No. 1001

Hard Shell Crabs Baked on a Dish

Crabes Durs au Gratin dans un Plat

After some large crabs have been cooked in a court bouillon, as for No. 1002, pick out all their meat, keeping it as whole as possible; put it into a sautoir with some allemande sauce (No. 407), and sliced mushrooms, also chopped parsley; mix well. Butter a silver dish, besprinkle it with bread-crumbs, and fill with the crab preparation, dredge bread-crumbs fried in butter on top, and lay the dish in the oven; when nicely browned, serve on a folded napkin.

← No. 1000 Soft Clams a la Newberg Crabs No. 1002 Hard Shell Crabs, in Court Bouillon →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward crab gratin whose difficulty is entirely in the sauce: allemande is a velouté finished with egg yolks, and it must not be allowed to boil once the yolks are in.

Allemande sauceNo. 407 is a velouty-based sauce thickened with egg yolks and finished with lemon. If you are not making it from the book, use about 1 1/2 cups of velouty (butter-flour roux with light stock) whisked off the heat into two yolks beaten with a few spoons of cream, then lemon juice; keep it below a boil once the yolks are in, as it can curdle.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, not a piece of equipment you need to hunt down. Any wide skillet or sauté pan works, and here it serves only to warm and coat the crab, not to cook it further.
Silver dishRanhofer wrote for a dining room where the cooking vessel came to the table. Use a shallow earthenware or enamelled gratin dish; the shallower the better, since in a deep dish the crab may overcook before the top browns.
Oven heatThe original gives none because the aim is browning, not cooking. A hot oven, 425F, for 10 to 15 minutes, or a few minutes under the broiler, is enough since everything in the dish is already cooked.
The crumbsTwo separate applications: plain crumbs to line the buttered dish, and crumbs already fried golden in butter scattered on top. Frying them first is what gives the crust colour in the short time the dish is in the oven.
QuantityEnough picked meat to fill a shallow dish will serve four as a first course; how many crabs that takes depends entirely on their size and species. Fold the meat in with a spatula rather than stirring hard, since the recipe asks that the meat be kept as whole as possible.
MushroomsSliced raw mushrooms will shed water into the sauce. Sauté them in butter until the moisture has gone and they have taken a little colour before they meet the allemande.
Court bouillonNo. 1002 is the companion recipe, giving the court bouillon the crabs are boiled in. Hard shell crabs need only 10 to 15 minutes at a bare simmer; longer and the meat turns fibrous and stringy in the gratin.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this dish shows the house method applied to a local ingredient, dressed in one of the classic French sauces. Au gratin here means simply a browned crumb crust; no cheese is called for. The instruction to serve the dish on a folded napkin is a detail of service rather than cookery, keeping the hot silver off the tablecloth and steadying it in front of the guest, and it recurs throughout the book. Ranhofer's numbered cross-references, sending the cook to No. 407 for the sauce and No. 1002 for the court bouillon, reflect a professional kitchen where such components were already to hand; the home reader has to build them separately.