Tour of Fifty States: Washington's meal

This week’s meal was from Washington (state). Since we recently had salmon (for Oregon’s state meal,) I decided to go for a different seafood found in the Pacific Northwest – this time, Dungeness Crab. Growing up in South Carolina, I’m used to the lovely blue crabs found here. Petite and plentiful, they cook up quickly and are pretty good – although I don’t mind eating crab at all, I’ve never really cared for cleaning (or “picking”) it myself.  

 

A couple of weeks ago at Costco, they were having a “Seafood Event” at which we were able to find cooked Dungeness Crabs at a decent price, so I purchased 3 for our upcoming Crab Bisque. When we got home, we froze them and last week I defrosted them in the fridge in preparation for picking to make our soup. Little did I know, as they defrosted, the bag they were in leaked smelly crab juice out of the fridge, onto the floor, and under/behind our chest freezer! Sorry, Bill – and a big thank you for spotting the leak and cleaning everything up!!

 

Menu: Dungeness Crab Bisque, salad, warm bread, Aplets

Outcome: The kids were due to us on Friday evening, so on Thursday before chores (since it was 100+ degrees outside), I started right in on cleaning the crabs. Squeamish as I am about cleaning dead critters, this was not a fun task. Now with blue crabs, you don’t usually bother with the legs much other than the largest two pincers for the “claw” meat and you get the bulk of the meat from the body. Oh, no – not Dungeness crabs. Each leg is divided up into segments, kind of like our knuckles, and you crack open each segment for a bit of meat. Every joint of every leg has to be opened and picked – then the really ewww part – rip the back shell off of the front shell, discard the icky bits, and then pick out the rest of the tasty meat. Very surprising how much meat there was, compared to the amount you get from blue crabs. After we made the soup and tasted it, it was so, sooooo good. Totally worth the ick factor of dismantling the little guys. The soup was a hit and not one drop was left!  

As for the Aplets, I don’t know what happened; I followed the recipe to the letter, but when I rolled each square in powdered sugar, the Aplets absorbed it all and were just sticky. I was quite skeptical of serving them and wanted to redo the recipe next week. Well, I was talked into serving the Aplets for breakfast with apple turnovers (another nod to Washington’s apple crop.) To my surprise, the kids LOVED them. Ben described it as “solid applesauce” since they were kind of like gummies. The apple taste really came out, and after trying them myself, the only thing I would change would be to chop the walnuts a little smaller. We consider it a successful meal. :D

Next up: Ben’s turn! He chose Mississippi!

Dungeness Crab Bisque

 

Prep time: 10 min. Cook time: 40 min.

 

Ingredients

• 4 Tbsp. butter
• 2/3 cup shallots, chopped
• 1 ½ cups dry white wine
• 8 cups of shellfish stock (Kitchen Basics or Swanson makes this)
• ½ cup white or brown rice
• 4 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 ½ lb. or more of cooked crabmeat
• 2 ½ cups heavy cream
• 1 tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

Directions

1. In a large 4 or 6 quart saucepan, melt butter on medium heat, add the shallots and cook gently until translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the wine, stock, white rice, and tomato paste. Raise the heat and bring to a simmer; reduce heat to continue to simmer until rice is completely cooked, about 25 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for several minutes.
3. Add about 2/3 of the crab meat to the soup. Working in batches, ladle the soup into a blender and purée until completely smooth. Return puréed soup back to soup pan.
4. Add cream and gently heat soup until it is hot enough for serving. Add the remaining 1/3 of the crab meat. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste. Serve with bread.

Serves 6.

Aplets (Northwest Apple Candy)

Aplets (made with apples) and Cotlets (made with apricots) are candies that are made with gelatin, walnuts, and apples.

 

Developed by two Armenian men, Armen Tertsgian and Mark Balaban, who bought an apple farm (called Liberty Orchards) in the small town of Cashmere in eastern Washington state, Aplet and Cotlet candies are considered a Northwest delicacy. In 1963, at the Seattle World's Fair, they introduced hundreds of thousands of people from outside the Northwest to this candy.

Prep time: 25 min. Cook time: 40 min. Chill time: 2 hr.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chopped (red or golden) Delicious apples
• Cold water
• 5 Tbsp. reserved apple liquid
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin (approximately 2 ½ Tbsp.)
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 Tbsp. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• Powdered sugar

Directions

1. Butter an 8-inch square pan.
2. In a large saucepan over medium heat, add chopped apples and enough cold water to cover apples by 1 inch. Bring to a boil; boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Turn heat to low and simmer another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.
3. Drain off liquid, reserving 5 Tbsp. apple liquid.
4. In a food processor, puree apples with reserved apple liquid until smooth.
5. Return apple mixture back to saucepan over low, add sugar and heat and stir just until sugar is melted. Remove from heat.
6. In a small bowl, combine gelatin and cold water; add to apple/sugar mixture, stirring constantly until dissolved. Add lemon juice and walnuts; stir until well blended.
7. Pour into prepared pan; cool at least 2 hours but preferably overnight. With an oiled knife, cut into 1-inch squares, then roll in powdered sugar.
8. Store, covered, in the refrigerator.

Makes 64 candy squares.