State-by-State Redux I of X: Alaska Revisited - Not-So-Deadliest Catch

The next (and final) ten State-by-State posts are rehashes of previous regions - and in the first two cases, states - that I want to go back and investigate just a little bit more.  This first post brings me back to Alaska, which I looked at ridiculously briefly way back in December of 2010 when I was trying to restrict myself to one, nay two, recipes per state.  We've seen how that worked out (hello, five recipes for Maryland).  Now I go back to explore some of Alaska's non-salmon-related seafood.

Snacking State-by-State Redux I of X: Alaska

Official Name: State of Alaska
State Nickname: The Last Frontier
Admission to the US: January 3, 1959 (#49)
Capital: Juneau (3rd largest city)
Other Important Cities: Anchorage (largest), Fairbanks (2nd largest), Sitka (4th largest)
Region: West (Northwest, Pacific); Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon
Bordered by: Arctic Ocean (north); Yukon Territory (Canada) (east), British Columbia (Canada) (southeast); Gulf of Alaska (south); Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea & Chukchi Peninsula (Siberia, Russia) (west)
Official State Foods: King Salmon (fish)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: salmon, halibut, herring, Alaska king crab, queen crab, snow crab, Dungeness crab; moose, caribou, pemmican, northern Alaskan berries - and not Baked Alaska

When I investigated Alaska that one time, I also taught myself how to prepare a cedar plank for oven-roasting, and then I went and oven-roasted some Pacific sockeye salmon on said plank.  But Alaska seafood is not all salmon - and oh, the varieties of salmon there are!  Anyone who has seen that Deadliest Catch show knows that Alaska is crab country.  But not the sweet and small blues we have on this side of the continent.  Alaska crabs are big, hearty, friggin' huge.  The King crab, of course, comes clawing into one's mind first, but gives you nightmares.  This is not only because they are, again, friggin' huge, but also because they are so damn expensive: $26 per lb at Wegman's, with a 5 lb frozen box costing a hundred dollars.  I've spent enough on this blog.  I'm not slapping down $100 for this post. At all.

Fortunately there are other crabs off the coast of Alaska.  There are the Dungeness, Queen and snow crab.  It is this last one, at a mere $10 a pound at Harris Teeter, that I ultimately went for, for the following recipe.  This one is another one from Kim Severson's The New Alaska Cookbook: Recipes from the Last Frontier's Best Chefs.   Here I use a recipe from Jack Amon of the Marx Bros. Cafe in Anchorage, a crab and pasta recipe.  This one does not specifically demand King crab, though Amon definitely prefers it:

This recipe allows you to stretch the crabmeat.  If you can't get King crabmeat, other crab can be substituted, but it won't hold its shape as well as King crab. [Severson 2001: 69]

I did substitute snow crab for the King crab, and - Murliner that ah am, hon - I picked the whole damn thing myself.  The recipe also calls for a particularly expensive caviar - sevruga, which I probably will never get the chance to taste - which I had to substitute with a relatively inexpensive one off the shelf at the local supermarket.

This recipe is on page 69 of Severson's cookbook.

The Recipe: Pasta with Snow Crab and Caviar

To make this assemble the following.  Note, by the way, that I somehow deleted the original photo of the ingredients, so I reassembled most of them.  I did not buy a new crab to put in the photo.  Ten bucks for a photo?  Ummm, no.

Gather the following - note this is a reconstructed photo, as I said above):

* angel hair pasta (any box will do, this one was about $1.50 to $2)
* yellow and red bell peppers (about a dollar)
* butter (at the time I had nothing on hand but this delicious Kerrygold butter - about $6 a pop but soooooo worth it.)
* caviar (the recipe calls for sevruga caviar, which is ridiculously expensive.  So I just bought some black Romanoff caviar off the shelf at Harris Teeter for only $9.  I only found out later that the same caviar cost only $8 at Giant. Wah waah.)
* parsley (I used fresh, but only had the dried stuff on hand for the photo)
* salt and pepper (had on hand)
* lemon.  Note that I did not have a lemon on hand for the new photo.  I did, however, have an onion.  Please don't use an onion.)

And of course, you must also have...

* one snow crab (this one cost $11 at Harris Teeter - $10 a pound)

Snow crabs are bigger than either blues or Dungenesses, and so are much easier to pick.

A snow crab that is slightly over a pound yields you about 6 1/4 oz of crab meat.

Chop your bell peppers finely, and zest your lemon.

Prep your pasta for boiling...

While doing that, melt your butter in a skillet.

Boil your angel hair pasta according to box directions, and drain and rinse.

Next, add the pasta, peppers, lemon zest and crab meat to the butter.

Mix in the parsley and cook until hot.

Spoon onto plates, and put a dollop of caviar in the middle of the mound of pasta.

I can't even begin to describe how decadent Jack Amon's recipe is.  I tried to save this to snack on all week and it only lasted a few short days.  The crab and the butter mix so wonderfully with the pasta, and the caviar gives a surprising pop that I am not quite familiar with, since again I don't eat much caviar outside of a sushi-related context.

- - - - -

Just as I spent precious little time examining Alaska the last time around, I also spent so little time exploring Hawaii.  Coming up next week: a veritable Hawaiian feast, fit for a bento box.

Sources:

Severson, Kim, with Glenn Denkler. The New Alaska Cookbook: Recipes from the Last Frontier's Best Chefs. 2001 : Sasquatch Books, Seattle.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Alaska" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Alaska".

Snacking State-by-State: Washington II - See Sea Scallops! See Pink Scallops? Sing, Pink Scallops, Sing!

When I think of seafood in the Pacific Northwest, I think of two things: salmon and Dungeness crab.  I did not realize, however, the importance of the delicate, toothsome scallop.

Official Name: State of Washington
State Nickname: The Evergreen State
Admission to the US: November 11, 1889 (#42)
Capital: Olympia (21st largest)
Other Important Cities: Seattle (largest), Spokane (2nd largest), Tacoma (3rd largest) 
Region: Northwest, Pacific, Pacific Rim; Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon
Bordered by: Pacific Ocean (west), Oregon (south), Idaho (east), British Columbia (Canada) (north)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: apple (fruit); bluebunch wheatgrass (grass); steelhead trout (fish); Walla Walla sweet onion (vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Pacific coast seafood, including but not limited to: Dungeness crab, salmon, trout, scallops of many varieties, Geoduck clam, mussels, oysters, halibut, cod; blackberries, apples, huckleberries, cranberries, cherries; hazelnuts; coffee

I love scallops, but they are an occasional treat for me.  I don't get to eat too many of them because they're pricey (try $17 per pound locally).  The lucky people in Washington get to eat these things more often (are they cheaper there?) and more readily when in season.

In his eponymous Seattle Kitchen cookbook [2001], Tom Douglas discusses the different kinds of scallops, especially the much-prized but so rare "singing scallops"

Weathervane or Pacific scallops are the large and meaty scallops that are featured as "sea scallops" on local menus.  They are sold shucked and trimmed and are often grilled or sautéed.  Pink or singing scallops are native to Puget Sound and are hand-harvested by divers. Their season is short and sporadic, so whenever we get singing scallops, we put them right on the menus as specials...  They are very fragile, so we make sure to serve them the day we get them.  [Douglas 2001:61-62]

Douglas has a recipe for singing scallops - you can use sea or even bay scallops instead, since singing scallops are so difficult to come by, especially outside the Northwest.  I interpreted this recipe, on pages 68 and 69 of his Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen, with a few small changes: as he suggests for those with no easy access to singing scallops, I went ahead and used sea scallops, shucked fresh at Wegman's, and trying to stay close to his recommendations I swapped out the Muscat wine for a somewhat cheaper Muscatel recommended by the nice people at the Wine Source in Hampden.

The Recipe: Singing Sea Scallops in Muscat Muscatel Sabayon

* sea scallops (I now know why I don't buy many scallops - even these were $17 per lb!!! Ouchie!)
* Muscatel (Botani Moscatel, from the Sierra de Málaga.  This bottle was about $10)
* tarragon (I really need to start growing this, since this puny amount of this delicious herb set me back $2)
* red onion (about 50 to 75 cents)
* lemon (one lemon: about 67 cents)
* orange rind (I forget how much the orange was)
* egg yolks (you need two, and I had the eggs in the fridge)
* kosher salt (had it)
* butter (same)

Peel the orange rind (set this aside), slice the lemon and cut the onion into pieces.

You will cook the lemon and onion with some of the tarragon in the Muscatel

Next, poach the sea scallops in the boiling wine mixture for a few minutes...

...until barely cooked.

Next, spoon out the scallops and set aside.

Get a strainer ready.

Strain the wine mixture into a saucepan, and discard the things that were just boiling in it.

And reduce until syrupy.

Meanwhile, arrange the scallops on a baking sheet.

Pour your reduced wine mixture into a metal bowl, add the egg yolks and whisk for several minutes over a pot of boiling water.  You will add the orange rind and some more tarragon after whisking the egg yolks.  I got impatient and figured I had done something wrong...

...but lo and behold, I did get a lovely sauce!

Spoon a little of the sauce over each scallop.

Place the scallops under the broiler for just a few short minutes.

And this is what you get.

So much work goes into such pricey (for me they're pricey) ingredients, but what a decadent thing to eat in the end!  The firm scallops covered in this delicate, tangy and sweet sauce is wonderful either as an appetizer (per Tom Douglas' suggestion), or as a small main dish.  I had some with white rice, which complements it nicely.

Sources:

Douglas, Tom.  Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen.  William Morrow: New York, 2001.

"kiwisoutback" (Squidoo.com user).  "How to Make a Starbucks Iced Latte."  In "Starbucks Coffee Drink Recipes", Copyright 2008, Squidoo.com.  All rights reserved.

Washington Apple Commission.  "Crop facts."  Copyright 2010 Washington Apple Commission.  All rights reserved. 


Washington Apple Commission.  "Golden Apples and Yams."  Copyright 2010 Washington Apple Commission.  All rights reserved.

Coffee.org.  "History of Starbucks."  Date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Washington" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Washington".

Snacking State-by-State: Washington I - A recipe featuring ANOTHER crab...

For my final foray into the Pacific Northwest, I tackle the Evergreen State. I've been to Washington but once, during a conference in Seattle long ago. Hopefully I can get back at some point in the not-too-distant future. But of course, Washington is more than just Seattle, and food wise it has much to offer inland and on the coasts.

Official Name: State of Washington
State Nickname: The Evergreen State
Admission to the US: November 11, 1889 (#42)
Capital: Olympia (21st largest)
Other Important Cities: Seattle (largest), Spokane (2nd largest), Tacoma (3rd largest) 
Region: Northwest, Pacific, Pacific Rim; Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon
Bordered by: Pacific Ocean (west), Oregon (south), Idaho (east), British Columbia (Canada) (north)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: apple (fruit); bluebunch wheatgrass (grass); steelhead trout (fish); Walla Walla sweet onion (vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Pacific coast seafood, including but not limited to: Dungeness crab, salmon, trout, scallops of many varieties, Geoduck clam, mussels, oysters, halibut, cod; blackberries, apples, huckleberries, cranberries, cherries; hazelnuts; coffee

What does Washington have to offer, food wise? A few of its key exports and notable foods include:

• Dungeness crab – yes, that other famous crab that those of us from the Chesapeake Bay stare at and go “Damn, that’s a big crab!” Far be it from me to get into an argument with a Washingtonian on which is better. I've eaten quite a good bit of both. I love Dungeness crab, but strongly prefer the blue crab. Then again, had I been born and raised off Puget Sound instead of the Chesapeake Bay, I’d probably be singing a different tune.
• Salmon – the Pacific Northwest is indeed salmon country, eaten here for millennia. The Northwestern stuff is some of the best salmon in the country.
• Scallops – specifically the “singing scallop”, which Seattle-based chef Tom Douglas says were so named because “divers say they whistle through their shells when they are disturbed (and of course, the name became a good marketing tool) [Douglas 2001:68].
• Geoduck clams – This is pronounced like “Gooey duck”. The massive, intimidating clam is not available year round, but you can actually find it here on the East Coast when it is in season. You have to go to H Mart (I haven’t checked the prices but I don’t think they’re all that cheap).  I bet when in season you can find it at the Maine Avenue Fish Market, in the other Washington, the District of Columbia.
• Apples – Apples are one of Washington’s major industries, with the Evergreen State producing over 100 million apples every year.  They are Washington's largest agricultural product [Washington Apple Commission 2010]. You can even find Washington apples in the Mid-Atlantic.
• Coffee – Seattle is the home of one of this nation’s best-known evil empires. Mind you, Starbucks with its huge, Borg-like tentacles is only the most famous brand of coffee to come out of Seattle. It isn’t the only one.

That first one, the Dungeness crab, is known up and down the Western Seaboard. When I lived in California it was quite easy to find a Dungeness crab for about $10 (that’s $5 a pound). Pre-cooked, I would bring it home, pick it, and swirl the meat around in butter, beer and Old Bay. Someday I may have to truck on down to H Mart and buy a live one to steam Maryland-style. For now, I will have to use the pre-cooked ones, which are much, much pricier in Baltimore than in Seattle or even SoCal’s Inland Empire.

Faced with the challenge of finding an interesting way to prepare Dungeness crab, I turned to Tom Douglas, who like so many readers of this blog comes not from Washington but from the Chesapeake Bay region (Delaware, to be exact). In his Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen [2001], the chef and owner of several Seattle-area restaurants talks up the many ways to prepare these massive beauties.

The Northwest tradition is to boil the crabs briefly in salted water. The crabs are served hot, or more likely chilled, with melted butter and lemon or mayonnaise. One crab per person is the norm in our house. My daughter Loretta’s favorite treat is to have the crabs wok-seared on a very not burner with ginger, Chinese black beans, and garlic. By the time we’re done, we’re covered from chin to elbows with crab shells and sticky sauce. {Douglas 2001:77]

It didn't dawn on me but the recipe I chose ended up being the aforementioned favorite in the Douglas household, a Japanese-inspired Dungeness crab wok-seared in ginger, garlic and fermented black beans. It’s not as simple as it sounds, mind you, but it’s definitely different for this Chesapeake dweller – though not the former Chesapeake dweller who came up with it.

Said recipe can be found on pages 90 and 91 of Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen. 

The Recipe: Wok-Fried Dungeness Crab with Ginger and Lemongrass

For this Dungeness crab preparation you will need: 

* Dungeness crab (a two-pounder cost me $20 at the Maine Avenue Fish Market in DC, twice as much as I might have spent in a West Coast supermarket.  Note, however, it was well worth waiting to buy it there - it was thawed, and they will indeed steam it for you (with or without Old Bay - your choice).  You don't have that option when you buy it frozen at Wegman's for about $40 a crab.  Also note: H Mart does sell live Dungeness crab.  I have no idea what it costs.)

* ginger (a nob was about $6 per lb, or about 75 cents for the piece I broke off)

* garlic (had it)

* lemongrass (did not have it; cost $2 for a bundle at H Mart, less than what you'd get at Wegman's or Harris Teeter.  Can you find this stuff at Giant yet?)

* lime (about 50 cents)

* poblano chile (same)

* shallot (and same)

* chicken stock (or in this case, the Better Than Bouillon I had in my fridge)

* rice wine vinegar (I keep forgetting that I have rice wine in my pantry, not rice vinegar!  Whatever; it worked fine.)

* soy sauce (had lots of it)

* chili garlic sauce (easier to find than I thought it would be; about $4 at H Mart)

* fermented Chinese black beans (all I could find at H Mart was this in paste form, again about $4)

* sake (had a nice big bottle of Haiku brand in my kitchen)

* vegetable (here, peanut) oil (had it)

* sugar (had it too)

* cornstarch dissolved in water (a necessity for making nice thick sauces in the wok)

You should also have a wok.

Start by mincing your plants - the chile, the ginger, the shallot, the lemongrass (tender white part only) and the garlic (this I grated).

Next, heat a little oil in your wok.

Stir fry the veggie products quickly.

And add your other ingredients, minus the crab.

Now disassemble that crab.  For those of us from the Chesapeake (and those other areas where crab picking is not uncommon), this is rather easy - it's just like picking a blue crab.  A very, very big blue crab.  For everybody else, start by removing the apron.

Next, remove the carapace (which you will keep).

Rip off the gills (which you will not keep).

Break the body of the crab in half.

Finally, separate the legs from the rest of the body.

Throw the entire thing, sans apron or gills (but including the carapace) into the wok, and mix.

Cover and steam for a few minutes.

Uncover and steam some more. For presentation's sake, reassemble the crab the best you can, carapace on top.

What an innovative (to me, anyway) way to prepare a crab.  The crab is messy, I will give Tom Douglas that, and sweet and sour and tangy and a bit spicy all at once.  It was difficult putting it away for later.  I just could not help but crack into one more of those crab legs.  Now this begs the next question: I wonder how this would work with blue crabs?

Sources:

Douglas, Tom.  Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen.  William Morrow: New York, 2001.

"kiwisoutback" (Squidoo.com user).  "How to Make a Starbucks Iced Latte."  In "Starbucks Coffee Drink Recipes", Copyright 2008, Squidoo.com.  All rights reserved.

Washington Apple Commission.  "Crop facts."  Copyright 2010 Washington Apple Commission.  All rights reserved.


Washington Apple Commission.  "Golden Apples and Yams."  Copyright 2010 Washington Apple Commission.  All rights reserved.

Coffee.org.  "History of Starbucks."  Date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Washington" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Washington".

Snacking State-by-State: Oregon IV - No, this isn't a post about a dessert named after a former DC mayor

As noted before, James A Beard, one of the foremost food authorities in US history, was born in Portland.  He spent many a summer in the town of Gearhart where he became familiar with the local foods of Oregon and the Northwest: salmon, Dungeness crabs, hazelnuts, local fruits - and had it existed when he was younger, certainly the marionberry.  Marionberries, hmmm.

Official Name: State of Oregon
State Nicknames: The Beaver State
Admission to the US: February 14, 1859 (#33)
Capital: Salem (3rd largest)
Other Important Cities: Portland (largest), Eugene (2nd largest), Gresham (4th largest)
Region: Northwest, Pacific; Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Washington and the Columbia River (north), Idaho (east), the Snake River (northeast), California & Nevada (south), the Pacific Ocean (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: beaver (animal, though they are generally no longer eaten), milk (beverage), Dungeness crab (crustacean), Chinook salmon (fish), Oregon grape (flower, bearing an indigenous fruit that was once gathered and eaten), pear (fruit), Pacific golden chanterelle (mushroom), hazelnut / filbert (nut - they're the same thing)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Northwestern and Pacific foods, including: Pacific seafood (salmon, Dungeness crab, etc), hazelnuts, pears, marionberries (first grown in Oregon), huckleberries, blueberries; Portland is an epicenter of the American food truck industry

I have never eaten marionberries - or Marion blackberries - before.  I've seen marionberry jam and preserves in the stores and marionberry syrup at Trader Joe's (or was it Whole Foods?) but never picked any up.  But the marionberry (no not the former Washington, DC, mayor and current city councilmember) is quintessentially Oregonian, not just Northwestern.  How so?  It was created in part by Oregon State University, as Monica Mersinger prosaically puts it for the Salem (Oregon) Public Library:

Summer's fresh flavor is locked in this hybrid blackberry developed by Oregon State University's Agricultural Research and Development Program in Corvallis, Oregon. It is a blackberry cross between two previous Oregon hybrids, the smaller, but tasty Chehalem and the larger, higher-producing Ollalie. George F. Waldo of the U.S. Department of Agriculture began its development in 1945, and it was tested at Willamette Valley farms. The new variety was released under its name of Marionberry in 1956. [Mersinger 2006]

Most of the few places that marionberries grow are in Oregon.  In fact, Mersinger says that about 90% of all marionberries are grown not just in Oregon, but specifically around the Salem area.

In honor of James A Beard and his love for Northwestern foods, Oregon Public Broadcasting produced an episode of its show The Oregon Experience about Beard.  The episode, "A Cuisine of Our Own", included recipes from the master himself.  It also includes a recipe Beard certainly would have enjoyed making and eating: a simple marionberry cobbler, courtesy of Nancy Lewis from her family farm, and featured in the book Eating It Up in Eden: the Oregon Century Farm & Ranch Cookbook by Richard Engeman [2009].

There is just one wee problem: I have looked all over the place and I simply cannot find marionberries anywhere.  I thought I had seen them frozen in a bag at Whole Foods, but I must have imagined this.  On the other hand, everyone has blackberries.  But I didn't want to make a simple blackberry cobbler, though that would have been a more than acceptable facsimile.  If I was stuck with blackberries for this Oregonian recipe, at least I was going to use ones from Oregon.

The Recipe: Marionberry, er, Blackberry Cobbler

For this easy cobbler you will need:

* blackberries (or marionberries if you can find them.  I used the Oregon Fruit brand, canned out of - yes - Salem. One can of blackberries equals roughly two cups.  I needed twice that amount, but didn't feel like shelling out another $4 for one can. So I reached into my freezer and pulled out...
* strawberries (I bought these and froze them last year from a farm in Harford County where they let me pick them myself.  Bonus: I had the foresight to freeze them in two cup increments)
* flour (had it)
* sugar (same, though I am now dangerously low)
* milk (had it)
* butter (yep, had it too)
* baking powder (same)

Drain the blackberries and dump them into a bowl (or if frozen, just dump them out of the bag).

Meanwhile, melt the butter.

Mix together the milk and the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Yup, mixed.

Now to put it all together: pour the butter into a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Then pour in the batter.  Spread it but don't stir it.

And drop the blackberries on top.  I should have sprinkled them over top instead of lumping them into one place, because again, I couldn't stir it but how else was I supposed to distribute the fruit?  It also left me with some parts of the cobbler that were surprisingly fruit free.

I had to add those strawberries too.

Sprinkle sugar over it all.  The recipe recommends up to two additional cups (!) I know this ain't health food but still.  I eyeballed about a cup at the most.

Bake at 350°F for about an hour, or until it looks like this.

Cobblers are so damn easy to make, and so good afterwards to boot.  Again, it was a little light on the fruit around the edges, but that's really my fault more than anything.  Eat this hot and think about adding some ice cream.  I think I may have to get some today.

- - - - -

We are heading back to the East Coast now, to the Keystone State, part Northeast and part Midwest, a little bit Philly and a little bit Pitt, next we stop to see all that Pennsylvania has to offer.

Sources:

Brooks, Karen.  "Portland's top 10 food carts".  Posted October 8, 2009 (The Oregonian), reposted August 6, 2011 (OregonLive.com).

Cuisine Bonne Femme & Dieselboi (blog authors).  "About" (About Page for Food Carts Portland".  Copyright 2012 Food Carts Portland, all rights reserved.

Lewis, Nancy (recipe author).  "Marionberry Cobbler".  Information page for the episode "A Cuisine of Our Own" from the television program Oregon Experience, 2010.  Copyright Oregon Public Radio 2010-2012, all rights reserved.

Mersinger, Monica.  "Marionberries: A Delicious Part of Salem's Past".  Salem Online History, 2006.  Copyright Salem Public Library, 2005-2006, all rights reserved.

Oregon Public Radio. "A Cuisine of Our Own".  Information page for the episode "A Cuisine of Our Own" from the television program Oregon Experience, 2010.  Copyright Oregon Public Radio 2010-2012, all rights reserved.

Porges, Brad.  "Hazelnut Salmon with Apple and Pear Compote".  Posted on the Oregon Food website, date unknown. Copyright Travel Oregon 2009-2012, all rights reserved.

Shouse, Heather.  Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels.  Random House: New York, 2011.

World Culinary Institute. "James Beard".  World Culinary Institute, date unknown. Copyright World Culinary Institute, all rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Oregon" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Oregon".