decided that it was time to try Dungeness crab again for New Year’s Day – I planned a Frittata with Fingerling potatoes, Piquillo peppers, and Dungeness crab. My first thought was to just buy the cooked and cleaned crab meat, but at $30/pound, I thought I could do better buying whole crabs. Even though I would never have considered buying cooked Blue crab at a fish market, I considered buying cooked Dungeness, especially since I only buy seafood from markets that move a lot of high quality product.
I went to my favorite market, and they were running a special $6.99 for cooked crab or $5.99 for live crabs from their large tanks. I asked the fish monger how often they cooked the crabs, assuming they cooked a number of the older crabs every day or two, and her response: “we buy them already cooked,” put a lot of things in perspective for me, mainly the fact that they didn’t know how old the cooked or cleaned crab really was. I bought the two live crabs in the picture, and they totaled about 5.2 pounds (about $31). All the Internet sources seemed to indicate that I would get a 25% yield or about 1.3 pound edible meat ,making it just over $24 per pound.
Later that day, I steamed the crabs and cleaned them while drinking sparkling Chenin Blanc from the Loire., what a combination! I was bowled over by the amazing, sweet flavor. As I cleaned the crabs and munched, everything came into focus; I may literally never have had a freshly cooked Dungeness crab before, - or certainly only once in my life 30 years earlier. I had always been comparing the taste of freshly cooked Blue crab with that of canned or previously cooked and stored for god knows how long Dungeness. I even recalled being sent samples of canned Blue Crab from Indonesia when I was a Buyer and not being pleased with it at all, but back them I never put two and two together. Well, I actually got 1.5 pound of meat and the Fritatta was hit - that made it $20 per pound.. The bonus of the deal was crab stock made from the shells, which became the base for a crab and scallop risotto two days later. Dungeness crab, where have I been all your life!!!
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