The Best Tasting Crabs for Your Eating Pleasure

European Brown Crab- Photo Credit: Cuisineryfoodmarket.com

I was reading an advertisement in FaceBook about European Brown Crabs. I am thinking of buying/ordering on line since the price is reasonable. However, I am not sure of the taste/quality (contamination) of these crabs, so I posted a question on my FB page. However, I did not get any response except for my American-Italian neighbor. Here's the ad from FB.

European Brown Crab Cooked

These female crabs are cooked and ready to be cracked and eaten. One large crab will feed up to 2 person. You can also use the crab meat for your recipes. The white claw meat that comes from these crabs rivals the one from king crab.

Brown crab is a crab species found in the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean with a brown smooth, oval carapace, wider than it is long, which makes it stand out perfectly. Like the rest of other similar species, females have a larger abdomen than males.

• Fully cooked, free of preservatives or additives.
• 1 whole crab per pack.
• The crab weighs 14 to 21 oz (400g/600g), which is a perfectly generous portion for one to two people.

Full Description

$13.89 Special Price $11.09

I have not tasted this specie of Crabs, so I posted in FB asking if anyone knows its taste compared to the top best tasting crabs listed below.  

Top 5 Best Crabs To Eat

Maryland Blue Crab. .

Soft-Shell Crab. ...

Dungeness Crab. ...

Snow Crab. ...

Florida Stone Crab. ...

 

My Italian-American neighbor is familiar with these brown crabs. She said its taste is inferior to the Dungeness or Maryland Blue Crabs.  For those of you who are not crab enthusiasts here are the photos of the popular types of crabs used for cooking. There are more than 4500 species of crabs, but they are not all edible.

I have enjoyed the delicious taste of the Blue, Dungeness and Soft Shell Crabs as well as the Alaskan King Crab, but not the Snow or Florida Stone crabs. How about you? How many types of Crab meat have you enjoyed? They are not cheap!! 

Here's an article last year, on the high concentration of Cadmium in the brown meat ( body meat) of the European Brown Crabs. 

 

https://www.elgalabwater.com/blog/it-safe-eat-brown-crab

 

Here's another article on Eating Brown Crabs!!

Everything But the Shell: A Guide to Eating Brown Crab

Posted on April 26, 2016 by wizard Klaw

After a bit of a howler of a winter, it looks like the weather’s turned around and is becoming a bit friendlier. The lads on the crab boats will be out at Lambay Island (a spit of land in Dublin Bay where the crab like to party) pulling up pots of beautiful Brown Crabs. They know how to find them and catch them, we know how to cook them, so all that’s left is for you to know is how to eat them. It can be a bit intimidating to take on a whole crab and get the best out of it but once you know how it’s a great feed and a lot of fun.

Of the whole weight of these heavily armoured critters, about a third of it is edible meat. With sweet white meat in the claws and lower body and rich brown meat in the head, there’s a great range of flavours in a Brown Crab. When we prepare a crab in Klaw, we pull off the claws and separate the top shell and the lower body. On the lower body are the “dead man’s fingers” as they’re known. These are the crab’s gills through which water is filtered. These are removed; despite the enticing name they’re neither tasty nor visually appealing. We then split the body down the middle to make the meat more accessible and we crack the claws. This leaves the top shell or carapace. We remove the sandbox and a membrane that covers the meat. The meat in the top shell is often overlooked in favour of the sweet claw meat but for many this meat is the highlight of eating a crab. The soft meat has a distinct flavour and is stunning when spread on toast and sprinkled with a bit of the Old Bay seasoning and the yuzu that we love in Klaw.

 

 

A Pictorial Collection of the Most Popular Filipino Dishes

While reading My E-mail last month, I found this article on Quora.com describing Filipino Dishes versus Thai and other Asian dishes. I am posting the answer below and photos of some mouth-watering Pinoy Dishes. I hope looking at the pictures will me you hungry and order a Filipino Dish today from your local favorite Pinoy restaurant or on line through Shef.com (Referral code Davidk35). Bon Apetit!     

Traditional Filipino desserts

• Rice Cakes

• ‘Ginataang Bilo-Bilo’, this actually looks similar to the Thai dessert ‘Bua Loi’.

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Examples of Thai food for visual comparison.

Source: Quora.com (Digest)

Why is Filipino food not popular overseas apart from in places where there are workers from the Philippines?

Personally I think that Filipino cuisine lacks promotion… but I also know that some people have professed their hatred of Filipino cuisine. As a Filipino I love Filipino cuisine, but if other people don’t like it, then who cares?… let them be, as long as they’re not spreading misinformation.

Dayang Marikit

Philippine History Professor

Is Filipino cuisine similar to Thai cuisine?

As a Filipino who had been to Thailand, I’d say that visually speaking they could generally look “quite similar” to each other because both cultures love stews, broth soups, noodles, rice, rice cakes, spring rolls, etc… however I’d say that the main difference is in the flavor, Filipino cuisine has a lot of "umami flavor" but it's generally “milder” and less spicy and less herby than Thai cuisine, they use a lot of aromatics like cilantro, which Filipino don’t typically use. Though I must say that some of the flavors are quite familiar to me.

My Korean and Japanese friends tend to say that Filipino food is very flavorful to their palates but still “tolerable” unlike Thai cuisine. Many Koreans could tolerate the spiciness of Thai cuisine, but not its strong herbal flavor… I think that makes sense because comparatively speaking, Korean and Japanese cuisine generally tends to be “blander” than Southeast Asian cuisine, in my opinion.

Do you have a favorite in this pictorial? Let me Know!

 

The Ten Types of Most Popular Sauces in the World

Tzatziki Sauce- Photo Credit- menuprice.com

Last week, I posted the three sauces that I recently used for my empanadas and dumplings. This article is on the 10-types of the most popular sauces. If you are a Food enthusiast you are probably familiar with all of them. 

The list below are the 10 most popular sauces according to the menuprice.com

How many of these sauces are you using? I have used all nine of them. The only sauce I have not tried is #4-Tzatziki*. This is the first time I heard of the sauce. The following article from the blog of menuprice.com is very informative.

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Sauces are liquid or semi-liquid forms of food served with various food dishes in different cuisines. It's also used while making food recipes that give taste, flavor and textures to the final food products. Some of the sauces are an essential ingredient in some food recipes to bring the specific taste and flavor. Soy sauce is predominantly used in Japanese cuisines. In addition, they’re also used in salad dressing as well as side dishes. Commonly used sauces include hot sauce, sriracha sauce, tomato sauce and ketchup.

1. Hot Sauce
2. Sriracha Sauce
3. BBQ Sauce
4. Tzatziki Sauce
5. Buffalo Sauce
6. Tomato Sauce
7. Bolognese Sauce
8. Hoisin Sauce
9. Worcestershire Sauce
10. Garlic Sauce
11.  *Tzatziki Sauce is an Ottoman origin sauce made from salted strained yogurt mixed with olive oil, salt, garlic, cucumbers and herbs. It is also served as a cold appetizer and side dish. With its long history of evolution, different varieties of Tzatziki Sauce are seen from Turkish cacik to Balkan Tartar and jajeez in Middle East countries.
12. Not included in the List are my favorites,- Picante ( Medium), A-1 for Steaks and Hollandaise Sauce. 
    

For complete details read:  

 https://menuprice.co/blog/top-10-types-of-popular-sauces

For a List of Common Seasonings and Flavoring Ingredients read:

https://www.johnnyskitchen.us/professional-cooking/common-seasoning-and-flavoring-ingredients.html 

Meanwhile enjoy this photo of my Pompano Fish

 

 

Use of Sauces and Seasonings for Your Pasta, Dumplings, Empanadas and Other Dishes

This week, I am learning how to use sauces and seasonings to enhance the taste and flavor of Dumplings, Pasta, Empanada and Other Dishes.  

The three sauces that accompanied with my Order of Dumplings on Line ( Chili Crisp, Umami and Classic Vinegar)

 

The other day, I ordered Argentinian Chicken and Steak Empanadas from Shef.com.  For some reason or another, my order did not include the chimichurri sauce as advertised. I was a bit disappointed, but I remembered I had an Umami Seasoning I ordered several weeks ago that accompanied with my order of Shrimp and Pork Dumplings. I tried it with the empanadas and it was delicious. For those of you who are not familiar with Umami seasoning ( see photo above).

 

Umami Seasoning is made of Salt, dried mushrooms (including shiitake, porcini, champignon), garlic, tomato powder, dried chiles, onion, miso powder (soybeans, rice, salt, aspergillus orzae), balsamic vinegar powder (maltodextrin, balsamic vinegar), spices, lemon powder (IP corn syrup solids, lemon juice concentrate, lemon oil),and silicon dioxide. What does umami seasoning taste like?

 

Umami, which is also known as monosodium glutamate is one of the core fifth tastes including sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. Umami means “essence of deliciousness” in Japanese, and its taste is often described as the meaty, savory deliciousness that deepens flavor.

I also used Peppercorn Chile oil and Hot and Regular Sesame Oils, If I need a little spicy taste in my fried Fish, Dumplings or Pasta. 
 

Red Chimichurri and the Regular Green Chimichurri

The above are the red and green chimichurri Sauces.  Chimichurri sauce is made with fresh herbs, garlic, vinegar, chili pepper and olive oil.

My next order of Fried Pompano from Shef.com will have on the side-a red Chimichurri sauce.

Meanwhile here's a photo of the UBE Spread that Ditas Gave me Last Week