No. 1002

Hard Shell Crabs, in Court Bouillon

Crabes Durs au Court Bouillon

Soak the crabs for a quarter of an hour in cold water containing a handful of salt; wash them nicely. Fry in butter some minced carrots, onions, and celery, with pepper-corns, thyme, bay leaf, and branches of parsley. Moisten with white wine and broth, throw in the crabs, and let boil for fifteen minutes, then dress them on a napkin and range branches of parsley around; pour the top of the stock from its sediment, reduce it with veloute sauce (No. 415), when ready to serve, work in some fine butter, and serve it separately.

← No. 1001 Hard Shell Crabs Baked on a Dish Crabs No. 1003 Hard Shell Crabs, Stuffed, Carolina Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French treatment of blue crabs: a short aromatic poach, the crabs served whole, and the cooking liquid turned into a sauce at the last minute. Ranhofer assumes you have a velouté and a working knowledge of proportions, so the gaps are worth filling before you start.

Quantities are not givenQuantities are not given here. For a dozen hard-shell blue crabs, a workable modern reconstruction is two carrots, two onions, a couple of celery ribs, a dozen peppercorns, and about a bottle of dry white wine topped up with broth to just cover — these proportions are not Ranhofer's.
Court bouillonNot a stock in its own right but a short aromatic bath made for the thing cooked in it. Here the vegetables are sweated in butter first, which gives the liquid more body than the plain wine-and-water version.
The soak is a rinse, not a purgeFifteen minutes in salted cold water loosens grit and mud from the shell and joints. It does nothing to clean the crab internally, and crabs left in fresh or lightly salted water too long will die and begin to spoil. Keep them cold and alive until they go into the pot.
Fifteen minutes is rightUnusually for a period recipe, the timing holds. Hard-shell blue crabs of ordinary size want 10 to 15 minutes at a bare boil from the moment the liquid returns to temperature. Longer and the meat turns stringy and the picking gets harder, not easier.
Velouté, No. 415In Ranhofer's system that is a white roux slackened with veal or chicken broth and simmered until it coats. A modern light chicken velouté does the same work. The idea is to reduce the strained crab liquid with it until the sauce is glossy, not to thicken the poaching liquid directly.
Working in the butterThis is monter au beurre. Cold butter whisked in off the heat gives the gloss and the finish; if the sauce boils after the butter goes in it will break. Do it at the pass, not in advance.
Dressed on a napkinA folded linen napkin on the platter absorbs the liquid draining from the shells so the crabs do not sit in a puddle. Purely a service convention of the period; a warmed platter and a good drain does the same job.
YieldNone is stated. Three crabs per person makes a modest course, four to six a main. Expect diners to pick at the table, and set out crackers, picks and finger bowls.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working reference, which is why an American blue crab arrives here dressed in French method and French title. The Atlantic blue crab was abundant and cheap in New York markets through the nineteenth century, and Ranhofer gives it a whole run of treatments — baked on a dish, stuffed Carolina style, deviled — but this one is the most conservative: a court bouillon poach borrowed straight from the French handling of freshwater fish and shellfish, with the poaching liquid recovered as a sauce rather than thrown out. That recovery is often taken as the mark of a professional kitchen of the period.