22 April 2010

A CRAB FEAST

When you're away and travelling there's nothing like a home cooked feast. Last night my host Janie Hibler prepared an Oregon Dungeness crab dinner.

The Oregon Dungeness Crab is caught off the wild rocky coast on the North East Pacific Ocean (which they call the North West around these parts but that's because they are American- centric.) The crabs, pictured above, are juicy and sweet and there's plenty of meaty flesh in the body, the legs and the claws. So much meat that we only needed four cooked crabs for seven people. And I discovered that you are either an 'eater' or a 'piler' as eaters pick out the meat and stuff it in their mouths as fast as they can, while the pilers clean out the meat from the shell and place it in a pile to savour in all at once feast. I am a piler, and I also discovered that you must guard your pile with your life as the eaters try to steal from your pile. However you eat it this crab is delicious.

The crab was accompanied by a traditional potato salad; Janie's grandmother's recipe (which I will post on my recipe page), a salad of spring artichokes, an endive and raddichio leafy salad with a dressing of mayonnaise thinned with lime juice and tarragon and mint fresh from the garden.

And Gary Hibler was a champion as he cracked the crab claws for us and served a variety of Oregon chardonnays and a semillon/sauvignon blanc blend. It was all so good and I am now enjoying a little encore tasting as an appetiser before I go to dinner.