My Uncle Denis' birthday was earlier this week. My mother’s only brother, Denis was a fixture in the Broadway Market for the last ten or so years that it was open. My grandmother basically stopped working in the store in the mid ‘90s, after her doctor told her she needed to rest a little more and not spend so much time on her feet. She took this as a prescription to not wait on customers unless absolutely necessary; both she and my grandfather were in their 80s at this point, and I think maybe she also lobbied to close the store around this time. My grandfather would hear nothing of it, and so he soldiered on with Denis shouldering most of the burden of the day to day operations. I don’t think Denis was particularly upset when the store finally closed in 2004, as he never really shared my grandfather’s love of the business and the interaction with the customers. Still, he faithfully worked every day, allowing my grandfather to keep the Broadway Market open much longer than he could have on his own.
The main recipe I’m sharing this week - crab spaghetti - isn’t particularly timely, since the best season for Dungeness crab is generally thought to be from November through June. Still, I saw crabs in the supermarket just the other day, and when I think of Denis and food, this is the first thing that comes to mind. We never had crab spaghetti for his birthday celebration, but I bet he would have chosen it if he could. I told the story of this messy meal in an earlier article; it was the second meal served to my father when he and my mother were dating. The crab is stewed in tomato sauce and served in the shell, and the generally accepted way to eat it is with one’s hands – you slurp off the sauce, break the shells with your teeth (or a nutcracker if you’re dainty) and then suck the sweet meat out of the shells. The shells get tossed into bowls on the table, and you move on to the next piece. Piles of napkins are a must, and when we were kids, there were plastic bibs, too – the disposable ones like you sometimes get at barbecue joints now.
Denis had an entirely different method of eating crab. He slurped the sauce off like everyone else, but then picked the meat out with the end of a leg, making a small mound of it on his plate. He’d clean his allotted portion (my Aunt Helen always counted legs, claws and stomachs and told everyone how much they were allowed to have) and ended up with a large mound of crab to which he’d add some reserved tomato sauce. At this point, the rest of us were just finishing up, wiping our hands, eating a little salad if we had room. Denis would then eat his crab slowly, with a fork, gloating while we looked on jealously. I tried to emulate his method a few times, but I lacked the patience, just like everyone else. Now that I’m older, I realize that the crab must have been completely cold by the time he was ready to eat, but that didn’t stop him. He always took full advantage, oohing and aahing and smacking his lips, hamming it up to the extreme.
The second recipe this week – Polenta Pie – is an easy, shortbread-like dessert that has always been one of my father’s specialties. Unlike Denis’ crab, this must be eaten warm; if it cools too much, it’s harder on your teeth than the crab shells!
The Recipe:
Crab Spaghetti
Serves 6
Like spaghetti and meatballs, this combination of pasta and accompanying protein needs only crusty bread and a nice salad to make a complete meal. If you’re celebrating a birthday or other occasion, start off with an appetizer of prosciutto and melon; cut a cantaloupe or other melon of your choice into large bite-sized chunks, wrap each chunk with a half slice of prosciutto and secure it with a toothpick (my grandmother always used the cute frilly ones.) The combination of salty and sweet is a great starter, and it’s not so rich as to compete with the crab.
Total prep and cooking time: about two hours – 30 minutes less if you have a fishmonger that will clean the crab for you!
Ingredients:
3 28 oz. cans whole plum tomatoes
1 Tbsp. sugar
3 Dungeness crabs, cleaned and broken into pieces (see below)
¼ C. olive oil
5-8 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper
1 ½ lbs. dried spaghetti or Fusilli Lunghi (long and curly spaghetti – very fun!)
Heat a large skillet or saucepan over medium heat, add the tomatoes and sugar, breaking the tomatoes up into large chunks with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil, the reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
Wash and clean your crab, if you weren’t able to buy it already cleaned. Rinse the crab under cold running water, then remove the back (top) shell by holding the base of the crab with one hand and pulling on the shell with the other. Rinse out the mushy yellow stuff and pull out the gills – finger sized pieces that look like latex gloves – and the intestine, which runs down the back. Pull off the legs and claws where they meet the body, then cut the body into quarters with a cleaver or large knife.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a very large dutch oven or heavy stock pot and sauté the garlic for three or four minutes, stirring frequently to avoid browning. Add the cut up crab pieces and stir or toss to coat with the garlic and oil, add several grinds of black pepper and a healthy sprinkle of salt, cook for ten minutes. Add the cooked tomatoes to this pot, stir to incorporate, then reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally – be gentle so that you don’t knock too much meat out of the quartered crab bodies.
Prepare pasta according to the package directions. Remove the crab from the sauce and place in a large serving bowl – covered if possible to retain the heat. Taste the sauce and correct seasoning as necessary with salt and pepper. Reserve 3-4 cups of sauce to serve at the table and toss the pasta with the remaining sauce. (Add a few tablespoons of butter if you’re feeling decadent – butter improves all sauces, in my opinion!) Serve and enjoy! If you feel the need to garnish, add a nice sprinkling of Italian parsley, but whatever you do, don’t serve Parmesan or Romano cheese with the spaghetti – it totally overpowers the flavors and makes it, well, weird!
The Recipe:
Pasticcino di Polenta – Polenta Pie
Serves 6-8
Experience has shown that the coarse cornmeal used for polenta is a little too rough for this dessert – regular cornmeal from a box is a better choice. Serve warm – we always had it plain, but fresh berries would be a nice accompaniment to dress things up a bit.
Total prep and baking time: 30 minutes, plus an additional 15 minutes to cool
Ingredients:
½ C. butter
½ C. granulated sugar
½ C. yellow cornmeal
1 C. flour
Preheat the oven to 400.
In a saucepan, melt the butter over a very low heat, stirring constantly to prevent browning. Add the remaining ingredients in the order listed, stirring briskly with a wooden spoon until the mixture is evenly grainy and well blended. Place in a lightly buttered, 8-inch pie tin. Smooth the top and press down firmly with the back of the spoon. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Turn out on a plate or wooden board and let stand 5 minutes. Cut into small wedges and serve warm.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
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