Baked eggs with dungeness crab

Baked eggs, or eggs en cocotte, are a new dish for us.  For some reason, I avoided French egg dishes because I thought they would be overly complex or fussy.  Nothing could farther from reality with eggs en cocotte.  They also make an attractive presentation, so would be a great breakfast/brunch to serve to company.  The eggs are served in the their ramekins, hence, en cocotte.

The preparation couldn’t be simpler – butter the ramekins, add cream and other ingredients (like dungeness crab), add the egg, followed by cream and a dab of butter.  Put the ramekins in a water bath and bake at 350F for about 15 minutes.  They can sit in the water bath for 15 minutes or so while you are finishing other dishes for your brunch.  An egg dish that is pretty and patient is a perfect brunch dish.

We used leftover crab dip in our variation, but  artichokes, mushrooms, minced ham and cheese would also be delicious.

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Amy’s crab dip

Another awesome recipe from my awesome sister-in-law, Amy.  It is week 2 of dungeness crab season and I returned to Newman’s to pick up 2 crabs for this delicious recipe.  Instead of shelling them by myself, I recruited Matt to help me after work on Friday.  He is a champion crab sheller (see exhibit below).  Last week, I shelled 3 crabs by myself and my hands about froze.  I digress.

It is really one of the best dishes you can bring to a holiday party – it’s delicious, it’s easy, and you can make it ahead of time.  A bonus is that the recipe  consists of almost all local ingredients, with the exception of the coconut milk, mayo, and curry powder.  We served it at our annual holiday cookie decorating party.  I assure you that if you show up with this at a holiday party, you will be asked for the recipe and invited back.

You can see the large pieces of crab in the finished dip – make sure you don’t break them up too much when you mix everything together.  They are such a treat sitting atop your melba toast.

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Crab bisque

This week marked the start of dungeness crab season.  Growing up on the east coast, I had many a crab cake made with the Maryland blue crab.  I had no idea what I was missing.  This rendition of dungeness crab was no exception.

This recipe really lets the crab steal the show.  Although it is a little time consuming because of the added time to make the shellfish fumet, the extra time is well worth it.  We put it in Stanley Thermos’ (like the kind my dad used to take to work) and brought it to our annual Christmas tree cutting trip in the National Forest.  For some reason, bisque just feels right for the holidays.

In season, dungeness crab is not terribly expensive if you are willing to do a little work (i.e. buy whole crabs and take the meat out yourself instead of buying lump crab meat).  I went to Newman’s yesterday and picked up 3 whole crabs that were caught early that morning.  They sell them cooked and cleaned, so I only had to remove the crab meat.  I saved the shells to make shellfish fumet for the base of the bisque.  Making fumet is alot like making chicken stock – in fact, most of the ingredients are the same.  I used a recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

This bisque recipe makes a more brothy bisque, which I prefer.  Use less fumet is your prefer a heavier bisque.  Although you could use chicken stock in place of the fumet, I highly recommend using the fumet.

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