Soft Shell Crabs

Ingredients

• sprinkle with salt and pepper
• roll in crumbs
• fry in smoking hot oil or lard

Method

1. 1

   Remove sand bags and wash crabs.

2. 2

   Wipe dry, sprinkle with salt and pepper, roll in crumbs, dip in egg, roll in crumbs again, and fry for 10 minutes.

3. 3

   Drain and serve with sauce tartare and garnish.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The complete cook book (1900) by Rees, Jennie Day Mrs., page 19. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

SOFT SHELL CRABS. Use them only when freshly caught, as the shells harden after twenty-four hours. Pull off the sand bags and the shaggy substance from the side; then wash, and wipe dry ; sprinkle with salt and pepper ; roll in crumbs, then in egg, again in crumbs, and fry in smok- ing hot lard. SCALLOPED CRABS— NEW ORLEANS. Boil the crabs a half-hour in salted boiling water, then take them out and open them, pick out the meat and chop it up with one-third as much mushrooms and a piece of bread the size of a walnut soaked in stock, to make one piat of crab meat. Heat a tablespoonful of butter and one small onion, grated in a frying pan, and stir to a roux in one teaspoonful of flour. Take from the fire and stir in carefully one small cup of hot milk. Season to taste with salt, black and cayenne pepper and a saltspoonful of dry mustard. Add the powdered yolks of two hard-boiled eggs and one raw egg to the crab meat, and lastly stir in the mushrooms. Cook all together ten or fifteen minutes. Fill your shells 46 The Complete Cook Book. with this mixture. Sift crumbs of cracker dust on top, dot with bits of butter, and brown in a quick oven. Squeeze lemon over them and serve. FRICASSEE OF CRAB. Pound the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs to a pow- der and work into them two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, and a half-teaspoonful of French ' mustard. Then add salt, red pepper and a pinch of mace. Heat three cupfuls of milk to a boil, lift from the fire, and add, gradually, stirring all the time, to the paste just made. Stir in a cupful of crab meat, picked out coarsely, set and cover, in boiling water for five minutes, stirring often. Add a glass of sherry and pour upon thin slices of peeled lemon in a deep dish. SCALLOPED CRABS WITH MUSHROOMS. Cut crabs and "mushrooms into pieces of equal size, to make two cupfuls of crab meat. Heat a large spoon- ful of butter and the juice of an onion in a frying pan and stir to a roux with a small spoonful of flour. Take from the fire and work into a cup of hot milk. Season with salt and red pepper; add the powdered yolks of three hard boiled eggs and the crab meat. Lastly, stir in the mushrooms ; fill the crab shells with the mixture, sift crumbs on top, sticking bits of butter in them and bake in a quick oven. Squeeze lemon juice over them and serve. Hard crabs, like lobsters, must be bought alive and killed just before they are cooked. The most merciful method is to plunge them head downward into boiling water. The first plunge kills them. For boiling cook at least half an hour in salted boiling water. SOFT SHELL CRABS. Lift the shell and remove the spongy substance on both sides, then put your thumb nail under the point of the "apron" and pull it off. The "apron" is a small, loose shell, running to a point in the middle of the un- The Complete Cook Book. 47 der shell. Now wipe the crabs dry ; if they are at all sandy, wash them before removing anything. Do not blanch them, as it entirely destroys their fine flavor. Dip them, while alive, in beaten egg, and then in bread crumbs which have been well seasoned with salt and cayenne. Fry in smoking hot oil or lard

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.