To Spice or Not to Spice? That is the Question!

Freshly caught seafood carries a wide variety of tastes. Salty-sweet, buttery blue crabs, earthy and oceanic mussels, or succulent, delicate lobster tails serve boldly alone. Masking the taste means you should have found another catch. Embellishing it with a delicious sauce or dip signals a professional chef. Know your seasonings and spice and you’ll cook up a dish really nice! Ready for a day of relaxation and a meal worth talking about. Pull up these pots. Shake out these nets and you’ll find enough fresh catches for this weekend’s seafood fest. Yes, and you can brag about it!

We Say, “Spice!”

“Maryland Style Blue Crabs” means two things. Crab house crew steam the crabs with a hot water mist, and they douse them with a paprika, salt, and bay spice concoction. Even though the crabs boast a sweet meat, unique to the Chesapeake Bay’s brackish waters, a peppery pop complements the flavor. Some enthusiasts claim additions to the cooking water enhance the bay culture experience. First, vinegar keeps the meat from sticking to the shells. Nothing worse than finding a huge crab chunk that gets “mutilated” when trying to extract it. Clean chunks and easy picking keeps everyone happy! Second, a splash or two of an IPA beer will give a bit of “hoppiness“ to the mix. Try these variations and live like a true Marylander.  Then, spicing with a Maryland mix like JO Spice #2 is part of the traditional recipe. The steaming keeps the meat tender and spicing this way allows it to coat unevenly throughout the pot. An uneven spicing gives choices for the feast. Some may want extra spice, while others, little to none. As far as the Southern style, they boil the crabs which may cause “watery” or soggy crabs and the spice is even throughout. Is it a personal preference? Yes, but the Maryland Style is almost a spiritual practice for Chesapeake Bay lovers.

Taste is at the forefront. If mixing your own spice, choose the best ingredients: salt, dry mustard, red pepper flakes, grounded black pepper, paprika, cloves, ginger, and cinnamon. Depending on your preference, add more “hot” ingredients or less. Blue crabs exhibit three main meat categories. Claw has a fibrous texture and a robust crab flavor. Lump and jumbo boast a buttery taste and a succulence with a slight salty hint. These complementing spices will embellish this fresh catch. First, the salt flakes should have a larger size to stick to the crabs. Dry mustard’s tangy flavor and red bell pepper’s sharpness will give the meat an impressive urgency. Devour every morsel and guzzle a Natty Bo! Paprika’s sweetness and cloves’ slight bitterness will mix well with crab’s saline presence. Ginger and cinnamon give mystery to the spice with a woodiness and zest that ties the mix’s flavors together. Is it a rainbow of tastes? No, it’s the Maryland Style of Spicing!

Why do chefs search out Blue Crab Meat?

Options do present themselves when preparing crab dishes. Snow, Dungeness or even imitation may fill the recipe’s requirements, but the sweetness in blue crab meat knows no comparison. Pristine white, but with some yellowish or orange hints, freshly picked crab meat should represent the excitement of finding a delicious morsel, just like at the crab feast. Yellowish hints show the mustard or crab fat accompanying a beautiful chunk. An occasional orange ball serves as an obvious sign of freshly picked meat by hand. Those balls encompass crab roe or eggs that taste even sweeter than the meat. Proteins in the meat, when steamed or boiled, give blue crabs that signature sweetness.

Of course, your crab meat containers offer “already cooked” meat that’s recipe ready. Chefs know this and unload claw meat for Maryland Crab Soup with the darker, fibrous, and robust chunks. True Bay enthusiasts search high and low for the best lump meat for their secret crab cake recipe. Do you have one? Of course, jumbo meat with huge chunks causes quite a commotion around the dinner table. Chefs go with this excitement with a rich crab imperial. Which meat will you explore for tonight’s dinner, or will you use all three?