Get out your bibs and your tiny little hammers; Dungeness crab season is under way off the California coast.
This is one time of the year when I fully embrace the locavore movement _ love those fresh, meaty little red monsters. Plain, with butter, popped into a traditional cioppino, all good dishes.
I have made cioppino the hard way; it’s good. But when I’m in a hurry, and, honestly, when am I not, I fall back on my trusty short-cut cioppino:
Start with as much cleaned, cracked, cooked crab as you can afford. Anything that won’t fit in the pot will be scarfed down plain, trust. Since you’re not meeting the crab boat and offing these crusty characters personally, you need to be able to rely on your supplier. I get mine from Andronico’s in Berkeley and they haven’t let me down yet.
Finely chop one onion and fry in 3 tablespoons of olive oil until it softens and then add two cloves diced garlic and cook for about another minute. Add a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes with puree and then adjust the seasoning to suit. I usually add just a hint of sugar to get rid of the “canned” taste, and then go to town with thyme, my favorite herb right now, a few shakes of Tabasco, maybe just a wee drop of Worcester sauce and possibly a sprinkling of Old Bay. Go carefully, last New Year’s I ended up with an unexpectedly fiery brew. I’m not a huge fan of a very thick broth so I sometimes add a little white wine to get a good consistency.
The traditional companions for crab in cioppino are clams and white fish. The white fish I’m on board with. I usually have some frozen in the freezer that I chop into 3-inch long chunks. Clams … they’re a lot of trouble for a little bit of meat, friends. Plus, you end up with a mountain of debris. If I do go the clam route, I cook them separately and lose most of the shells before transferring the clams into the cioppino. That seems to make the dish less salty and gives just a few shells for effect. But most of the time I just stick in a handful of shrimp right before I put in the crab. The shrimp I buy peeled and frozen; both they and the fish are best if you thaw before adding.
My method is put the fish in first, cooking for a few minutes, then shrimp, then crab. The trick is to have everything nice and warm _and, of course, not raw _ but not boiled to the point that the fish is disintegrating and the shrimp are rubbery.
Serve with a loaf of sourdough that you crisped up in the oven for a few minutes and, Voila! For a small crowd, I put out a salad bowl for the shells. For more than 5 people, I use a paper tablecloth, have everyone toss the shells on the table and then just roll the whole thing up when we’re done.
The wine pairing for this? A well-chilled beer.
Bon appetit!
