Stewed Crabs

A bare-bones Waldorf preparation that assumes you have a picked crab and a competent hand with seasoning. Two things need adjusting: the stewing time and the heat under the milk.

• The hinge: don't stew it that longFifteen to twenty minutes in milk turns already-cooked crab into shreds and drives off its sweetness. Five minutes at a bare simmer is enough to heat the meat through and let it flavour the cream.
• Keep the milk below a boilMilk held at a rolling boil, especially once salted, can break and look curdled. Heavy cream is far more forgiving than milk if you want any margin.
• Half a pintOne cup. For eight crabs this gives a soupy stew rather than a bound one; the recipe has no thickener, so expect something closer to a creamed dish served over toast than a chowder.
• Eight crabs, and what they yieldAlmost certainly Atlantic blue crabs, the common New York market crab of the period, though the recipe does not say. Eight average ones yield roughly a cup to a cup and a half of picked meat — enough for two servings, or four as a first course.
• Steaming live crabsTwenty minutes over hard-boiling water is about right for blue crabs; add five minutes for anything much over a half pound. Cool them enough to handle before picking.
• PickingDiscard the gills, the mustard-coloured hepatopancreas if it puts you off, and every shard of shell — cartilage from the body chambers is the usual thing missed, and it is unpleasant in a cream stew.
• ShortcutEight to twelve ounces of fresh picked lump crab substitutes directly. Pasteurised tub crab works but goes stringy fast, so give it two minutes only.
• SeasoningCayenne and salt are the whole seasoning here, so be deliberate: a generous pinch of cayenne, and salt added at the end after the crab has released its own saltiness into the cream.