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Thursday, August 22, 2019

Jims Chesapeake Bay Deviled Crabs and stuffed Ribbonfish Pinnwheels




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

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