Saturday 19 May
We don't normally describe lunch here, but Luken's had soft-shell crabs ($2.50 each).* Now I (Holt) think of myself as fairly fearless in the kitchen. I bone out lamb, cut up poultry, gut and scale fish, and do various other mildly gristly bits with a certain smug self-satisfaction, but I have to admit offing the crabs got to me. I've done it often before, but these were a particularly lively bunch (shudder). But they are so tasty that it's worth what Alice B. Toklas called "Murder in the Kitchen." Maybe next time I'll just let the fishmonger mong them for me.
There's a good guide to soft-shelled crabs HERE and a very graphic (but it lets you know what you're getting into) guide HERE.
The best cooking method is the simplest, as always with the freshest (all right, maybe too fresh) food. Toss the cleaned crabs in flour, mixed with salt and pepper. Sauté in butter. Deglaze with lime juice. Eat 'em all up.
On to dinner. Saturday is the day for advance prep, long simmers, roasting peppers (see below), and the like. So perfect for fresh pasta, which needs some rest. The master recipe is HERE. We added white pepper and lemon zest to the basic mix, let it rest, rolled it out, and ran it through the fettuccine-izer. Out of the infinitely variable ingredients for pasta primavera, we chose asparagus (cooked a little in the pasta water), mushrooms, zucchini, then cream and cheese. Very, very fresh and simple.
*Both "soft-shell" (attributive adjective) and "soft-shelled" are recognized by American Heritage, Webster's, and the OED. However, usage rules, and Google counts 234,000 hits for "soft-shell crabs" vs. only 24,000 for "soft-shelled crabs."
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