Category Archives: Culinary feats

Smoked Salmon Quiche and Butternut Squash Pie: Savory and Sweet Breakfast (or Dinner)

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Savory smoked salmon quiche, sweet butternut squash tarts, a strip of smoked salmon and a mug of black French roast coffee make for a hearty Fisherman’s Breakfast. 

Whether served as breakfast, lunch or dinner, we’re big fans of quiche. It’s easy to make, and since it’s delicious either hot or cold, there are no complaints about leftovers. In making this particular quiche, I set out to resolve two questions. First, would smoked salmon that has been frozen and then thawed work well, and second would the Penzeys dried shallots I’d recently gotten live up to their billing. I’m happy to report that the smoked salmon seemed to suffer not at all from freezing, and the dried shallots were flavorful enough to merit making them a standard part of our kitchen here in the Alaskan bush.

For the squash pie, I used a modification of Craig Claiborne’s pumpkin pie recipe that has long served well. Since the baking times and temperatures for these two pies was similar, I baked them together. We had a bit of squash purée and pie crust dough left over, so Barbra used a muffin pan to make a few squash tarts.

Smoked Salmon Quiche

Ingredients:

  • 1 pie crust
  • 4 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 cup shredded Swiss or Gruyère cheese
  • 1/4 cup shallots chopped fine (I used Penzeys dried shallots,which were excellent)
  • 1/2 cup mushrooms, cut into less-than-bite-sized pieces
  • 1/3 to 1/2 pound smoked salmon, cut into less-than-bite-sized pieces
  • 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes, cut into small pieces
  • 1 tsp dried majoram
  • sea salt to taste
  • freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake pie crust for 20 minutes. Halfway through baking, cover edges with aluminum foil or a pie ring to prevent edge of crust from burning.
  2. Remove the pie crust from the oven and set aside.
  3. Turn oven up to 400 degrees F.
  4. Whisk eggs until blended. Add cream, milk, shallots, marjoram, salt and pepper and mix together.
  5. Add mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and smoked salmon, mixing together gently so as not to break up the salmon.
  6. Pour and scrape ingredients into the baked pie crust and place on oven’s center rack. You do not need to place on a baking sheet.
  7. Bake quiche at 400 degrees F. for 15 minutes. Turn down oven to 350 degrees F. and continue baking for 25 – 35 minutes – until a wooden toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.
  8. Serve hot or cold.

Butternut Squash Pie

Ingredients:

  • 1 pie crust
  • 3 cups butternut squash (or pumpkin) purée
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
  • 3 large eggs, lightly whisked
  • 2 tablespoons Bourbon (optional, but very tasty)
  • 1 cup heavy cream

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  2. Have a chilled, unbaked pie crust ready.
  3. Squash purée: Cut away the stem of the squash and discard. Then slice squash into into round discs approximately 1 inch thick. Cut the disks into 4 to 6 parts. When you get to the bulb, remove the seeds and fibrous part and slice into 6 strips as you would a pumpkin or melon. Steam, oven roast or grill the squash until a fork passes easily through the flesh. Let cool and cut off the skin. Use a stick blender, regular blender or food processor to purée the squash.
  4. Combine the purée with all the other ingredients in a large mixing bowl, blend together, and pour into the chilled pie crust.
  5. Place on oven’s center rack. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F. and continue baking for 30 or 40 minutes, until the filling is set. Cracks will begin to appear on the surface of the pie when the filling is set.
  6. Serve warm or chilled, with or without whipped cream.

For a great recipe for making smoked salmon, see Smoked Salmon with Soy Sauce and Brown Sugar Brine.

Smoked Salmon with Soy Sauce and Brown Sugar Brine

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Smoked salmon is a highly anticipated delicacy. With another successful fishing season behind us, I used a tried and true recipe to turn out several pounds worth.

Smoked salmon mousse, smoked salmon omeletes, smoked salmon on pasta, and smoked salmon on crackers are among the many great reasons to set aside a couple of days and smoke part of your catch. Once you’ve done a batch of smoked fish, it’s easy to appreciate why it’s expensive. Smoking takes time. But the results are very much worth it. There’s really not much to our favorite recipe. From year to year and batch to batch, I might vary the amount of garlic or ginger or try a new spice or seasoning. But other than that… well, here it is.

Smoked salmon pizza always draws rave reviews. 

Smoked Salmon with Soy Sauce and Brown Sugar Brine

The basic recipe is 4 parts water to 1 part soy sauce with 1/4 cup sea salt for every cup of soy sauce. Figure about 1 cup brine per pound of fish. Add brown sugar, garlic and ginger to taste. White pepper, cayenne pepper, and other seasonings and spices can be added to create unique brines.

Pyrex clear glass bakeware with their plastic lids is perfect for marinating the fillets. If you’re using a Big Chief or Little Chief smoker, the metal racks fit atop the empty Pyrex containers – and with the fillets atop the racks this setup works well for drying the fillets in the refrigerator prior to smoking.

Ingredients: For eight pounds of salmon, trout, sturgeon or other fish

  • 8 pounds fillets, skin on, rinsed, patted dry, cut into small pieces (a good size is about 3″ x 6″, but smaller or slightly larger is fine)
  • 8 cups water
  • 2 cups soy sauce (Kikkoman is our favorite)
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sea salt or kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1 tbsp ginger

Directions:

  1. Arrange salmon fillets in glass baking dishes or similar non-reactive containers.
  2. Mix remaining ingredients in a large bowl.
  3. Pour mixture over fillets, making sure they are covered, or until they float.
  4. Cover containers and marinate for about 8 hours (or overnight) in the refrigerator.
  5. Remove fillets from brine, pat dry with paper towels, and arrange on racks to dry in the refrigerator for 6 to 8 hours (or overnight)
  6. Smoke fish according to your smoker’s directions with alder wood, mesquite, fruit tree or hickory chips. Check frequently, keeping in mind that air temperature will influence smoking time. Typical smoking times range from 6 to 8 hours. A slightly wet product is best suited for many of the recipes we enjoy. For straight snacking, a drier product may be preferred.

Don’t have a smoker? Excellent smoked fish can be made on a charcoal grill. I’ve done small batches on my little Weber Smokey Joe and larger batches on Weber’s larger models.

Looking for a recipe to use your smoked salmon in? Type “smoked salmon” into the search tool on this page for some great ideas.

Homemade Cloudberry Syrup – For Belgian Waffles and Italian Sodas

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Although ripe cloudberries are golden amber in color, the syrup they produce is a luminescent dark pink. Thick and flavorful, mixed with carbonated water, the syrup makes refreshing Italian sodas. This morning, it topped our Belgian waffles.

We’ve already turned about 20 pounds of freshly picked cloudberries (click here to see cloudberry photos) into two kinds of jam as well as sorbet. Our most recent venture out on the tundra yielded another eight pounds that I hadn’t counted on. When I asked a berry-picking friend what she thought I should make, she enthusiastically replied, “Syrup!”

The syrup, which is easy to make, turned out a beautiful dark pink color. I hadn’t expected this because the fruit I started with was a lovely salmon color. The seeds seemed to color the juice. I made freezer jam with the remaining pulp in order to save every luscious part of the berries. I thought if the “pulp jam” didn’t look good, it could still be used as a key ingredient in fruit breads. Any kind of berries could be used to make this syrup with an adjustment to the amount of sugar used.

Aqpik (Cloudberry) Syrup

Ingredients: (Yields 4 cups syrup)

  • 10 cups of berries
  • 4 cups of water
  • 3 cups granulated sugar

Directions

  1. Place berries and water in a large pot. Cook on medium high heat.
  2. Boil berries for about 15 minutes.
  3. Line a strainer with cheesecloth. Elevate strainer over a bowl so that syrup can drain through cheesecloth and into the bowl. (I used a strainer that stands by itself set on a wire cooling rack set on a large mixing bowl.)
  4. Place berries in pot and puree them using an immersion or stick blender.
  5. Pour pureed berries and all liquids from pot into cheesecloth lined strainer.
  6. Let berries sit in strainer for at least two hours to drain off liquid.
  7. Take the liquid that has drained into the large mixing bowl and put it in a pot.
  8. Add sugar to the pot.
  9. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until syrup boils.
  10. Skim off any foam and discard.
  11. Pour juice into canning jars to freeze or into decorative bottles to refrigerate.

Halibut with Smoked Chipotle Blue Cheese and Pine Nuts

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Smothered in a mixture of tangy blue cheese, crunchy pine nuts and fiery, smokey peppers, a fillet of halibut, rockfish, snapper or walleye has no chance when placed in front of hungry diners. Here a fillet of black rockfish is served on a bed of black rice.

This year we brought up several wedges of Rogue Caveman Bleu Cheese to Point Hope. This is good stuff, thick and creamy with complex flavors ranging from smoked bacon and butter to sweet fruit. I’ve been eager to use it in cooking, and last night it made its debut on a thick fillet of perfectly flaky black rockfish – one of our favorite fish. Substitute the more traditional halibut for this bleu cheese recipe, or try it with walleye, snapper, porgy or red drum (redfish). Luck into some nice-sized crappie? This twist on the standard bleu cheese topping is just the ticket.

While cayenne pepper powder alone works fine, the wood-smoked chipotles (available from Penzeys Spices) in the following recipe gave this dish a delectable aroma and flavor. Leaving the seeds in the arbol chili kicked up the heat.

Ingredients (Serves 2 to 4):

  • 1 pound halibut fillet, cut into 2 to 4 pieces
  • 1/2 cup bleu cheese, crumbled
  • 1/3 cup chopped pine nuts (or pecans, almonds or walnuts)
  • 1 whole, dried arbol chili pepper, crushed (or 1/2 tsp cayenne powder)
  • 2 smoked, dried chipotle chili peppers, seeds removed, crushed (or use unsmoked chili peppers)
  • 1 tsp dried tarragon, crushed
  • 1 tsp dried marjoram, crushed
  • a few grind of black pepper
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • additional olive oil for sautéing the mixture

Directions:

  1. Rinse fillets, pat dry with paper towels and set aside.
  2. Set oven on broil and preheat a broiling pan.
  3. In a non-reactive bowl (glass works well) mix together the bleu cheese, pine nuts, spices, herbs and sugar.
  4. Add some olive oil to a small frying pan and heat over medium-low to low heat. Add bleu cheese & pine nut mixture, stirring and turning until cheese is melted.
  5. Add minced garlic and lemon juice to the mixture, cooking for about 1 minute while combining thoroughly. Remove pan from heat and cover with a lid.
  6. Place fillets on broiling pan. Fillets should sizzle when they touch the pan. Broil for about 5 to 7 minutes, depending on thickness of fish. Fish should just be turning opaque when cooked through.
  7. Cover fillets with bleu cheese mixture and continue to broil for 2 to 3 minutes.
  8. Serve piping hot.

We served the fillets on black rice. It was a coin flip between that or saffron rice. This would pair well with a chilled, slightly sweet Gewürztraminer.

Salt Encrusted Whole Fish Stuffed with Shrimp

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Pesce al Sale – Whole fish baked in a salt crust.

I’d read about this simple yet dramatic presentation for many years, but only got around to trying it when a recipe appeared in the June issue of Field & Stream magazine, which I subscribe to. The basic cooking method is a breeze and could easily be prepared onboard a boat or at camp. It is a show stopper when placed on the dining table, both in terms of the beautiful presentation and in terms of the incredibly moist, flavorful fish that results.

Encased in salt and egg white paste, the fish is ready for the oven.

While I had on hand a two pound yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus) which was perfect for this recipe, there are many fish which would work as well. The first that comes to mind are the true porgies – fish in the genus Pagras and Acanthopagrus. In Britain, these fish are commonly known as sea bream. In Japan, they’re are known as tai, and I would love to place a whole salt-crusted madai or kurodai on the table for Japanese guests, who typically revere these fish. Snapper, walleye, striped bass, pompano, black sea bass and even a firm-fleshed Coho salmon would all work well. A halibut just small enough to fit on a large oven tray and served this way would surely draw oohs and aahs.

About a half an hour later, the fish is ready to serve. 

Keep in mind that the best fish dinners start with the freshest fish possible. Good fish should smell as fresh as the sea they came from. Sadly, most American grocers still haven’t figured this one out, so if you’re having trouble finding good fish, try to locate a Japanese grocery store or an Asian market that sells to Japanese customers. Whole Foods and specialty butcher shops also usually carry quality, fresh fish. Costco, too, sometimes carries whole fish and can generally be depended on for a fresh product.

Voila! The dull side of a knife is used to crack and remove the crust, revealing a succulent fish that wants only a drizzle of olive oil and a squirt of lemon.

Figure about one pound of cleaned, gutted whole fish for every two diners. Thus, a two-pound fish will serve four.

Salt-Crusted Whole Fish with Shrimp

Ingredients: Serves 4

All you really need are the first four ingredients. The others are optional and can be omitted entirely or substituted freely.

  • One 2-pound (.9 kilogram) fish, scaled, gilled and gutted but otherwise left whole
  • 4 egg whites
  • 2 cups sea salt
  • a good-tasting extra virgin olive oil
  • parchment paper and baking sheet or baking platter
  • lemon wedges (preferably from Meyer lemons)
  • 1/4 pound shrimp, peeled (optional)
  • tarragon – either 1 or 2 sprigs fresh or 1 tsp dried & crushed (optional)
  • 1 tsp dried marjoram (optional)
  • 1 or 2 bay leaves, crushed (optional)
  • freshly ground pepper (optional)
  • additional sea salt (optional)

Directions:

  1. Line a baking sheet or platter with parchment paper.
  2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. (232 degrees Celsius)
  3. Use paper towels to pat the fish dry. Use a brush (a clean tooth brush works well) to remove all traces of viscera from the stomach and head cavity. Rub cavity with salt, pepper and crushed tarragon, if desired, or place a sprig or two of fresh tarragon in the cavity. Stuff with the shrimp. Set fish aside.
  4. Whip the egg whites until they from stiff peaks.
  5. Gently fold the salt (and the crushed bay leaves and marjoram, if desired) into the egg whites until a paste is formed.
  6. Spread about 1/3 of the salt paste on the parchment paper in a shape large enough to hold the entire fish.
  7. Place the fish on the salt paste and completely cover with remaining salt paste.
  8. Bake for 25 minutes. Turn oven off and continue baking for five minutes. Remove fish from oven, place on dining table and allow it to rest for another 5 to 10 minutes.
  9. Remove crust by cracking it open with the dull side of a knife. The crust can be lifted off with a spatula, large spoon or wide knife blade. The top layer of the fish will easily lift away from the bones.
  10. Serve with lemon wedges and drizzles of extra virgin olive oil.

We served the fish with oven-roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables. This dish would be fun with Margaritas.

Rockfish Meunière on Whole Wheat Pasta

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A fillet prepared à la meunière and served on pasta is one of our favorites when cooking with firm, delicately flavored white fish. We modify the traditional recipe, which means “miller’s wife” (descriptive of the flour this method employs) by using olive oil instead of butter and by skipping the lemon and butter finishing sauce.

Our three favorite methods for preparing fish, in no particular order, are as follows: sashimi – raw, thinly sliced fish dipped in a soy sauce and wasabi mixture; shioyaki – fish salted and then broiled or grilled; and à la meunière – dredged in seasoned flour and pan fried. These three preparation methods are the epitome of simplicity, emphasizing the freshness of the fish rather than sauces or seasonings, and can be accomplished in even the most bare-bones of kitchens. While they won’t adequately cover every species of fish (some species do well only when poached, and a few others shine best when deep fried), they are good methods to have in one’s repertoire.

A collar – the meat just behind the fish’s head, including the pectoral and ventral fins – is a good candidate for meunière. Pictured is the collar from a two to three pound yelloweye rockfish.

Each cooking method works particularly well with certain species of fish. Chinook salmon, for example, is a superb fish for shioyaki and a much underutilized sashimi fish. Yellowtail and other tuna are excellent served as sashimi. When you think of meunière, think of fish that is white, firm but not dense, and mildly or even delicately flavored. Some of the best candidates are sole, flounder, greenling and Pacific rockfish in the genus Sebastes such as black rockfish, copper rockfish, yelloweye and so forth.

Rockfish à la Meunière on Pasta for Two

Ingredients:

  • two fish fillets 1/4 to 1/2 pounds each (110 to 230 grams), cleaned, skin removed, rinsed and patted dry with paper towels. Do not use a thick cut of fish for this. The fillets should be fairly thin – less than an inch thick (2.5 cm) as opposed to using part of a fillet from a large fish.
  • 1/3 cup semolina flour. (All-purpose or other flour is fine, but semolina will result in a very pleasant additional crunch and fuller texture to the finished fillet.)
  • 1/2 tablespoon herbs de Provence, plus 1 teaspoon herbs de Provence, separate
  • 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
  • 3 to 6 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
  • 2 tablespoons pine nuts (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • olive oil for frying
  • enough pasta for two servings
Directions:
  1. Cook pasta according to directions. Drain off water, return to pot and toss with about 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and 1 teaspoon herbs de Provence. Set aside. (Or do this simultaneously while cooking the fish.)
  2. In a plastic Ziplock bag, or in a mixing bowl or on a plate, mix together the flour, 1/2 tablespoons herbs de Provence, salt and freshly ground pepper.
  3. Thoroughly dredge the fillets in the flour mixture and set aside on a plate or cutting board. Left over flour can be used as a bed for the fillets.
  4. In a frying pan large enough to hold both fillets, add olive oil to about 1/8 inch depth. Heat over medium to medium-low until oil causes a pinch of flour to sizzle.
  5. Position fillets in pan making sure they do not touch. Cook uncovered over medium to medium-low heat for about 3 to 5 minutes.
  6. Carefully turn the fillets over. Add garlic slices and pine nuts and continue cooking for 3 to 5 minutes. The first few times you cook fish this way, you may have to break the fillets apart to check for doneness as it will vary depending on thickness, type of fish and cooking temperature.
  7. Place pasta on dinner plates. Remove fillets from pan and place on pasta. Use a slotted spoon to separate garlic and pine nuts from oil and sprinkle on fish and pasta.
  8. Serve hot with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

We served the pasta and fillet with a side of fish collars, also prepared à la meunière, and brussels sprouts sliced in half, seasoned with salt and pepper, and pan roasted. This is a simple yet elegant meal that can be prepared in a galley, on a camp stove, or in virtually any kitchen.

Zaru Soba with Alaskan Scallops and Shrimp

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Zaru soba (chilled buckwheat noodles) dressed up with fresh seafood makes for a quick but elegant meal. 


A challenge inherent to preparing meals onboard a boat or in a camper is that the stovetops tend to be small, and while this doesn’t necessitate limiting preparation to one or two pans, it steers a cook in that direction. Meals featuring something on a bed of noodles really shine, and one of our favorite types of noodles are soba – which is the Japanese word for buckwheat. Being thin, soba cooks quickly, and since zaru soba is served chilled, it’s no problem to rinse the noodles and set them aside while other food is prepared.

In the past, I’ve made this dish with salmon, halibut and rockfish. On this more recent occasion, I had large Alaskan scallops and fresh Alaskan shrimp on hand. Instead of serving the dish on traditional bamboo (the origin of the word zaru), I opted for pasta bowls.

Zaru Soba with Alaskan Scallops and Shrimp

Ingredients:

  • soba for two people
  • 1/4 pound shrimp, peeled
  • 1/4 pound sea scallops
  • 1/2 cup tsuyu (a dipping sauce available in the Asian section of most grocery stores). Divide into equal parts.
  • 1 sheet of nori (dried seaweed), cut into thin strips
  • 1/4 cup dry sherry or sake
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • 1/2 tbsp Thai seasoning
  • 1 tbsp fresh tarragon chopped course or 1 tsp dried tarragon (optional)
  • 1 green onions, sliced thin

Directions:

  1. Place scallops and shrimp in a mixing bowl. Add Thai seasoning and tarragon and toss together. Set aside.
  2. Boil soba according to the directions on the package. I use much less water than most directions call for and the noodles come out fine, but do salt the water.
  3. When the noodles are finished, pour them into a colander to drain and then rinse with cold water.
  4. Place noodles in pasta bowls. Add tsuyu to each bowl, tossing the noodles in the sauce.
  5. Heat a little olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. When oil is hot, add the seasoned scallops and shrimp. Add sherry or sake. Cook for about 1 minute, using a spatula to briskly stir and turn seafood.
  6. Place seafood on noodles. Top with sliced green onions and nori strips and serve. Alternatively, the cooked seafood can be chilled prior to adding to the noodles.

This dish and its variations has become a family favorite. It pairs beautifully with a Willamette Valley Pinot Gris or a crisp Sauvignon Blanc.

Prosciutto, Salami & Capicola with Egg and Cheddar on an Onion Bagel

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Our first breakfast is served aboard Bandon: Toasted asiago cheese bagels with melted Tillamook cheddar cheese, coarsely ground mustard, onion, cream cheese, avocado, a fried egg and three kinds of Italian-style meat – prosciutto, salami and capicola. 

Time for a good sandwich.

We spent about a week giving the sailboat a thorough cleaning as well as moving items off the boat that had been left behind by previous owners and moving aboard the things that will make this boat our home. We finished this process in time for daughter Maia’s visit, and when we returned to Seward with her from the Anchorage airport, we spent our first night aboard.

The next morning I made these bagel sandwiches for our breakfast. I began by toasting the sliced bagels in a large pan with a little olive oil, turning them once and adding thin slices of cheddar cheese to melt. Next, I removed the bagels from the pan and added coarse ground mustard, cream cheese and soft, ripe avocado. With the cheeses and spreads in place, I then added a thinly sliced onion and a generous amount of Italian-style hams: prosciutto, salami and capicola. The final touch was a fried egg.

Big, Fluffy Blueberry One-Pan Pancakes

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The one pancake to a pan pancake: Half of one makes for a hearty breakfast. Perfectly crispy on the outside, light and fluffy and jammed full of fruit on the inside, served with a couple strips of thick bacon and maple syrup, who needs the other food groups? Well, coffee…

I’ve been messing around with pancakes for a long time. Here’s what I now think I know about making the perfect pancake.

First, while one can make them from scratch, there is no reason to. Krusteaz has come up with a mix that nails it. We buy Krusteaz mix in bulk at Costco and enjoy waffles or pancakes – or both – once or twice a week.

Second, put the butter in the pan, not on the pancake. Pancakes fry up crispier, turn a lovely golden brown, and taste more decadent when fried in roughly equal parts light olive oil and butter.

Third, the right pan makes a big difference. Barbra and I have become big fans of Swiss Diamond nonstick cookware. The pans are thick and heavy, so food scorch is avoided, and once they heat up, they cook with incredible evenness.

Fourth, do your best to get away with as little water and as little mixing as possible. The result is a fluffier pancake.

Fifth, forget medium heat. Low and long is the way to go. I start on medium-low, and then go a little lower than that, giving the cake time to rise without burning.

Sixth, one big pancake cooks up better – in every regard – than several small ones. Think 11 1/2″ pan and enough batter to cover most of it. Big pancakes can hold more fruit per volume and rise up higher and fluffier than smaller pancakes. (Get a big spatula, and be ready for a little splatter when you flip the cake.)

And finally… Fruit. Adding a generous amount of fruit to the batter lends more than just the added flavor and texture of the fruit itself to the cake; it also adds a creaminess that a fruitless pancake cannot match. Whole blueberries are great, and as this is Alaska, we use them frequently. Chopped bananas are superb. But our favorite? Strawberries. There is something about fresh strawberries, diced, that takes a pancake to another world.

Honey, jam, preserves or maple syrup – they all do a good pancake justice. Crispy around the edges, creamy in the middle, the maple syrup getting on the bacon, a hot cup of coffee to cut through the sweetness… It’s good morning food.

A big blueberry pancake, just about ready to be cut in half and served for breakfast. 

Dungeness Crab in Beer and Miso

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Whether fresh or previously frozen, Dungeness crabs and blue crabs are a great meal to linger over.

Flip a coin. Heads its Dungeness, tails its blue. We’re in either way. Some of the most memorable meals we’ve enjoyed were centered around freshly steamed or boiled crabs, good beer or wine, and a long, leisurely meal with just the two of us or with friends cracking and picking crabs.

We prefer fresh crabs whenever we can get them. In South Carolina, there was a private dock on a saltwater cut through the marsh that could be counted on to produce blue crabs on incoming tides. And when I lived in Oregon, throwing out a couple of crab pots was a matter of course on salmon fishing trips. Because Dungeness populations are depressed in the parts of Alaska we frequent, their harvest isn’t currently permitted in those locales. So most of the crabs we’ve been getting are purchased already cooked, but we still heat them before serving.

Our favorite way to boil-steam crabs is fairly simple. We start with about a half-bottle (6 – 8 ounces) of beer and 1 tablespoon of miso per Dungeness crab. Since more liquid than this is necessary, we add a cup of water or two. The idea is to ensure that there is enough liquid so that it doesn’t all boil off in the 12 minutes or so required to heat through a previously frozen Dungeness. For two crabs, add a 12-ounce bottle of beer, a little more miso, and, if necessary, a little more water.

I usually don’t immerse the entire crab. This is because I’m frugal (cheap) and hate wasting beer. I boil-steam the crab on one side for a few minutes, then flip it and continue cooking it for a few minutes more. If I’m doing multiple crabs, I arrange them in the pot as best I can and rotate them once during the cooking – although this really may not be necessary.

Previously cooked crabs are inevitably already plenty salty. The beer and miso bath gives them a mild sweetness. If you’re starting with fresh crabs, you might want to add some salt to the broth. A good rule of thumb is to steam fresh crabs for about 7 – 8 minutes per pound – which means a two-and-one-half pound crab needs about 20 minutes in the pot. One crab this side is usually plenty for the two of us, served with, say, a salad, fresh corn on the cob, and a loaf of crusty bread.

Our favorite dipping sauce? Melted butter, olive oil, garlic, lemon and soy sauce. For two people, melt about 6 tablespoons of butter. Add a clove of minced garlic and sauté  it for a minute or so. Then add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, the juice from half a lemon, and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce. A slice or two from a really great loaf of bread can be used to sop up any remaining sauce.

Crab goes great with a wide range of beers or a buttery Chardonnay.