Meet My Crab, Halibut!

Tags

Dorie Greenspan, Around My French Table, dungeness crab, crab salad, grapefruit salad, crab and grapefruit salad, summer salad, seafood salad, lemon juice

So that’s an inside joke really…. apparently my mother says “halibut” rather hilariously and my younger brother and sister were bugging her to say it for me once we made it to her house on our vacation so in an effort (rather obnoxious one, but keeping us all giggling nonetheless) to try to make her say it, we decided to name the Dungeness crab I picked up for this week’s French Fridays crab and grapefruit salad, Halibut.

this is actually not Halibut, but a living, crawling King Crab....

Trust me, we were all giggling and the bystanders that were sitting actually and enjoying some sushi while I assembled this salad thought it was pretty funny too and egging my mom on to just say it once so we could all drop it. But she persevered! She never said it once but it kept us entertained for the duration of the assembly.

THIS is Halibut

One thing I really didn’t get too much in the preparation for this salad was the drying out of the grapefruit slices just to go back and add reserved grapefruit and lemon juice?? Are you kidding? So I just patted the bits dry while I was scooping them out and made sure to get them as dry as I could and just went ahead and added them to the bowl all the ingredients were going in. I wound up adding a bit less extra grapefruit juice, squeezed in half a lemon and it was pretty delicious – or so I’m told. All those pregnancy taste buds made this taste really bland, I couldn’t taste one ingredient by itself or all mixed together… but this got rave reviews from all the people who wandered over and tried it.

The next time I make this, I think I could easily make a double recipe – as it’s a really refreshing light start or end to a great summer meal and certainly double the amount of scallions and orange pepper. Those colors really popped and were two of the most favorite flavors aside from the crab and grapefruit in the salad and I would gladly add more next time.

Halibut and the grapefruit

my super duper hubby, cracking Halibut's legs

Buying the crab was an interesting time … making it in Seattle with so many fresh crab options was just the best idea and a great way to end a vacation and share my French Fridays hobby with both sides of the family and Mei enjoyed going to pick out the crab as well. There were walls of freshly caught fish in different wall-to-wall tanks as well as shallow tubs filled to the brim with cockles, clams, mussels, geoducks, and oysters, Mei’s eye’s grew large as she spotted each moving fish and began giggling out of excitement. Meanwhile, in the middle of getting my crab, Halibut, picked out and cleaned and other cuts of fish wrapped up for sushi, I began to feel incredibly dizzy and nauseous – enough to faint. But just before I could keel over, I ripped into a muffin I was going to buy and plopped onto the floor to eat a couple bites – quickly saving myself from any embarrassing and potentially ambulatory experiences. In fact, I recovered just in time for the fish guy to turn around and hand me the fish, completely  unaware of the little drama that just occurred.

Walking around the store and finishing shopping was a slow adventure from that point on – since we were on a schedule and wouldn’t have a chance to do this again before we left the States, I held it together. While we escaped any real drama at the store, I wound up getting checked out the next day at a hospital close to my parent’s house to make sure everything was still ok with the pregnancy and I was still cleared to fly back to England without having any real adventures while on either of our 7 hour flights around the world. And what better way to end the day than to share our French Friday’s salad with our friends and family? It was a truly delicious and very pretty … it won’t be long before we make this again! Did I mention that my fabulous husband helped me crack all the crab legs to get the meat out? My strength is fairly diminished when I’m pregnant and my energy certainly didn’t hold out to get all the meat out of one crab, so it was a good thing that he helped me get all the yummy bits out of Halibut …!!

see how pretty?

To see how the other Doristas fared with this one, click here. To join our little group and enjoy the same delicious hobby, pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table,” get to cookin’, bloggin’ and click here to share!

A Little Taste of Louisiana.

As most of you know, I have been scouring cookbooks over the past few weeks and trying every recipe I can get my hands on – that jumps out at me, and one of the chefs that I generally shy away from finally broke his silence in my kitchen. Emeril Lagasse!

I suppose I had been avoiding Emeril because andouille sausage, while a personal favorite, is hard to come by in the greater Seattle area, and I assumed the same for the rest of the ingredients – although I do love shrimp and he has many shrimp recipes!

And finally, I had bought almost an entire sie of salmon fillet and knew exactly what I was going to do with it! Pan fry with some essence of Emeril! I even managed to find a bunch of brocolini that I have been wanting to eat for some time but hadn’t been able to find. Considering it a lucky day, we took home our salmon and brocolini and prepared to get busy!

Something about assembling the creole seasoning, Emeril’s own combination of spices, I felt as if a round bellied, deep voiced, white apron clad ghost of Emeril was hovering over my shoulder while I was cooking – just as Remy had the ghost of Gusteau over his shoulder (or his conscious), in the Disney Pixar movie, ”Ratatouille.” Not entirely sure how it would taste, I mixed together the ingredients as requested, put aside most for another use and put about four or five tablespoons in a small bowl and drizzled enough olive oil on it to create a paste. Once the salmon was prepared, I rubbed it with Emeril’s Essence and put it in the fridge to marinate for a half an hour or longer possibly, while I assembled the rest of the meal.  The plan was to quick sear each fillet in bubbling butter then pan fry until each fillet was cooked through. I parcooked the brocolini and sauteed it with butter as well.

One of the programs at my husband’s work offers a variety of food items to increase your personal nutrition when it comes to women and children, and as a part of that program, we receive and inordinate amount of brown rice – which we hardly eat. Because of this, I decided to serve this with brown rice for a change from our usual white rice. I also had some mashed potatoes leftover from a lunch spread that I had the other day.

It was a day for indulgence. I had some bruschetta with fresh bruschetta mixed up by yours truly, ceasar salad with lemon infused sardines on a bed of baby lambs greens, carrot soup, and salmon & dill fish cakes topped with some of the same brushcetta mix over mashed potatoes.

a yummy spread!

So dinner was coming together quite nicely! When thirty minutes was up, I warmed up a frying pan, put in some butter and let it come to temperature and begin to bubble. Once it was hot enough I placed one salmon fillet at a time in the pan, searing it and cooking it through. The butter began to turn red and orange as the spices melted into the butter and the aroma of creole seasoning filled the kitchen.

bruschetta anyone?

just a cute, made to look vintage tin!

this was yummy too!

happy girl when she is helping momma cook!

Once the salmon was cooked, I put some of the mashed potatoes in a thin layer on a side of the plate, laid a fillet of salmon on top of that, then put in half of the brocolini and a bigger than life serving of brown rice. The salmon was cooked perfectly! It was flaky, buttery, well infused with a touch of Emeril and was piping hot! To make the meal even better, Patella had eaten her dinner and was zonked out on her bed, leaving me to eat in peace and Mei had a nap the entire time I ate – at my own, leisurely pace. It was bliss. I have not had a chance to enjoy a hot meal without disruption for a long, long time. I can’t even remember the last time! I might even go out to dinner once my husband returns home, by myself just to have this experience again – although I should probably save that for a time when I am jonesing for something I don’t make myself – although that list is quickly diminishing. Can you tell I really enjoyed my solo meal?

crisping, flaking,... yum.

Bon Apetit!

Ingredients for Emeril’s Creole Seasoning:

• 2-1/2 TBS paprika
• 2 TBS salt
• 2 TBS garlic powder
• 1 TBS gresh ground pepper
• 1 TBS onion powder
• 1 TBS cayenne
• 1 TBS dried oregano
• 1 TBS dried thyme

Combine all the ingredients thoroughly in a small bowl.

Use within three months.

Directions for Salmon:

Bring a frying pan up to heat, heat the butter until bubbling – enough to coat the bottom of the pan and create a thin layer of liquid. Once it is hot enough, place a salmon fillet, bottom side down, sear until it has blackened the spices on the bottom and flip over. Cook until it is at the desired done-ness. Remove from pan and enjoy hot with your own choice of accompaniments. We chose garlic mashed potatoes, brown rice and buttered brocolini!