Deviled Crabs
It has been over 50 years since I had one of my childhood
favorite culinary treats a zesty delicious seafood special called the Deviled
Crab. I was born in Norfolk Virginia back in 1961 and I remember my dad “The
Judge” taking us boys to some little seafood shop near the water that
specialized in Deviled Crabs. They were served to go and hot, wrapped in cellophane.
I remember my dad loved these things and us kids had a great time enjoying them
as well.
Not long after my introduction into the Deviled Crab, my
parents moved to Richmond Virginia where I would grow up and eventually raise
my own family before packing my bags, and living back on the water on the
Peninsula in early 2002. For years I have wondered about the Deviled Crab,
mostly due to the fact that I have never seen it anywhere since my youth. Never
in a restaurant, supermarket, and I never would hear anyone speaking about
them.
So with the power of google, I thought it was high time to
dig up this recipe and what I found was that a lot of chefs, have no idea how
to make a deviled crab. It you are not making Deviled Crab with the Cajun Holy
Trinity… then it is not a Deviled Crab. At least not the crabs that I grew up
with. There was a few recipes online but figured I would make a recipe that
would come close to what I use to dine on when I was a kid. Here ya go.
First, get fresh crabmeat, backfin is fine, some claw, or
super clump it will all work. I just bought backfin.
Ingredients:
1 pound of crab meat
Teaspoon of Worcestershire
5 dashes of cayeen pepper
Holy trinity (bell pepper, onion, & celery chopped)
1\2 cup Bread crumbs
Dash of mustard
1 clove garlic crushed
Pad of butter
Tablespoon mayo
Teaspoon of paprika
1 egg
Some empty crab shells cleaned out.
To prepare… EASY. First melt some butter in a pan with some
olive oil and Sautee the trinity. Towards the end add the garlic.
Once done, in a bowl add the trinity and crab meat and all
ingredients and mix gently by hand. Lastly stuff the empty crab shells with the
stuffing and sprinkle liberally with paprika.
Place a pat of butter on top of each and bake at 350 for
about 20 minutes.
Perfect for a meal or side dish and makes for a fantastic
easy lunch. Serve this to guest and they will love you for it, great for a
party.
Stuffed Ribbonfish Pinnwheels
It was the day after filming a Jim Baugh Outdoors TV show
featuring Ribbon Fishing with Captain Billy Pappas JR that I got the idea to
make Ribbonfish stuffed pinnwheels. The good captain told me how great Ribbon
fish was and how he sort of stuffed them with crabmeat.
Well, I now already had the Deviled Crab Stuffing and
thought WOW this would be great in a rolled up long piece of Ribbon Fish, so
that is what we did.
First take your long piece of Ribbon Fish and lay it out on
a board. Then take you stuffing and place it on top of the fish and press the
stuffing don hard on the filet.
Next start at one end and roll the filet into a pinwheel (leave skin on, no scales).
While rolling use your hand to keep all the stuffing in place inside the wheel,
works very well.
Once done lay the pinwheel flat and insert 4 tooth pics in
the sides of the pinwheel to keep everything nice and tight.
Now what we did was lightly pan fry the wheel and then bake
off in the oven at 350. This was delicious. I did this because we were also having
fried scallops. BUT this is fantastic simply baked in an oven and broiled off
the end.
Serve with lemon and some tarter sauce, absolutely fantastic.
Enjoy!
Jim Baugh
Jim Baugh Outdoors TV
