Crab Season Opens! 
This will be my last Dungeness Crab Season in the East Bay as we are moving to Hawaii in January. So, I plan to take full advantage of every morsel! Dungeness Crabs are sweet large crabs (about the size of snow crabs) that are named after the town in Washington State where they were first harvested. Today they are harvested all up and down the Pacific Coast of the US and most of Mexico.
Yesterday I went to Whole Foods and got two crabs ($5.99 a pound!) and had them cleaned and cracked. I brought them home and roasted them, then made a tangerine sauce to go over them. I normally do a blood orange sauce, but the blood oranges are not quite ready and we have tons of beautiful tangelos and tangerines. Meyer Lemons also make a nice sauce, but you should add some Agave syrup to it. We had a very messy but delicious dinner. Here is the recipe for Garlic Roasted Crabs with Tangerine Sauce:
The buttery garlic citrus sauce that coats the crabmeat and the shells is part of the pleasure of this dish; to really enjoy it, dispense with the utensils and just eat the crab with your hands. Serve crusty sourdough bread and a salad.
Yield: Makes 2 servings
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup olive oil
6 tablespoons minced garlic
6 tablespoon minced shallot
2 teaspoons dried crushed red pepper (less if you do not like spicy things)
2 large Dungeness crabs, cooked, cleaned, and cracked (about 4 1/4 pounds)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme, divided
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, divided
1 cup , tangerine, blood orange juice or regular orange juice (freshly squeezed)
2 teaspoons finely grated citrus peel (from whatever fruit you are using)
Method:
Preheat oven to 500°F. Melt butter with oil in heavy large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat.
Stir in garlic, shallot, and dried crushed red pepper.
Add crabs; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon chopped thyme and 1 tablespoon chopped parsley over crabs.
Stir to combine.
Place skillet in oven and roast crabs until heated through, stirring once, about 12 minutes. There should be slight browning on the shells.
Using tongs, transfer crabs to platter.
Add juice and peel to same skillet; boil until sauce is reduced by about half, about 5-10 minutes. Spoon sauce over crabs.
Sprinkle with remaining thyme and parsley and serve with copious amounts of napkins and hot fingertowels.
What is next? Perhaps crab enchiladas! Meanwhile, I am looking forward to tasting Kona Crab!
Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
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