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Now I get "The Cooking Channel"

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1Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 3:29 pm

bethk

bethk
Admin

When I had the conversation with the Comcast lady about my bill being too big she switched us to a 'Promo' they have going now that increased the number of channels we get (WHO in the world watches 260 channels on TV?????) but the surprise to me was that we now get a third cooking channel to go with 'The Food Network' and my PBS programs.

I happened on an old "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" ~ from 2008.  I didn't watch from the beginning but about 1/3 of the way through the program.  They were just starting to cook so I think I caught most of the highlights.

Turns out it was a 'Throwdown' with New Orleans chef Poppy Tooker ~ and what caught my eye in the first place was the guest appearance of Leah Chase of Dooky Chase Restaurant fame.

They were making seafood gumbo.  At one point Poppy asked Bobby Flay if he was using sausage in his gumbo and he said he was.  She said, "It's Good Friday!  Who's going to taste Bobby's gumbo with sausage in it?"  The camera scanned the crowd and only one man raised his hand.  Bobby made his seafood gumbo WITHOUT the sausage.  LOL

It just goes to show that there's so much more to cooking certain classics than just the ingredients.  

And Poppy Tooker won.

Here's a link to what they are saying was the winning recipe. Michelle, maybe you can explain what 'Gumbo crab' is......no familiar at all.

https://www.louisianatravel.com/culinary/recipes/poppy-tookers-seafood-gumbo-recipe

2Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 4:34 pm

bethk

bethk
Admin

After the 2008 Bobby Flay episode, the next program to air was an equally old episode of 'Good Eats' ~ back in the day when Alton Brown was actually pretty good at 'teaching' (AND he had much more hair.....LOL).

His episode was also about gumbo and he did a good job of explaining about how the darker the roux, the less thickening it produces. He finished up the thickening of his soup with file powder, stirred into the turned off pot as opposed to using (my dreaded) okra or stirring the file powder into individual servings at the table.

He used just andouille sausage, which he browned in a separate pan, and fresh gulf shrimp ~ no other seafood. He used the heads and shells of the shrimps to make a shrimp stock, cooking it for 45 minutes to allow it to reduce by half the amount of water used. Strangely, to me, he did not add any aromatics to his shrimp stock, or a fish head. Oh well, to each his own I guess.

3Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 4:38 pm

bethk

bethk
Admin

I just did a search of 'gumbo crabs' and this is the explaination that was given:

https://screenshots.firefox.com/rTUrWEbEzfartw1f/www.google.com

Interesting.....

4Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 6:50 pm

Crybaby

Crybaby

bethk wrote:When I had the conversation with the Comcast lady about my bill being too big she switched us to a 'Promo' they have going now that increased the number of channels we get (WHO in the world watches 260 channels on TV?????) but the surprise to me was that we now get a third cooking channel to go with 'The Food Network' and my PBS programs.

I happened on an old "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" ~ from 2008.  I didn't watch from the beginning but about 1/3 of the way through the program.  They were just starting to cook so I think I caught most of the highlights.

Turns out it was a 'Throwdown' with New Orleans chef Poppy Tooker ~ and what caught my eye in the first place was the guest appearance of Leah Chase of Dooky Chase Restaurant fame.

They were making seafood gumbo.  At one point Poppy asked Bobby Flay if he was using sausage in his gumbo and he said he was.  She said, "It's Good Friday!  Who's going to taste Bobby's gumbo with sausage in it?"  The camera scanned the crowd and only one man raised his hand.  Bobby made his seafood gumbo WITHOUT the sausage.  LOL

It just goes to show that there's so much more to cooking certain classics than just the ingredients.  

And Poppy Tooker won.

Here's a link to what they are saying was the winning recipe.  Michelle, maybe you can explain what 'Gumbo crab' is......no familiar at all.

https://www.louisianatravel.com/culinary/recipes/poppy-tookers-seafood-gumbo-recipe

Gumbo crabs are small hardshell blue crabs that have yet to be boiled; they're often sold frozen in a bag down here. If that's all that's available when I make seafood gumbo, I use them. But I prefer using big already boiled blue crabs -- I break off the legs first and throw them in the gumbo and then after peeling back the apron on the back of the body of the boiled crab, I just break the body in two pieces and add that -- pretty much the same thing I do when I use the gumbo crabs except those don't have the large legs on them like the big ones do. I just like the bigger crabs as it's easier to pick out the crabmeat when you encounter a piece in your gumbo; I also think the crab boil on the crabs adds another layer of flavor to my gumbo.

5Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 7:01 pm

Crybaby

Crybaby

bethk wrote:After the 2008 Bobby Flay episode, the next program to air was an equally old episode of 'Good Eats' ~ back in the day when Alton Brown was actually pretty good at 'teaching' (AND he had much more hair.....LOL).

His episode was also about gumbo and he did a good job of explaining about how the darker the roux, the less thickening it produces.  He finished up the thickening of his soup with file powder, stirred into the turned off pot as opposed to using (my dreaded) okra or stirring the file powder into individual servings at the table.  

He used just andouille  sausage, which he browned in a separate pan, and fresh gulf shrimp ~ no other seafood.  He used the heads and shells of the shrimps to make a shrimp stock, cooking it for 45 minutes to allow it to reduce by half the amount of water used.  Strangely, to me, he did not add any aromatics to his shrimp stock, or a fish head.  Oh well, to each his own I guess.


If it was shrimp stock, most people down here would just use the shells and the heads from the shrimp we're using, though most of us would have used some aromatics. Now if it was SEAFOOD stock, we'd have used more seafood ingredients -- perhaps some gumbo crabs as well. You don't see stuff like fish heads being sold here as most people would just buy a whole fish to make and then save the fish head for down the line if they wanted it. And don't forget, Beth, it's Bobby Flay and not a southerner!

6Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 7:10 pm

Crybaby

Crybaby

Here's a picture of how gumbo crabs are normally sold:

Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Gumbo_12

7Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Mon May 14, 2018 8:16 pm

bethk

bethk
Admin

It was interesting. Poppy Tooker showed how to tell the difference between a female and male crab. I knew there was a difference in the 'apron'. But she said the boy crabs are all blue claws and the girls have red at the tips, like they spent time getting a manicure.

More stupid info to store in the deep back of your brain! LOL

8Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Wed May 16, 2018 11:05 am

Crybaby

Crybaby

bethk wrote:It was interesting.  Poppy Tooker showed how to tell the difference between a female and male crab.  I knew there was a difference in the 'apron'.  But she said the boy crabs are all blue claws and the girls have red at the tips, like they spent time getting a manicure.

More stupid info to store in the deep back of your brain!  LOL

It's really fun to read about it, hear it and see it even if you don't end up remembering it when you need it, isn't it Beth? (That's what Google or Alexa is for!) I knew how to tell the sex via the apron since I was a kid, but never noticed red tips on any crabs until they're cooked, of course. Which brought me back to an incident which probably happened around 1995.

Brian went crabbing one day by himself many years ago when he was off work and I wasn't. I got nervous 'cause he'd been gone so long and hadn't phoned yet and started worrying about him being out there where we normally went (outside of St. Bernard Parish in an area called Shell Beach in Yscloskey, LA) all by himself. (Cell phones were just coming to pass but Brian had a huge brick of a phone since he was in the steamship industry; his industry had the precursors to cell phones probably 3 years before they initially came out to the public in their first expensive brick iteration! People would FLIP OUT when I called them from the car when we were heading over! The difference back then was there was a base unit in his office so everyone in his office with a phone could hear your conversation, not a bad thing as long as you remembered not to discuss anything personal or use profanity.)

Anyway, he finally called me around 3 p.m. -- you normally crab early in the morning until about 10 a.m. or so, as usually, in warmer weather anyway, the crabs stop biting and get kind of lethargic as the day gets hotter. So I figured he hadn't caught much since he'd stayed out there so long in that heat! He said he'd started out really slowly, having nothing but teeny tiny crabs in each net he pulled up, but then just when he was pulling up his nets to call it quits and head home, he started catching a couple of big ones so he stayed a while longer. He said he had an ice chest full, so I assumed he meant the smaller type Igloo cooler made for one person to carry, the kind that holds about 9 or 10 beers.  

Anyway, when I got home from work, my Yankee husband had them in a clean plastic garbage can he'd bought on the way home and had filled with fresh water, just like we used to do when we crabbed (okay, he'd gone with us a few times but who knew Brian had actually paid attention?!). It looked like a lot of crab and he said, "I TOLD you I'd filled an ice chest," and then he pointed to the big ice chest!  He said, "You'd better call some people who like crab 'cause I'm boiling these suckers tonight." I called my sister and she and her husband Ed and our good friend Pete came over -- Brian loved it, as it was so typically a "boil" by Louisiana standards, which means everyone who arrived had their own suggestions on how to cook them, what to put in the big pot along with the crab boil, how long before you knew they were done, etc. Brian loved every minute of it!

We not only had tons of delicious boiled crabs (remember, Brian doesn't eat seafood so just sat there and listened to the compliments and finger-sucking going on), but I sent each person home with at least a half-dozen boiled crabs and kept a few for me to peel the next day for some crabmeat for the freezer. I'm bad about peeling and/or picking things except when I'm actually at a boil so I knew better than to keep too many or they'd have just gone bad before I picked them.

But what prompted this particular lengthy story is that I decided to count the crabs as we dropped them into the big boiling pot. I was in charge of grabbing each crab (with LONG tongs mind you, as I'm no dummy!) and dropping them in the pot. Brian had not only caught 77 good size crabs and everyone cheered as the count grew and grew, but what fascinated me was that every single crab he caught was a female!  Usually the really big ones turn out to be males (or so had been my experience) but these were some really good sized crabs. I don't know enough about crab life or crabbing to explain this but when I just googled "Yscloskey" in order to spell it correctly (it's pronounced WHY-CLOS-KEY), I saw a blurb about a crabbing spot noting "...you'll usually catch more females here than male crabs..." but it didn't explain why and it seemed to be just mentioned in passing.

I haven't had boiled crabs in probably 15 years. The one good thing about a boiled crab is it has a decent amount of meat in it but boy, if you've got any little cuts on your fingers or a ripped cuticle or two, that crab boil really wakes up those little wounds. I do buy a couple boiled ones when making seafood gumbo or Shrimp and Crab Stew as I use those to add flavor to the dish due to the crab boil and seasoning used to cook them -- plus the bright red color really perks up your dish. The gumbo crabs turn red, too, when cooked but they're not big and flashy like a big ol' boiled crab with all its big claws and pincers still attached.  Who knows == maybe I'll pick up a couple of them next time they're looking gorgeous in the store just to take a trip back in time.

9Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Wed May 16, 2018 11:18 am

bethk

bethk
Admin

One of the things on my 'bucket list' is to go to a Maryland Crab Boil or a New Orleans Crab/Crayfish Boil WITH someone who is good at extracting the meat and is patient with a slow learner. LOL

I know there are some 'tricks of the trade' to make it more enjoyable than spending 10 minutes to get a minute bit of crab meat. When I want to make crab dip, instead of buying the pasturized lump crab meat, which I think tastes really processed, I usually buy snow crab legs. Two clusters is more than enough to get enough crab meat for 'some-in-every-bite' when making dip.

10Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Wed May 16, 2018 1:13 pm

Crybaby

Crybaby

bethk wrote:One of the things on my 'bucket list' is to go to a Maryland Crab Boil or a New Orleans Crab/Crayfish Boil WITH someone who is good at extracting the meat and is patient with a slow learner.  LOL

I know there are some 'tricks of the trade' to make it more enjoyable than spending 10 minutes to get a minute bit of crab meat.  When I want to make crab dip, instead of buying the pasturized lump crab meat, which I think tastes really processed, I usually buy snow crab legs.  Two clusters is more than enough to get enough crab meat for 'some-in-every-bite' when making dip.

Crawfish are SIMPLE when compared to crab picking! If I'm picking at a large crab boil, someone ALWAYS tells me how I could do something better than I'm doing it, which is great!

It's funny, as I see those crab legs being sold (not as much variety is sold down here as you might imagine, I'm sure which is due to our proliferation of fresh seafood) and have NEVER bought them, Beth. I wouldn't know what to do to them, so you should do a tutorial about the type you purchase and how to "cook" them or reheat them or whatever it is you do. I was watching something in AK once on the tube and it said NOT to defrost a certain type of crab legs (of COURSE I don't remember the type!) before warming them or they would come out dry. Since Brian doesn't eat them, I've never been too tempted but would like to try a small batch for me.

Locally, we truly blessed as we can buy a couple of different types of already picked crabmeat by the pound. Though pricey by our standards of seafood prices, it's just too easy. I'm always puzzled how your area doesn't have more Gulf seafood for sale, fresh, frozen and much cheaper, too!

You can get these different types by the pound: claw meat, white meat, "special" meat which is some white crabmeat and some claw meat, lump and jumbo lump. Crabs must be running pretty good this season as I saw some lump meat advertised recently for $9.99 a lb., which is a pretty good price. I already have a pound of lump in the freezer so I didn't bite. Claw meat has tons of flavor and is darker than the other crab meat. If you had the bucks and were making seafood gumbo or stew, I'd add a pound of claw and also some lump at the end so it didn't break up too much.

11Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Wed May 16, 2018 7:41 pm

bethk

bethk
Admin

I read something recently about Maryland crab....

If you buy the shelled kind, spread it in a single layer on a sheet pan and put it into a 450° oven for about a minute. It's not long enough to cook the crab but any bits of shell will turn bright red and you can see it to pick out.

(Yet another bit of useless information to clog up my brain......)

12Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Empty Re: Now I get "The Cooking Channel" Thu May 17, 2018 6:43 pm

Crybaby

Crybaby

bethk wrote:I read something recently about Maryland crab....

If you buy the shelled kind, spread it in a single layer on a sheet pan and put it into a 450° oven for about a minute.  It's not long enough to cook the crab but any bits of shell will turn bright red and you can see it to pick out.

(Yet another bit of useless information to clog up my brain......)

I not only read it, I've posted it here before in a few recipes. I think the first recipe I posted it in is Eggplant Josephine, one of the best appetizers I've ever had in a restaurant. Tastes just as good homemade and I even substituted sliced roast beef for the crabmeat on Brian's and it was still delicious!

"*The hardest part of this recipe is picking through the fresh crabmeat to find those stray pieces of shell and cartilage. One tip to help remedy that is to spread the crabmeat out on a baking sheet, and run it in a 200 degree oven for about 2 or 3 minutes. The cartilage with turn from clear to opaque and will be easier to spot and pull out."

But it's not the parts of the shell that would turn red when cooked, Beth, as that's not what's in the crabmeat -- it's little tiny "clear" pieces of really thin cartilage that you often run into when you're eating something with lump crabmeat or jumbo lump. The part of the shell that turns red when cooked is not something that would be in that type of crab. Just FYI, 'cause if you waited for it to turn red, I have a feeling you'd end up with some severely dried out crabmeat.

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