Seafood and Root Vegetables

Root Vegetables. They're just not that cool, but that's pretty much what is in our cooler right now, it being the middle of winter. And when a couple from Warrenton engaged us to do a tasting menu for them last week, that is all we had in house to work with. They also requested no meat for their menu, but they love all manner of seafood, so we used that as our starting point for their custom menu.

While planning their menu, I had this slightly whack idea: why not pair a different seafood with a different winter root vegetable for each course, except for dessert? So we randomly paired each of six seafoods with six winter root vegetables used this as the basis for our menu. Doing the menu this way proved to be a great intellectual challenge: pairing seafood with root vegetables is rarely ever done. Here are the results of our brainstorming.


Scallops and Parsnips. We took our cue for this dish from brandade de morue from the south of France. The modern interpretation of brandade is a silky paste of salt cod, potatoes, olive oil, and garlic. We decided to try it with salted scallops and parsnips instead. And topped with a seared scallop, it worked extremely well. We're very pleased with this dish.


Crab and Sweet Potatoes. This is a complexly flavored sweet potato bisque seasoned with kaffir lime, green curry paste, Thai basil, and coconut milk. I no longer remember the genesis of this soup, but I think we have done similar sauces in the past. The bisque is topped with crabmeat marinated in a kaffir lime vinaigrette. We liked this so much that it went directly on to our nightly menu as an appetizer.


Oysters and Celery Root. We've done a lot of celery root purées this winter already and were looking for different ways to showcase this delicious vegetable, especially for a way to highlight it in its raw form. Immediately springing to mind was a celery root rémoulade that I had at Tujague's in New Orleans about 20 years ago. From here, it was an easy leap to an oyster Po Boy topped with celery rémoulade. The celery root fries were a last minute addition and the answer to the question to my cooks, "Does celery root make good fries?" Indeed, it does not. It makes outstanding fries. Live and learn.


Lobster and Leeks. This is what happens when we take our shrimp and grits from the lunch menu and amp it up with lobster, leeks, and truffles. The grits are Anson Mills as usual, but amended with a lot of creamed leeks. Truly decadent grits. The lobster is just along for the ride when compared to these grits.


Mussels and Red Onions. I confess that I went really overboard here. I am the one chef that you can generally count on not to mess with the form of an ingredient and here I go making mussels into a musselwurst. I have done every form of fried, stuffed, baked, and steamed mussel imaginable over the years and for some reason, I decided to just go crazy. So we have a mussel and caramelized red onion sausage on a bun with caramelized red onion mustard, caramelized red onions, and pickled red onions. It was a damned good seafood sausage if I say so myself, but my bun, to be polite, sucked.


Fish and Daikon. And finally, we deal with daikon. There's a ton of daikon at the farmers market now and I've been using a lot of it. Daikon led me to free associate with sablefish because sablefish is very highly prized in Japan. The natural application for daikon is raw and done in an Asian theme, so I wanted to stay away from that. I kept saying to the cooks, "Let's do something classic and French." We tried a bunch of things from grilled daikon, OK, to red wine-braised daikon, horrible, when Chris said, "Daikon Pommes Anna!" So we have seared sablefish on a daikon "pommes Anna" with wild mushrooms and a beurre rouge. The daikon pommes Anna was very tricky to pull off; daikon does not have the starch that potatoes do, so getting the cake to hold together was a problem. Once the technical issue was resolved, the result is a beautiful and classically European take on ingredients that are typically treated in an Asian style. Mission accomplished!

Chef's Table

Here are the photos from our last Chef's Table of 2010. These dishes characterize my cooking mood right now: simple, classic, elegant, comforting, and a little playful. This menu was not about pushing boundaries or exploring techniques; it was merely about taking the best of what we had in house, cooking it well, and presenting it nicely.


Roulade of Smoked Salmon. I do all manner of charcuterie and cold meat dishes through the year. Towards New Year's Eve, I always start thinking of smoked salmon or gravlax. Rather than make a square- or rectangular-shaped terrine, I like to do a roulade. I think the presentation possibilities are nicer with the round form. Stuffed with a simple herbed cream cheese and capers.


Oyster "Stew". I wanted to do a traditional oyster stew, another dish that I always gravitate to for New Year's. Tony wanted to do fried oysters. This then is the compromise. I love to serve dishes up in martini glasses: it's often unexpected and it shows off the food well. I wish I had the time to photograph this well. Alas, there's no time on the line to fuss with lighting and backgrounds.


Truffled Blackeyed Pea Risotto with Duck Confit. This is a dish that hopped (pun intended) into my mind about three weeks ago. In the South, for good luck at New Year's, we always serve blackeyed peas and collard greens, both cooked with liberal amounts of pork products. This is my homage to that tradition and the tradition of Hoppin' John, substituting our house-cured duck confit for the traditional pork. You should have smelled the kitchen when I scattered the truffles over the hot risotto. Amazing!

In hindsight, I should have used Carolina Gold rice instead of arborio to further the metaphor. Oh well, next time. And damn, wouldn't a poached quail egg sitting on top of this, all ready to break open and ooze into the risotto, be super sexy? Ach! I can't be at the top of my game all the time.


Duck Schnitzel with Orange Spätzle. Here's a dish that I came up with some years ago just for a different way of presenting our Moulard duck breasts. We split duck breasts and pound them like schnitzel, then bread and fry them. The breading is panko, pecans, and pecorino. Garnished with a little red wine syrup and orange spätzle. It's a great dish but never seems to sell when on the menu. Something, I don't know what, scares diners. Maybe they don't know what schnitzel is.


Lamb Shank Puttanesca. If you're a lunch regular at the restaurant and a foodie, you'll recognize the origins of Ed's Pasta in Salsa Puttanesca, a classic sauce of tomatoes, red pepper flakes, anchovies, olives, and capers. With its vibrant and bold flavors, this sauce appeals greatly to me and I was just in the mood for some puttanesca when we were brainstorming this menu. Put that together with the bag of tiny lamb foreshanks that we have been collecting in the freezer because they are too small for a standard dinner entrée and you come up with this dish. Paired with a little roasted garlic rosemary polenta, you have full-flavored classic comfort food.


Chocolate Soufflé. In reading through the draft menu trying to figure out what to do for dessert, it occurred to me to keep it simple, classic, and comforting. Soufflés are so classic that you never see them offered on dessert menus any longer; pastry chefs consider them beneath their dignity. Pity, because this chocolate soufflé is as good a gooey, runny chocolate extravagance as you will ever find.

Crab Cakes

Several years ago, we had a spate of complaints about our crab cakes. They were all along the lines that our crab cakes have no flavor, that they're tasteless. After several years of no complaints, we've had another recent rash of similar complaints.

Our crab cakes are made from the best blue crab we can buy, mayonnaise, celery, parsley, panko, salt, and white pepper. That's it. Over the years, I've tried every binder known to man for holding crab cakes together (béchamel, fish mousse, scallop mousse, egg whites, sour cream, etc.) and the best binder hands down is a mayonnaise made with a neutral oil.

Crab meat has a very delicate flavor that is easily overpowered by other flavors. This is why I especially despise crab cakes containing any form of assertive bell pepper or, God forbid, Old Bay seasoning, which reeks of celery seed. Some people actually like to taste bell pepper or celery seed rather than the $18 per pound crab. If that's your preference, fine; it's not mine though.

The complaints come from one of two kinds of people. The first is someone who actually prefers to taste bell pepper and celery seed to crab. I don't understand their point of view, but they're entitled to it. I just wish they'd allow that my crab cakes are well made, just not to their taste.

The second complainant is one who does not perceive the value of expensive fresh blue crab bound with just as few additives as are necessary to hold the crab meat in a cake. These are the ones who tell me that the frozen crab cakes (that are short on crab and long on filler) at Costco are as good or better than mine. I wish these people, rather than pick on my crab cakes, would just say that mine are too expensive for them. That's really what their gripe is, so why not just say it?

In any case, the complaints are few and far between and for each, we have served thousands of other customers who have loved the crab cakes. And I'm not changing my recipe regardless of what anyone says.

Chef's Tasting

"Shrimp Provençale"—Pernod-poached shrimp; salad of oranges, oven-dried black olives, fennel confit, and fennel fronds.



"Cream of Arugula Soup"—Last of the bolting arugula with watercress stems, yellow onion, potato, splash of cream.



"Bouillabaisse"—fish and shellfish poached in classic bouillabaisse stock; stock reduced and gelled; pansy, microradish, and poached shrimp garnish.


"Poussin and Veal Galantine"—boned poussin stuffed with local free range veal, porcini, pistachios, madeira, pancetta, bacon, and green peppercorns; one and a half quarts brown poussin stock reduced to four teaspoons; micro squash with blooms.



"Porcini Gnocchi Trifolati"—classic potato gnocchi augmented with porcini powder (very tricky dough, very light on gluten); morel mushrooms cooked in the style of truffles (trifolati) with butter, brunoise of pancetta, garlic, and lots of fresh parsley; shaved asparagus. Sorry for the crappy photo, camera would not focus.



"Prickly Pear Cheesecake"—prickly pear purée; candied hibiscus bloom; hibiscus syrup; borage blooms

Chef's Tasting

"Cockles and Chorizo", Wine Pairing: Broadbent Vinho Verde 2008


"Shrimp Cocktail"—pickled shrimp, caperberry, baby cucumber with bloom, glass rimmed with cumin salt, cocktail: tomato juice, mussel broth, lime juice, cilantro juice, cumin, sherry vinegar, gold tequila


"Piquillos and White Beans"—parfait layers of brunoise of piquillo pepper and Tuscan "refried beans," green layer flavored with pesto, tan layer flavored with rosemary, Wine Pairing: La Slina Gavi di Gavi "Giorgio Cichero" 2008


"Morel Risotto"—onion and Carr Valley Shepherd's Blend cheese risotto napping a hidden poached quail egg (surprise!), crispy morel mushroom, Parmesan tuile, fresh thyme leaves, Wine Pairing: Clifton Springs Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 2007


"Duck and Veal Ravioli"—raviolo stuffed with Moulard duck and local veal ragù, roasted romanesco, romanesco brown butter mousse (killer!), Wine Pairing: Cristom Syrah Willamette Valley 2005


"Oxtail Empanada"—chimichurri down on the plate, shredded oxtail, crispy polenta, radishes, pickled cipollini, pea shoots, johnny jump ups, Wine Pairing: Boxwood Winery "Boxwood" Virginia 2007


"New York-Style Cheesecake"—mini cheesecakes, poached dried apricots, almond brittle, Moscato d'Asti sabayon, crumbled amaretti, Wine Pairing: Vietti Moscato d'Asti "Cascinetta" 2008

"I want my money back!"

Cooking an order of mussels at lunch reminded me of a grumpy old man at dinner several years ago.

He came in solo for dinner and ordered an appetizer of mussels for his dinner. Maybe he wasn't hungry; I'm thinking he was looking for an inexpensive (read "free") meal because a minute or two into his mussels, he summoned the server to the table to complain that several of the shells contained no mussels at all and that he didn't want to pay for them, oblivious (more than likely intentionally so) that said mussels had fallen out of the shells to the bottom of the bowl.

I ended up comping him for the mussels (and the three loaves of bread) that he ate knowing that he'd never come back and that he'd go pester some other restaurant. And sure enough, we've never seen him since. I still chuckle about the old guy from time to time when I remember him. He's the kind of customer that makes for a good story at our Christmas party.

A Fall Chef's Tasting

I really love composing and cooking tasting menus for a lot of reasons. In building a cohesive menu from scratch, I have a strong sense of engagement and I enjoy and welcome the intellectual challenge. Also, I get out of the rut of cooking the same old crab cakes and filets mignons that pay our rent month in and month out. And I enjoy cooking for people who are willing to have their palates challenged. This frees me to not only show off the bounty of local ingredients with which we are blessed to work, but it also lets me serve delicious things that wouldn't sell well on the main menu, and it lets me experiment to a certain extent by taking some risks that I wouldn't under normal dinner circumstances. Did I also mention that this is how I like to eat? When I go out, I just want the chef to send out small bites every 20 minutes or so.

A lot of restaurants have tasting menus and many of them run a tasting menu for a fixed period of time, such as a week or a month or a season. Each tasting menu that we do is custom designed for a particular client. Even if we are doing tasting menus for multiple parties simultaneously, they will be having different menus. Admittedly it's a crazy way to run a restaurant, but then my sanity escaped to the ether some years back. But in this way, the cooking is very personal. I am cooking for a specific client and not just for anybody who walks in off the street and happens to order the tasting menu.

I don't post many of the Chef's Tastings that we do simply for lack of photographs. It's often too busy to photograph our work or because we're in a rush, photos for a certain course just do not turn out. Shooting macro shots by handholding in a busy kitchen on reflective stainless steel tables under really crappy fluorescent lighting is somewhat short of ideal, especially when I brace the camera against the table and someone down the line hip checks the table at the same time I'm shooting.

But the pace and karma Saturday night all aligned perfectly and I got some good shots, good enough for blogging, at least. Not great, but good enough considering the terrible lighting. They follow below.

I was pleased that the clients actually encouraged me to pair this menu with Virginia wines. Often I have to cajole some clients into letting me show off some of our local wines. The following is a highly seasonal menu, one that screams late fall, exactly what I was aiming for:

Chef's Tasting
Saturday, October 31, 2009

Crème Brûlée of Mapled Foie Gras
poached cranberries, bread crisp

Chrysalis Petit Manseng Virginia 2007

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Fan of Tataki of Opah and Local Daikon
lemon zest, fleur de sel

White Hall Viognier Virginia 2007

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Stone Crab Claws
parsnip purée, vanilla bean beurre blanc, salad burnet

Glen Manor Sauvignon Blanc Virginia 2008

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Veal and Rabbit Terrine
quick-pickled local cucamelons; whole grain honey mustard

Swedenburg Pinot Noir Virginia 2008

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Local Lamb Ribs in the Style of Peking Duck

Fabbioli Chambourcin Virginia 2007

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Lightly Grilled Caribou Tenderloin
duck fat-sautéed matsutake mushrooms and sunchokes; dried blueberries; elderberry and truffle demiglace; local organic spigarello

Linden Claret Virginia 2005

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A Study in Local Apples
Cheesy apple crêpe, apple granita, apple-kaffir lime compote, fried green apple with apple cider reduction; Kerrygold Ivernia cheese

Local Apple Cider-Calvados “Martini”

Crème Brûlée of Mapled Foie Gras. This dish started with a lobe of foie in the cooler that I needed to use and with the local Chrysalis Petit Manseng that I wanted to serve. Americans seem always to want the sweet wines at the end of dinner instead of as an aperitif, so I wanted to buck that by serving the sweet wine up front. I wanted to add some sweetness to the dish to work with the wine and initially I was thinking about brûléeing a slice of foie, and from there it wasn't a huge leap to crème brûlée. The maple syrup was almost an afterthought, mainly a liaison with the maple leaf garnish on the plate. To offset some of the richness, we just barely poached fresh cranberries in simple syrup. We served this warm out of the oven and I have to say that it was a brilliant dish.

Fan of Tataki of Opah and Local Daikon. I had a really clear piece of Opah that I wanted to feature and the first local daikon of the year just arrived in the farmer's market the morning of the tasting. I put a slight pickle on the daikon, for a salty and acidic counterpoint to the barely seared Opah. The flavor combination of the two and the texture contrast between the two were fine, but in the end, I'm not crazy about this dish or the presentation.

Stone Crab Claws. Stone crab season just opened so I wanted to celebrate that with this dish. I feel like I went out on a limb here a little putting stone crab claws on a parsnip purée. Garnishes are a vanilla beurre blanc and salad burnet. I felt the combination of the slightly sweet and herbal parsnip worked amazingly well with the vanilla and the crab. This dish is a winner and visually appealing too.

Veal and Rabbit Terrine. This is another one of my terrines; there's always one in the cooler. While I generally don't use liver in my terrines (because of knee-jerk customer reaction), I used the livers out of four rabbits along with a good splash of cream to bind this terrine. A touch of Cognac doesn't hurt either. Interior garnishes are black truffles, pistachios, dried cranberries, veal tongue, green peppercorns, and rabbit loin. Really a very tasty effort. I opted for the artsy photograph here so the interior garnish is tough to see; pity. In the foreground you see that our nasturtiums haven't given up the ghost yet and in the background you see the last of the local cucamelons, lightly pickled.

Local Lamb Ribs in the Style of Peking Duck. Selling ribs in a fine dining restaurant is an exercise in futility, a real pity because they are so good. We have to sell the ribs somehow, so they most often end up on tasting menus. I am a huge fan of braised dishes (slow-cooked with a little liquid) and especially of the style called red cooking from northern China. We rubbed the lamb ribs in garlic and five-spice powder and braised them with soy sauce, white wine, brown sugar, hoisin sauce, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, and green onions, then let the ribs stand in the braising liquid overnight. We pulled the rib meat and minced it, defatted the braising liquid and reduced it slightly (soy is very salty!), augmented the braising liquid with a little hoisin and sesame oil to make a sauce, then mixed the minced lamb with the sauce, bias-cut green onions, and white sesame seeds. We then brushed a crêpe with the sauce and stuffed it with the minced lamb. This is absolutely delicious and much more flavorful than duck done the same way.

Lightly Grilled Caribou Tenderloin. Caribou is a mild and delicious deer that under the best of circumstances is difficult to obtain, so I was happy to be able to get a little bit for this tasting. This dish is all about fall: lightly grilled caribou over a nest formed from local spigarello (a leaf broccoli) and filled with a sauté of just-dug Jerusalem artichokes and fresh matsutake mushrooms from Oregon. We finished this with a few dried blueberries and a demiglace augmented with local elderberry syrup and black truffles.

A Study in Local Apples. I'd be really remiss here in the heart of Virginia's apple country not to do a dessert of local apples. I had wanted to do a separate cheese course, but the menu was starting to get a little long so we combined the dessert and cheese courses into a single course. Cheese and apples, especially apple pie, is a natural combination at least in the school of traditional southern cooking in which I was raised. A big slice of sharp Cheddar (rat cheese as we called it) was a must with apple pie.

When I was at the farmers market on Tuesday last week, I was getting some green tomatoes for fried green tomatoes. In the next bin were some green apples causing me to flash on fried green apples. I did an instant market survey ("Hey, what do y'all think of fried green apples as a dessert course?") and the conclusion was that it couldn't be bad, so I came back to the restaurant where Chris and I started to experiment with apple thickness, coatings, and seasonings. After a half a dozen samples we got it right. You see fried green apple under the cheese and the crêpe in the photo above. We removed the core of the apple and plugged it with a piece of apple so that the whole would be edible.

On the plate from left to right you see apple compote (Golden Russet apples) cooked down with local honey and kaffir lime, topped with a blade of vanilla grass. Then the fried green apple with the cheese wedge. The crêpe holds wedges of Empire apples roasted with honey and cinnamon, along with grated cheese. The crepe was warmed in the oven to melt the cheese, then topped with a bit more cheese. Under the fried green tomato you see a syrup that we make by straining and reducing local cider until it is syrupy. On the far right, you see a small serving of apple granita, made from 8 varieties of apples and almost no sugar. I'm really happy with the flavors, but the presentation is a bit monochromatic.

Local Apple Cider-Calvados “Martini”. I didn't want another dessert wine with this menu (remember, we started with one) and I had a couple gallons of local cider on hand in the cooler, so I mixed up a cocktail of cider, Calvados, lemon juice, vanilla syrup, and some bitters. The glass is rimmed with cinnamon sugar. The apple slice is from a sweet Fuji; the cider is naturally sweet so a tart apple would have been unpleasantly mouth puckering.

Burning Questions: Fish and Shellfish

This whole series of "Burning Questions" posts originated as a somewhat amusing troll through the One Block West Restaurant web site server logs, to see what search phrases were bringing people to the web site. As I went through the logs, the search topics seemed to fall into several broad categories, each dealt with in a separate post in this series. This post deals with fish and shellfish.

What is Set of Shad Roe? The roe (eggs) from the Shad comes in twin lobes called a set. For more, see my post on Shad Roe.

Eating Shad Roe Sashimi Style. You can, but it's not what I would recommend. Shad roe's texture is very soft and less flavorful when raw. I like to roast my roe to medium rare in the oven.

Are Cobia and Wahoo Lean Fish? Yes, Cobia and Wahoo are fairly lean fish, though Cobia can be a little fatter than Wahoo. Because they are so lean, you must take care not to overcook them and they are both best served about medium, still a bit uncooked in the center. Both are typically steakfish, that is they are cut into steaks rather than filets, and both are excellent on the grill.

How Long to Grill Wahoo Steaks/Grilling Wahoo Steaks Wahoo, like almost all steakfish (tuna, marlin, swordfish, cobia, etc.), take extremely well to the grill. They're also very lean fish and do not want to be overcooked. As a very rough rule, fish take about 10 minutes per inch (2.5cm) of thickness to become cooked all the way through. With steakfish, you want them still translucent in the center, so cook them less. I mark steakfish on one side until I see the sides of the steak become opaque, then I flip them and finish them for another couple of minutes. Remember less is more with steakfish and you can always put them back on the grill.

Corvina Same as Grouper. Corvina and Grouper, which is itself a pretty large family of related species, are somewhat closely related but they are not the same. For cooking purposes however, you may treat them identically.

Substitute for Corvina. Corvina is a mild, white, firm fish with small flakes in the Drum family. I serve it at the restaurant in preference to the similar Grouper which is overfished. Any of the larger drums would be fine substitutes: Black Drum, Red Drum, etc. as well as all of the groupers. Striped Bass which we call Rockfish is also a great substitute.

Can You Substitute Clam Juice for Oyster Sauce? Not exactly. Oyster sauce is a thick soy-based sauce. Clam juice is a thin stock akin to fish fumet or fish stock. I'm not sure why you would need to substitute for oyster sauce because it seems to be stocked in most groceries. You could thicken soy sauce with a little corn starch or substitute some other kind of soy product such as bean paste.

Fish Stock Substitute. Easy. Bottled clam juice or steam some mussels and save the liquid.

Petit Chablis

It's that time of year and I'm thinking about the Chablis in France. Cold weather and January are synonymous with Chablis in my mind, this being the off season for wine makers and the time of year that I used to go on buying trips in a former life before the restaurant business.

After flying all night Saturday night to France and negotiating the rental car process in Paris, the first stop would be the village of Chablis, a pleasant enough less than 2-hour drive out the A6. In fact, it's just enough time to become ragingly hungry and arrive for the Sunday morning market.

Chablis will always be a magical place for me, being forever linked with going to the Sunday market to buy some briny Arcachon and Belon oysters, a bottle of grand cru Chablis, and driving up into the Vaudésir vineyard overlooking the town and the Serein, and embracing the cold wind of January while sitting in the vineyard eating the oysters and drinking the Chablis for breakfast.

Racy Chablis right in the grand cru vineyard just seems to be the perfect pairing for oysters. The perfection of the pairing comes from the high acid Chardonnay (some old timers in Chablis still call Chardonnay Beaunois, the grape from Beaune, much further south in the Bourgogne proper) made in the Chablis. The acidity comes not only from the calcareous soils, but from the northerly lattitude that keeps the grapes from overripening: only the Champagne is further north in France. And a lack of oak and lack of malolactic fermentation certainly help where oysters are concerned.

When people think of Chablis, they tend to think of only three appellations: Chablis Grand Cru, Chablis Premier Cru, and Chablis; they forget (or don't know about) Petit Chablis, the fourth appellation. On the quality scale, vineyards designated as Petit Chablis produce wines that have been historically on the low end. This doesn't necessarily mean bad. What it means in these budget conscious times is inexpensive. A rock solid Petit Chablis from a top producer can be a lot better and a whole lot less expensive than a Chablis or Premier Cru from a lesser producer.

We don't have any Petit Chablis on the restaurant wine list; selling any kind of Chablis at all in our market is difficult. But, if you happen across it at a wine shop or on a restaurant wine list, you might just have found a racy Chardonnay at a good price, a solid value wine.

Razor Clams

Recently, a customer asked me to make razor clams for him and his girlfriend. I really don't mind it when customers call or email and ask me to cook a certain food product for them. It's actually one fewer decision that I have to make during the course of the day and because the menu changes daily, I'm always looking for different foods to feature.

I jumped at the opportunity to do razor clams for him, mainly because I'm always looking for an excuse to work with new foods. I've worked with lots of other clams in my life, so I assumed that working with razors is similar. And it is, with the exception of having to clean them, which our local clams don't require.

I've seen razor clam shells littered all over the beaches here in Virginia and have seen baskets of them at bait shops, but we don't have any fishery for them as far as I know. On the other hand, we're known for our quahogs (pronounced "co-hog" and mainly called by their size names: littlenecks, cherrystones, and chowders), which I have harvested most successfully on Assateague Island. I just wade out onto the mud flats at low tide and feel them with my feet, then pull them out of the mud. Free feast!

Razor clams are a lot harder to harvest. They're apparently fairly mobile, able to move vertically in the sand very quickly to escape prying shovels and the bills of the oystercatchers that prey on them.

A quick email to a supplier and I had a box of Common Razor Clams or Atlantic Jackknife Clams, Ensis directus, delivered by FedEx the next morning. They're very long and resemble a straight razor as you see in the photo above, while the Pacific Razor Clam, Siliqua patula, of the Pacific Northwest is an elongated oval.

Preparation is straight forward. After washing them well to remove the sand, pour boiling water over them for a few seconds (if you use a colander, the water will drain away). At this point, the clams pull right out of the shells with no fight. With a pair of scissors, snip off the tough ends of the siphon and the digger; your fingers will tell you where to cut. Then pull the siphon off the body of the clam and open it with the scissors if necessary to clean it. I didn't find it necessary. Open the body of the clam and the digger and remove all the brown bits and you're done.

As for cooking clams, remember that they are excellent in raw preparations such as crudo and sushi, so you don't have to cook them at all. If you're going to cook them, think squid: less cooking is more. Merely warming them for a few seconds is all that is necessary. Here are my razor clams in a preparation that I call Razor Clams Nancy's Style, with diced pancetta and shiitakes cooked in clarified butter, with white wine, garlic, and lots of fresh parsley, finished with a swirl of whole sweet butter.

And the eternal question: "But, are they worth the trouble and expense?" Worthiness depends on your point of view, your like for shellfish, your wallet, and your tolerance for labor. They are head and shoulders the best tasting clams that I have ever had. Worthy, worthy, worthy.

Calling All Oyster Fans!

I have just heard about a way that you home chefs and oyster lovers can win 4 dozen oysters from Marx Foods. To sweeten the deal, if the winner is one of my customers, I'll shuck the oysters!

Marx Foods is offering live oysters from Puget Sound, a dozen each of Pacific, Kumamoto, Virginica, and Olympia oysters to be delivered at the winner's convenience up until the New Year. While we have some fabulous east coast oysters (Virginia's own Chincoteagues from Tom's Cove are briny amazing, if a bit fragile to shuck), the Pacific Northwest is home to some equally wonderful oysters such as the tiny Olympias and the small Kumamotos. If you love oysters and have never tasted these oysters, put it on your must-do list.

To win, all you need to do is to post a comment between now and October the 19th on the Marx Foods blog stating what you would do with the oysters if you won. That's not so hard is it?

Well, in my case, it might be. First, I'm a professional chef, so I won't be getting involved in a contest aimed at home chefs, but second, my comment would involve a bottle of Dom Pérignon and several X-rated details that wouldn't be fit for publication. ;)

The blog readers will vote on the winning entry between the 20th and the 24th of October. I'm guessing that the winning comment will not involve cooking the oysters. That's just my hunch as an oyster lover. Why waste a perfectly good live oyster by cooking it?

Disclaimer: I buy from the wholesale company of which Marx Foods is the retail arm. I came across this contest on their web site. I get nothing out of this. I just thought it would be fun to see some of my customers enter the contest and perhaps win.

What are Maryland Crab Cakes?

I get asked from time to time in the dining room if our crab cakes are Maryland-style. I don't know. I'm a Virginia boy who spent the summers of his youth on our end of the Chesapeake Bay crabbing and eating crabs. What do I know about Maryland?

Truth be told, I also lived in Maryland for several years and my wife was a resident in Baltimore, so you would think that I would know a Maryland crab cake when I ate one. Not so. Around here, we don't find it necessary to label our crab cakes.

But I do have to say that I had the worst crab cakes of my life at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore: so loaded with red Bell peppers and Old Bay that I couldn't taste the crab. I know that this is not what Maryland crab cakes are all about.

My crab cakes are very simple: crab, celery, parsley, white pepper, salt, egg, panko, and mayonnaise. End of story. And they are fantastic and probably representative of what the rest of the US calls Maryland crab cakes.

So, dear readers, what are Maryland crab cakes? And, what other kinds of crab cakes are there?

Softshell Crabs

Yesterday, the long awaited first softshell blue crabs of the year arrived, and last night during dinner service, I took some photos while cleaning crabs to help answer the inevitable questions I get every year*.

*May 23, 2008 Update: yes, you eat the whole thing, legs and all. It's so obvious to me having eaten them all my life, that I failed to mention that.

I've grown up here in Virginia, right on the Chesapeake Bay, crab central in the US for blue crabs, so working with crabs is second nature to me. Working with blue crabs is apparently fairly alien to a lot of people. But, I can understand that. Would you believe that I have never had any Alaskan crab in my life?

This post is about how to prep softies for cooking. For more information on soft shell crabs, refer to the article I wrote some years ago and by all means, read the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay by William Warner. It sums up pretty well Virginians and our relationship with the blue crab.

First, crab 101. The crab at the top of the photo is a female, called a sook. Look at her apron, the part that is shaped like the US Capitol dome. The crab at the bottom of the photo is a male, called a jimmy. His apron resembles, well, male parts, or the Washington monument.

When buying softshells, look first for crabs that are alive: that will be your key to freshness. Next, feel the shells, especially the points on either side. The shells should be very soft and supple, not dry and papery. The points should be soft. If they are not, the crab has shed too long ago and is not going to be the most enjoyable it could be.

To prep a crab for service, it is customary to take off its eyes and mouth. This is certainly not necessary, but American squeamishness with food demands it, for the most part.

I use a knife to cut behind the eyes. Two of my cooks use scissors. Whatever works for you.

Next, pull up the edges of the soft shell to expose the gills. Remove the gills. I use the tip of my knife to scrape them out; the rest of my cooks pull them out with their fingers. In a fresh crab, this step is entirely optional as every part is edible.

Clean out the gills on both sides.

Then flip the crab over and pull the apron away from the crab and cut it off. It's perfectly edible, but it will blow up like a balloon in the pan and finally explode, splattering you with very hot grease. Not pleasant. Better to remove it before the crab takes its revenge on you.