Caribbean Crab Soufflé

There are a few times each year that I like to prepare lengthy, course-filled meals with expensive ingredients. New Years Eve is one such occasion. I was blessed this holiday to enjoy Dungeness crab, succulent mushrooms, ratta"stew"ie (more on that later), and green salad. Food during these long course-by-course meals is slow, and more filling.

Dungeness crab (or any crab, for that matter) is not cheap. But at least, here in the Pacific Northwest, it's local and in season right now - and it makes the SeafoodWATCH's "Best choices" list. But how to make a meal to feature crab? Everyone makes crab cakes... something different would be nice. My grandma made KILLER crab salad with celeriac for Christmas. I can't find any recipe resembling it anywhere, so what to do? I need a crab dish to sweep in the new year.

It just so happens that I'm the lucky recipient of five (count 'em - 5!) different new cookbooks from Christmas. Flipping through them (well, flipping through two, as three were vegetarian), the recipe that caught my eye (haha, caught... you know, like in a crab trap) was crab soufflé. Caribbean crab soufflé.

And I love anything with excessive amounts of beaten egg white!

Not to mention this yearning in the back of my mind to return to the warm, sandy, quiet beaches of the coastal Caribbean city of Cahuita, Costa Rica. (It's not really a city... more like a small town. But "town" starts with a t, not a c.) Although, I don't know how much soufflé anyone actually makes there. I guess it's the seasoning that counts.

It was surprisingly simple to make, once all the crab was out of the shell, and as soufflés go, it was pretty sturdy. Serve it on an ocean blue plate and it makes you want to dive in the gentle, salty swell of the sea. And cast your crab traps.


CARIBBEAN CRAB SOUFFLÉ
from The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, tweaked slightly and scaled down by 1/2

1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp minced celery leaves
1 clove of garlic, pressed
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 1/2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp milk
2 egg yolks
4 oz fresh crabmeat, cartilage removed
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp fresh lemon juice

1. Prepare your mise en place. If you buy a whole crab (cheaper and fresher), you will not know how much it weighs, so be prepared to a) give it your best guess, or b) have a scale on hand. Pick it carefully out of the shell, from the legs and the body cavity. It's so good. Make sure to get all the shell bits out. You may also want to mix up the spices (curry powder, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper) ahead of time so you can just chuck them all in at once.

2. Prepare a 4-cup soufflé dish (those round white ceramic things with the ripply sides) by generously buttering the inside. Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

3. Toast your coconut! Lucky us, we had some shredded coconut leftover from making rundown in August (fresh shredded coconut freezes beautifully). You can toast it in an 8-inch pan for a few minutes, until it's lightly browned and all dried out. Ours took a little while, since it was never dried. Put it aside when it's done.

4. Heat up another small pan over low heat and melt the butter in it. Cook the celery leaves with the garlic and spices. Stirring a bit, cook for a few minutes. The garlic shouldn't brown, but it should smell really awesome.



5. Add the flour and stir it to coat the contents of the pan. Cook no more than a minute before adding milk and increasing the heat to medium.



Stir constantly! If you don't, it might scorch on the bottom, resulting in blackened, bad-tasting food. When the milk begins to simmer, take it off the heat. It should be thick and smooth. If not, keep stirring on the heat until it is. (Of note: if you are using rice milk, it will never get thick or smooth. just don't do it. soy should probably work, though.)



6. When it cools a little, whisk in each egg yolk, one at a time. If you do it when the mixture is too hot, the yolks will cook instantly and get all clumpy. That texture is undesirable for many a reason, not least of which is that it's gross (but mainly because the yolks will no longer provide the thickening richness that they would if they were properly mixed in). Mix in the crab and coconut at this point.

7. In a nice metal bowl (for reasons that a food chemist would understand), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice to soft peaks. The "soft peak" stage of egg whites is achieved when you lift the beater or whisk out of the bowl of beaten whites, to leave a floppy point, like a santa hat. Finish it off carefully by hand to stiff peaks - but don't let it get dry. When in doubt, underwhip a little. The "stiff peak" stage looks more like a witch's hat, and goes very quickly to dry oblivion, which is pretty useless and unrecoverable.



8. Put about a quarter of the beaten egg whites into the crab mixture and gently fold with a rubber spatula to "lighten" the custardy crab. Put the lightened crab mix in with the rest of the egg whites, and very gently fold with a rubber spatula in a forward circular motion. Cut down the center of the whites with the spatula and pull it back up toward you again on the bottom of the bowl, folding over the top again and cutting down the middle. Rotate the bowl as you do this until it's mostly incorporated but a wee bit streaky. The more you fold, the more you deflate the air bubbles in the egg whites, so don't get OCD about mixing it completely.



9. Scoop all this into your buttered soufflé dish and stick it straight into the hot oven.



Bake for roughly 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and it's all puffy. Serve it right away, before it deflates! It should still be moist inside, but cooked.

PROS: great flavor, hard to mess up, nice and spicy
CONS: would like more crab flavor


I'd make this again, surely. I'd like to try it with some kind of fish, too.

Gallo Pinto con Plátanos Fritos

Oh, the life of a student is rife with lack of money and an even stronger lack of time. That is, perhaps, why I haven't updated in awhile - I haven't had time to cook anything. Or post anything. But we misses it, yes precious.

But there's always time for gallo pinto! This is the only dish I really took home with me from Costa Rica. It's breakfast done right. And really, it illustrates this blog perfectly. Rice and beans for every meal!

Now, I will not lay claim to its authenticity, but having spent a few months eating it every day for breakfast, I will say that it is prepared many different ways, and up to some interpretation by the cook. Other than the rice and beans, I think the most common ingredient in it is Lizano sauce, or "salsa lizano," which I never include for two reasons: 1) It's hard to find in Seattle (with the exception of a little Latino shop at Pike Place Market, but it's expensive there); and 2) I never really liked it much anyway. Some people put it on everything... like ketchup... but I'm not one of them. Bleh. Too sweet. Too strong.

The other common difference is that most places in Costa Rica will toss the beans in the pan before the rice, whereas I prefer to fry the rice first to get some texture and browning. But who's paying attention? I'm in the US now. Nobody here eats gallo pinto. Maybe I'll open up a food cart and sell it in little dixie cups. I think it would take off.

It's filling. It sits in your stomach and passes through your innards with the greatest of comfort and ease. And it tastes so good. Mmm, mm. Rice and beans.

If you're wondering, "gallo pinto" is pronounced, "guy'-o peen'-to," and means, "spotted rooster," in Spanish. In case you care.

Folks there usually serve it with fresh fruit (watermelon, canteloupe, mango, papaya, pineapple, grapes...), sometimes some kind of meat product (we don't need that here), sour cream (or mayonnaise, but why?), and often fried plantains. A plantain looks a lot like a banana, but it's bigger. A little more angular... and the end is pointier. Harder to peel, not that tasty raw. They grew free in the woods where I stayed in Costa Rica. Beautiful bunches of them. Cut off a bunch and hang it to ripen on the stalk. Plantains for everyone!

Once in awhile I find plantains at the store here and get them. Not too often, since they travel so far to get here, and they're rarely organic... I wish we could grow them fresh. That, and I just can't get them to taste the same as they do in Costa Rica. I fried them down there more than once, and they were lovely - sweet and lightly browned on the outside and moist on the inside. But here? Dry. Starchy. Chewy. Kind of like home fries that had been baked a little too long. Just not fun. I don't know if it's because they pick the plantains WAAAAAAAAAY before they should and they can never really develop, or if the ones they send up to the US are the rejects because we don't know the difference, or if the climate here is too dry... I don't know. I might never know.

But I made them anyway. They were OK. It doesn't really matter, if you have gallo pinto.


GALLO PINTO con PLÁTANOS FRITOS (guy'-o peen'-to con plah'-tah-noce free'-toce)
serves 2 generously

1 ripe (yellow) plantain
cooking oil
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
salt
1 1/2 tsp dried crumbled oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 cup cooked brown rice (or white rice if you want to forego a good source of fiber and protein - contact me if you want a tasty way to cook brown rice)
2/3 cup cooked black beans (or red beans)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
~3 tbsp lime juice

1. Heat a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet over medium heat. A well-seasoned cast iron skillet will be virtually nonstick, provide unparalleled browning, and hold heat well. Meanwhile, peel your plantain and cut off any dark spots on the flesh. It should be delicately creamy pinkish on the inside. You might need a knife to peel it - those guys can be tough!

2. Oil up your pan. You should have enough oil to generously coat the bottom of the skillet, or your plantains might burn. A burnt plantain is a little bit like burnt anything else. It just tastes like carbon, and nobody likes that. Cut your plantain into little diagonal rounds (just slice down at an angle) about 1/8" thick (absolutely no thicker, and no thinner than 1/16"). Too thick, and it won't cook through. Too thin, and it will be impossible to handle. Place them around the skillet on one side and watch them smile up at you.

3. Use a fork to flip them when they're brown on one side. Just keep peeking at them until they're ready. They should look less brown than this:



4. When the second side is done, put them on a plate to wait for the gallo pinto. If your pan needs a little more oil, add some now, but it doesn't have to be much. Dump in the onions and brown them a little in the pan, stirring them with some kind of non-plastic utensil (cast iron, with its superior heating powers, will melt plastic into your food). I use wood. It's pleasant.



When the onions look like that, you can add the garlic. Work fast, because you don't want the garlic to burn. It will most likely do so if and when you turn your back. Also add a pinch of salt (how much depends on whether you cooked your rice with salt, and how much salt is in the bean liquid), your oregano and cumin, and stir quite well. You should smell it, and it should smell good.

5. Add the rice. Mix it well with the onions and garlic, then spread it out to cover the pan bottom and leave it alone for a few minutes.If you keep messing with it, it will stick and make your pan difficult to clean.



You can take this time to chop your cilantro. Use more or less depending on how much you like it. I didn't like it at first, but now I'm addicted. Cilantro makes everything taste south-of-the-border.



6. Turn your rice after a couple of minutes. It should be browning a bit. Do this a few times to ensure even, light browning. When it's ready, it should look a little like this:



7. Add the beans. Spoon them in with a little liquid. Not too much. But some. You want to coat the rice so it's not hard on the teeth from the frying. Mix them in and leave it alone for a minute, to let the beans heat up. Turn it a time or two, but don't cook it very long or it will dry out the starchy bean liquid.



8. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the cilantro. Splash in some fresh lime juice (adjust to taste) and stir that in as well. Get it out of the pan and onto a plate as soon as possible, or the lime will degrade on the hot metal and just taste like something warm and sour and not fresh. Garnish with some more cilantro, and serve with your plantains and sour cream. ¡Buen provecho!

PROS: appetizing, filling, great source of protein and fiber, wonderful warm and savory way to start the day, deeeelicious!
CONS: plantains just aren't the same here in the USA

I should note that I don't ever measure anything in this recipe, I just sorta put down what I think I put in. So don't fret about measurements if you think it needs a little more of this or a little less of that. Taste it and see. That's the only way to make it to your liking! Also, I often put in some chopped up bell pepper with the onion. I didn't have it on hand, so I didn't put it in. It's more authentic, but honestly, I like it better without.

You can clean your cast iron pan by putting a little bit of cooking oil in it after all the food is out, scraping off anything that may have stuck with the utensil you were cooking with, and wiping the inside clean with a paper towel. It should look mildly shiny with no food bits. That's all - no water, no soap, no salt, no sand. Pretty easy.

Gingered Sugar Cookies

Recently, I got this oven thermometer. Not that there was anything wrong with how my stuff was coming out, but you know, I wanted perfection. So I started using it... and lo and behold, it said my oven was 10 degrees too hot.

For the past eight? months since I got the thing, I've been baking stuff 10 degrees cooler, suffering cookies that spread too much, cakes that take 15 minutes longer than they should, and pie crusts that don't really brown.

I just figured it out. I happen to be slow.

The oven thermometer now lives next to the oven rather than in it. I baked cookies for the first time in a long time at the assigned temperature, and they came out NORMAL! Well, not just normal... but tasty. Tasty, and perfect. Mmm. Perfect cookies.


GINGERED SUGAR COOKIES
from Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Put the racks in the two middlest positions (so you can bake two sheets at once). Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper. You could also grease them, but that's messy and annoying. Unless you have nonstick cookie sheets... in which case, you don't need to do anything. Except throw them out and get real ones.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set it aside. Chuck the 1/2 cup sugar and ginger in a blender or food processor and whir away until it's all mixed and kinda looks like wet sand. Well, wet clear sand. Put it in a wide-mouthed bowl. It should look like this.

3. Cream the butter with the sugar and brown sugar for a few minutes until it gets kinda billowy, yet uniform... you'll know. Add the egg, vanilla, and crystallized ginger and beat some more, until it's smooth and creamy looking. Like this.



4. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until it's combined, but no longer. I don't need to tell you that the longer you beat flour and baking soda into something wet, the more the gluten develops in the flour (causing tough chewiness) and the more the bubblies are knocked right out of the baking powder, rendering it... rather useless. So be kind to your cookie dough.

5. Roll them into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and coat them with the sugar. You should have 24. If you don't, well you're obviously useless at measuring. Place them 12 to a cookie sheet, spaced a couple inches apart. Flatten them to half their original height, using something flat, such as the bottom of a drinking glass.



6. Bake for 15-18 minutes, one sheet above the other, until the edges of the cookies are set and they're slightly golden brown. If you're a doting cookiewife (or whatever you are), you'd switch the baking sheets quickly halfway through baking and rotate them 180° to avoid oven hotspot damage. In other words: uneven baking. Uneven baking makes me cross. My cookies came out pretty perfect though.

I guess cookies can only really reflect their cookiewife.

PROS: soft, sweet, flavorful, round, have a nice gingery crisp exterior
CONS: not enough ginger...


I'm sorry I haven't been posting. But that's OK, because I'll venture a bet that no one's waiting up for it anyway. I've been baking, but usually I only have time to a) bake or b) blog... and if I blog, I won't have baked anything, because I wouldn't have had time, so the post would be dreadfully empty. If I bake, I get to eat something delicious. So there you are. But I sacrificed an hour of sleep tonight to tell you about last week's cookies... so feel honored.

Next up... cupcakes :-)