Dungeness crab
The Dungeness crab commercial season was supposed to start yesterday but the fishermen decided to stay on-shore to protest the low price being offered by the processors. The processors are offering $1.85 a pound to fishermen in California but only $1.35 a pound to Oregon fishermen in spite of the fact that most of our crab goes to California anyway.
Fortunately the non-commercial crab season here is all year round. Sports fishermen can catch up to six male crabs a day as long as they are larger than six inches across. (Mature males average ten inches across.)
If you have never tasted Dungeness crab, you will be surprised to find that it is sweeter and more tender than lobster and there's as much meat in a one pound Dungeness as there is in a one pound lobster because, unlike most other crabs, not only the claws are edible; the whole body is - well, minus the guts and gills.
You use crab-pots (basically a wire cage) with a chicken drumstick inside to catch them. Some people swear that turkey legs are better than chicken. You have to keep an eye on the pots and pull them up before the seals eat all your crabs. Most of us sports fishermen catch them in the local bays and river mouths where seals gather. Commercial fishermen drop their pots miles out to sea and it is just as dangerous a job as any deep-sea fishing - especially in winter when the Pacific is ferocious.
It does not take much to make a meal out of Dungeness crab. You drop them in a pot of salted boiling water and they squeak and turn from brown to pinky-orange just like live lobsters. You break off the back and clean out the guts and gills, drain the rest in a colander and plop it on a plate with a crab-cracker (like a nutcracker) and a crab-pick. Serve with some garlic butter, fresh-baked sourdough bread and a bottle of chardonnay.
I haven't had breakfast yet and the thought of fresh Dungeness is making my mouth water. The meat from the claws is as big as a small lobster tail and, if you get tired of cracking the smaller legs, you save them to make crab cakes. The scientific name for the Dungeness is cancer magister but maybe it should be the Majestic Crab.
Fortunately the non-commercial crab season here is all year round. Sports fishermen can catch up to six male crabs a day as long as they are larger than six inches across. (Mature males average ten inches across.)
If you have never tasted Dungeness crab, you will be surprised to find that it is sweeter and more tender than lobster and there's as much meat in a one pound Dungeness as there is in a one pound lobster because, unlike most other crabs, not only the claws are edible; the whole body is - well, minus the guts and gills.
You use crab-pots (basically a wire cage) with a chicken drumstick inside to catch them. Some people swear that turkey legs are better than chicken. You have to keep an eye on the pots and pull them up before the seals eat all your crabs. Most of us sports fishermen catch them in the local bays and river mouths where seals gather. Commercial fishermen drop their pots miles out to sea and it is just as dangerous a job as any deep-sea fishing - especially in winter when the Pacific is ferocious.
It does not take much to make a meal out of Dungeness crab. You drop them in a pot of salted boiling water and they squeak and turn from brown to pinky-orange just like live lobsters. You break off the back and clean out the guts and gills, drain the rest in a colander and plop it on a plate with a crab-cracker (like a nutcracker) and a crab-pick. Serve with some garlic butter, fresh-baked sourdough bread and a bottle of chardonnay.
I haven't had breakfast yet and the thought of fresh Dungeness is making my mouth water. The meat from the claws is as big as a small lobster tail and, if you get tired of cracking the smaller legs, you save them to make crab cakes. The scientific name for the Dungeness is cancer magister but maybe it should be the Majestic Crab.
posted by Patrick Joubert Conlon at 7:47 AM
The Alliance
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