TulaneLSU's lump crab cheese thing turned crab creamed pasta dish

Dear Friends,

Last week we had quite the discussion on the OT regarding fishing and crabbing Lakeshore Drive. It planted a wordless seed in my mind, a seed I get every September 12. I do not know why, but this date stirs me to eat crab.

I went to the downstairs kitchen to see if we had any. Mother usually keeps at least a container or two at all times because lump crab makes such an easy and delicious appetizer should an unannounced guest arrive at your door. With five minutes of effort and twenty minutes of time, Mother can put together one of her famous crab dishes, which is every bit as good as any you will have at the finest restaurant in town.

Gratefully, I was able to snag one pound of lump crabmeat. Disappointingly, though, it is not the fresh variety, but instead, the pasteurized canned stuff they sell at most grocery stores. This package appeared to come from Sam’s with its country of origin Indonesia. The label says blue swimmer crabs, and the meat looks and tastes much like our Pontchartrain blues. The packing is deceptive, though, as the label occludes the view of 80% of the meat. That which is visible appears to be delectable lump to jumbo lump meat. Once one begins dissecting the contents, though, he sees that most of the package is hardly lump, and much of it is shredded. It will have to suffice.

I am a man restrained by the ingredients in Mother’s kitchen. As some of you know, I do not like following cookbooks because the instructions constrain my creativity. So I grabbed a few items and decided to see what would happen. I was pleased with a recent chicken, cheese, and cream cream dish I made, so I wondered if that would translate to lump crab.



TulaneLSU's Top 10 ingredients and tools to make this dish:
1) One pound of lump crabmeat
2) Leftover aged cheddar
3) Sweet Home Farms cheese, variety. For those of you who do not know about this Baldwin County, AL cheese farm, you must learn. It is the best cheese in America.
4) Cream cheese. I prefer Walmart Great Value brand, but Mother usually buys Philadelphia brand.
5) Tony’s spice.
6) Lemon.
7) Bread crumbs
8) Cast iron pan
9) Oven
10) Knife. I try to use as few instruments, as I hate washing dishes. Mother says we can no longer afford someone to do our dishes, so minimizing your mess will make cleaning easier.

While you set out these ingredients, set your oven to 477 Kelvin. I think it’s high time we switch either to Kelvin or Celsius when measuring temperature. Fahrenheit is hard to spell and lacks the elegance of these other systems.



Shred your cheeses and try to soften your cream cheese. You will end up with an unappetizing clump, but I strongly suggest mixing all the cheeses together at this point, as well as adding the juice from a fresh lemon, bread crumbs, and some Tony’s. On the subject of lemons, has anyone ever asked why we have figured out a way to raise grapes and watermelon without seeds, but no one seems to have mastered the seedless lemon? Sure, you can buy and dirty a lemon squeezer to prevent seeds from getting into your food. It seems the easier solution is to produce seedless lemons. I will start work on this idea in the lab later.



Once thoroughly mixed, spread out the cheese and cream cheese mixture like flattening a dough, so that it touches the edges of the cast iron. At this point, we call upon the optional knife. This step is a luxurious step, which some will say unnecessarily dirties a dish. Use your knife to write your name in the mixture. Like a painting, you should sign all your homemade meals, even if that signature fades during the cooking process.



Now it is appropriate to add your crabmeat. Gently work the meat. Aggressive hands will pulverize that muscle.



Into the oven, please insert the cast iron. I let it cook for 15 minutes.



It came out looking delicious, like a fine crabmeat au gratin, which I do not like. The final product is seen below.



The final product was not very good. The strong cheeses overwhelm the delicate crab, and I just as well could make this dish without the crabmeat and it would taste essentially the same. It furthers my point that the best recipe for crab is a very simple lemon butter or hollandaise sauce or an extremely lightly breaded crabcake or crab clump. This meal today is quite repulsive actually, but I suppose one could do worse for breakfast.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

P.S. After being dissatisfied, like you, my dear friends, with the result of this morning's labor -- I even tried mixing a raw egg with the cheese crab thing -- I decided to return to the drawing board. Ms. Mae taught me, "When things are too thick, make a cream sauce." What she meant by cream sauce was a bechamel sauce. So that is what I did this afternoon, while watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I always avoided the movie because I did not want to see a movie about someone with an awful tattoo, but so far it seems decent and I have seen zero tattoos through 40 minutes.



My bechamel sauce is simple. I use 4 teaspoons of flour and 4 teaspoons of Walmart Great Value brand butter. Heating on 3/10, stirring constantly for about three minutes, the sauce is easily constituted. On another pan, I warmed whole milk, 2.5 cups of it. Once it bubbled, I added it to the roux ingredients.



Stirring the mix another five minutes, it thickens nicely. I took the cheese crab thing from the fridge and then began instilling the bechamel sauce with it, about a handful at a time.



Soon, it was well constituted together, forming a delicious cheesy bechamel crab gravy.



A carb to couch the sauce was now needed. One could probably make a delicious potato crab au gratin dish. It would also make a great fondue-like dip for high quality crackers. But I have about 20 pounds of dried Great Value pasta leftover from my quarantine hoarding, so the choice was simple.



One could parboil the pasta and then finish in the oven for a nice crisp, but I did not feel like dirtying another dish. Instead, I drained the pasta, preserving some of the water to add to the sauce to thin it further. The final step, bringing the carb to the sauce, was done and now I am enjoying this meal.



It is a decadent dish, something one might expect on a special occasion at Rocky & Carlo's. I might even recommend this dish, my friends.