Mexican Spicy Crab Stew
With crab season opening in the San Francisco Bay area this week I’ve turned our culinary
attention to my favorite ingredient.
My first taste of crab was as a young child in the seaside town of Whitby on the east coast of England. The landward sides to the town feature the windswept North Yorkshire Moors which provide a backdrop to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and give way to a rich geologic history along the protected coastline.
Etched into my psyche are the many road trips we took over those moors to Whitby simply to breathe the sea air for a few hours and run along the long beach before dining on cod with chips smothered in salt and vinegar at Trenchers Cafe and always picking up a dressed crab to take home for supper.
I go to some lengths to find local delicacies on vacation (my husband can attest to that.) A nightly pop up restaurant on a street corner in Chinatown, Bangkok where we were served a huge pile of Chili Crab on an oval platter, a farm style restaurant on a hilltop overlooking the beach at Tulum in Mexico eating fresh crab claws straight from the grill, and an old school crab house in Maryland at which trays of freshly steamed blue crabs plucked straight from the ocean were deposited before our eyes.
Our recipe this week pays homage to the crab. Rohini Dey, of Vermilion in Chicago, is our final COOKGIRL this month. Rohini has skillfully blended all of my crab memories into the perfect dish for the blog. A crab recipe seemed unlikely for the slow cooker, but not so when the crab becomes the topping for her Indian – Latin fusion recipe served up on the James Beard Foundation website.
Thickened with yellow lentils, Chilpachole de Jaiba is perfect for slow cooking and the chance for the flavors from both whole and ground spices to take hold in this thick, rich bisque.
- 2 tbsp grapeseed or light olive oil
- 1/4 cup / 2 shallots, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp / 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp / 1" slice ginger, roughly chopped
- 1/2 tsp cumin seed
- 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
- 2 small red chili's, deseeded and roughly chopped
- 2 cups / 1 large poblano pepper, 1" dice (finely chop 1 tsp for the garnish)
- 1/4 tsp red chili powder
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup yellow lentils
- 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
- 4 oz / 1/2 cup crabmeat
- heat the oil in a skillet and soften the shallot, garlic and ginger for 2 minutes
- add the cumin seed and black peppercorns to the shallot mixture and cook for a further 1 minute
- transfer to the slow cooker
- add the chili, poblano, chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, yellow lentils and vegetable broth
- stir, cover and cook on LOW for 6 hours or HIGH for 3 hours
- blend to a rich bisque using an immersion blender
- serve topped with crabmeat and poblano garnish
“I’ve always love how food preserves a memory.”
– Piolo Pascual
