Hot Buttered Crab, Great Seafood Recipe

 I added 2 new photos and I added a little more info to the recipe, 7-7-22

 

Hot Buttered Crab
I jotted down this recipe sometime in the late 1990s from the television cooking show "Two Fat Ladies," which was filmed in England by and for the BBC, but carried on The Food Network in the United States. The show had Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson, two English cooks, traveling around England and parts of Britain fixing dishes in various settings. Regrettably, Ms. Paterson, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer and so the series ended. I'm certain I did not copy down every exact detail of the recipe, as they used whole cooked crabs, for one thing, so let's just say this is my version, but if you live in an area where crab is easily obtained and it doesn't cost a week's pay per pound ... hey, go for it. Crab is expensive and not always readily available in many parts of the country at a decent price (ah, maybe nowhere at a decent price?), so I have learned to use a mixture of imitation crab (actually spelled "c-h-e-a-p-e-r") and canned or lump crab meat. Crab has a delicate flavor, so you won't really be cheated by using imitation mixed with some real crab. I've made this recipe at least 3-5 times a year since I saw that show. I'd say you could also use this recipe for a firm flesh white fish.

About 2 lbs or so of mixed imitation and real crab meat (always check for shell bits)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
2 anchovy fillets* chopped
1/2 to 1 stick butter**
about 1/4 cup white wine***
juice of one lemon
some lemon zest (this is strictly my idea, but it adds a little more fresh lemon flavor and you've already got the lemon anyhow; I suggest 1 teaspoon zest up to 1 tablespoon, if you like lemony taste)
hot sauce (this is what they used on the television show, but I use some minced, fresh hot peppers, like serranos or jalapenos, I like spicy food, so I use 2 or 3 chilies, including the seeds)
couple ounces of bread crumbs (I believe they made their own on the show, but I use store bought, and the sun has always come out again at some point)
salt (don't forget, the anchovies will add some salt, so I don't use much salt)
freshly ground black pepper to taste (I use 1/2 teaspoon)
2 to 3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley (or if you only have dried parsley, use it, you'll live through it, I have)

Start by sautéing the garlic, the anchovies and the hot peppers (if you use hot pepper sauce instead, add it a little later) in some butter (or butter/canola oil) until the garlic softens and the anchovies melt and blend in, gradually add the rest of the butter + the wine, the lemon juice and lemon zest. Allow the mixture to heat up, then add the crab meat a little at a time and stir gently until the crab is coated. Then gently mix in about half of the bread crumbs and some parsley. If I remember right, on the show they then took the crab mixture and put it into the crab shells they had kept. You can put the mixture into a casserole or some baking dish. In either case, top the mixture with the rest of the bread crumbs and parsley and put under the broiler for a few minutes until browned.

* Don't panic if you don't like anchovies. Used in cooking, anchovies melt away and add flavor, but not the strong flavor many undoubtedly associate with anchovy pizza, or when used directly on salads. You can also soak them in a bit of milk for a few minutes to remove some of the salt, if you'd like.

** Or you can substitute some canola oil (or other neutral oil) for some of the butter. I wouldn't use olive oil, as it has flavor, but canola is a neutral oil.

*** When I wrote the recipe down, I wrote white vermouth, as that must have been what they used, but since I first tried this, I've used different varieties of white wine, including some a bit sweeter, and the world hasn't ended. The later addition of the bread crumbs will help absorb any excess liquid if the mixture seems too moist at first. 

WORD HISTORY:
Crab-This word for the multi-legged, double clawed sea creature goes back to Indo European "gerebh/gerbh," which meant "to scratch, to carve, to dig into." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "krabho," which "seems" to have developed along the Germanic speaking seacoast areas of northern Europe, as the high German dialects apparently borrowed the term from Low German.^ The name naturally came about from the notion of the claws "scratching or digging into something," hopefully not your finger. The Old Germanic form gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "crabba," which then became "crabbe" (the ending "e" likely pronounced "eh/ah"), before the modern version. The perception of the crab to be a bit cantankerous for the quick use of its claws brought use of the word for such a person. The "crab" of "crab apple" is likely a different word that simply came to be spelled that way by chance, or by influence of "crab." The other Germanic languages have: German "Krabbe" (crab, but also often used in every day language for shrimp from the North Sea) and "Krebs" (crab, but also crayfish when speaking of a river/stream), both forms came to High German from Low German; Low German "Krabb" (crab, but also small shrimp) and "kreevt" (crab, crayfish); Dutch "krab" (crab) and kreeft (crayfish); Danish "krabbe(r)" (crab) and "krebs" (crayfish); Norwegian "krabbe" (crab) and "kreps" (crayfish); Icelandic "krabbi" (crab); and Swedish "krabba" (crab) and "kräfta" (crayfish).   

^ Naturally this would make sense, as the speakers of the high dialects were further south, away from the sea; thus they would have had no need for a name for a creature they didn't have near them. Undoubtedly travel and trade gave them the necessity for such a word, which they then conveniently borrowed from their close relative, Low German.