Monday, August 15, 2011.
Crabmeat Au Gratin. Snacking The Night Away.
I had three quarters of a pound of jumbo lump crabmeat leftover from that cooking demo I did at the restaurant show last week. It's pasteurized crabmeat (the only kind I could find) when I bought it, but that won't last forever.
I made crabmeat au gratin. Not the usual cheese-loaded kind, but more along the classic French lines, with the upper crust made not of melted Cheddar but bread crumbs. There was a little cheese in it, but it was hidden in the bechamel matrix that held the crabmeat together.
It started with a stick of butter and a half-cup of flour, cooked as if I were making a roux, but stopping before it browned. Then in went in a cup of warm milk--a little too much, as it turned out, because the bechamel wasn't quite as thick as I like it to be. But the cheese (a blend of Parmesan and Dubliner cheese) brought the thickness up to a usable degree.
The crabmeat went into small gratin dishes. I napped the sauce on top of it. No need to stir it in; the force of gravity will take it through all the gaps between the crabmeat. Bread crumbs over the top. Into the oven at 375 degrees. The baking of things like this always takes longer than I expect--about fifteen minutes in the present example. By then, it was bubbly and the bread crumbs were nicely browned.
Mary Ann thought the crabmeat was a little over the hill. I didn't notice that, but she should have been delighted, what with all the junk she saves to be eaten far, far down the line.
The radio show came from the ranch. After it I began packing for the trip, the hardest part of which is stuffing my laptop with all the material I'll need to keep publishing the Menu Daily all week from the road. I get a vacation from the radio station, but nobody else can fill in for me in getting the newsletter out. And that's what puts the bacon on the table.
