Crab-Feta Melt

This week my usual sous chef was out of town, so I took the opportunity to make another delicious seafood sandwich!  This time featuring a more common favorite, jumbo lump crab!  Fortunately, I was able to share this concoction with some of my blog's most avid (only?) readers who I knew would appreciate this sandwich's deliciousness: my family.

Ingredients for this sandwich were mostly standard fare-- feta cheese, celery, mayo, corn, etc., but I was thrown for a loop by the cost of jumbo lump crab!  Well, actually, the recipe just called for "crab: preferably fresh or canned, do not use frozen crab," but the only actual crab meat I could find (that was not imitation crab) was fresh jumbo lump crab (yumm) for the low low price of $28/pound (SAY WHAA?!).  Once I actually thought about it I remembered that whenever I go to restaurants that have actual good lump crab cakes they are priced based on the market price and usually average somewhere in the low $20's, so I suppose this was in line, but I still had a bit of sticker shock (luckily including my family in the tasting this week meant they were kind enough to help offset the cost of additional ingredients-- like the crab).

So now I had all my ingredients and was ready to begin.  I had decided to make 1.5x the recipe, so all of my quantities will be adjusted accordingly to make 6 sandwiches instead of 4.  First I went ahead and grated the jack cheese that would create the melt element atop the crab mixture.  The recipe called for 6 ounces to be distributed over 4 sandwiches, but I really like jack cheese so I went ahead and grated about 10.5 ounces to be distributed over 6 sandwiches.  I also chopped up several small celery sticks for inclusion in the crab mixture.  The recipe called for one large celery rib cut into 1/4 inch dice, but I just guesstimated that about 10 smaller sticks would suffice.

Now I was ready to mix up the crab mixture that would go on the sandwiches. 

I measured out 1.5 cups (3/4 pound) of crab and added 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 3 ounces of crumbled feta cheese, the chopped celery, 1/2 cup drained canned corn and some sprinkles of black pepper.  The recipe called for about 1 tsp. of curry powder, but after the cumin incident I was a bit leery of Indian food spices, so I opted to leave it out.  It also said to add black pepper to taste, but since I wasn't tasting the mixture just yet I went ahead and added a few sprinkles, but not too much.

Once this was mixed I was pretty much ready to go, so preparation had been a cinch!  An added bonus is that you can make the crab mixture the day before and have it already ready to go when you're ready to make the sandwiches.  Cutting down prep time is always a good thing in my opinion.

To assemble the sandwiches I spread the crab mixture evenly over six slices of sourdough bread that had been buttered on one side (buttered side down).

Next I added the jack cheese in the same way-- distributed evenly over the six pieces of bread.  During this step I was again reminded of how much I like the texture of the jack cheese in that it sticks to itself easily which means it's easy to pile it onto the sandwich. 

I topped the sandwiches off with another slice of sourdough and started grilling.

This was my first time since starting my grilled cheesing that I cooked on an electric stove instead of a gas stove.  I found it much easier to work with this type of stove because the pan didn't get too hot too fast and it actually heated to the heat it advertised (i.e. medium high actually meant medium high).  This meant that the sandwiches grilled quickly and evenly, which was great! 

The stove also had a built in warming zone that was perfect for keeping the already made sandwiches warm. 

At first I had some issues with spilled filling during the flips, but once I started flipping more quickly (and sometimes with two spatulas) all was well.  Before I knew it all the sandwiches were done and we were ready to taste them!

Taste Review:

One of the first things we all noticed was that there wasn't a strong seafood smell to the sandwich (probably because crab seems to be one of the milder and more agreeable shellfish out there).  In the first bite I got a perfect mixture of the soft crab and cheese contrasted with the crunchy sweetness of the corn and celery.  It was nice to have the veggies in there to add some texture.  Usually I don't like celery, but it was a good way to add a little water and freshness without really affecting the taste of the sandwich filling.  The filling was rich, but not so creamy that it was too rich.  It reminded one of the tasters of crab imperial, which apparently is crab with a creamy dressing, but I like to think that this wasn't as rich as that would be.  Basically the filling was mostly crab and jack cheese with just enough filler to enhance but not overpower the flavors.

One element that was a standout in the sandwich was the bread!  The sandwich called for sourdough, so I sprung for some nice fresh baked sourdough from the Wegman's bakery and it was worth it!  The bread itself has a firmer texture than a white bread would, but isn't dense like the rye bread was.  This meant that, when toasted, the bread was crispy but not overcooked.  It also had its own taste that was subtle, but definitely added to the flavor.  Everyone had nothing but positive things to say about the bread, which leaves me happy that I've found such a high quality sourdough this early on (considering it will be making many more appearances in the future).

The most interesting thing to me was that you couldn't really taste the feta cheese at all.  When I first saw the title of this recipe I started preparing myself for a sandwich with a strong bite courtesy of the feta.  In reality, I almost forgot it was in there because I couldn't really taste it.  I'm not sure if it was overtaken by the sweet corn and tasty sourdough, but I didn't get that punch that feta usually packs.  It makes me wonder what this sandwich would taste like without the feta.  I know if it's in there it must be doing something, so would the filling be too bland without it?  Good thing we won't be finding out.  Even with the feta it was a little too bland for some, and one of the tasters pondered what it would be like with added seasoning (like more pepper or a roasted red pepper).  I liked it as is, though :-)

Towards the end we started to get a lot of the jack cheese flavor, which made me wonder if the cheese had melted evenly on the sandwich or not.  In some bites I would get a lot of crab and in others I would get a lot of cheese.  Some of the tasters said it was too cheesy for them, but I thought it was a good amount (maybe because I like jack cheese so much).

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Crab-Feta Melt
Gooey-ness:	3
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Perfectly browned and just the right amount of filling!
Taste:	A-

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Overall the sandwich was a hit! This is another one that I think would be a good summertime grilled cheese-- the mild creaminess of the jack combined with fresh crab, corn and celery makes a crisp fresh taste that reminds me of summer.


Next Week: A belated Cinco de Mayo celebration with our first quesadilla!

Cajun Crawfish Bread Sandwich

This week's sandwich is inspired by my recent visit to New Orleans.  While there, my Mardi Gras Sherpa (Whitney) helped me to sample a smattering of all the best in local cuisine-- beignets at Cafe du Monde, Po' Boys at a restaurant owned by the owners of Commander's Palace, one of Emeril's restaurants and, of course, a crawfish boil!

  

I had never seen crawfish before (let alone tasted them), but I was excited to try them!  They look like baby lobsters and are cooked in basically the same way.  

You start with a large pot of boiling water that has been seasoned with whatever your preferred seasoning is (in our case it was some back woods combination of insanely hot spices) and lower in a basket of live crawfish.  Obviously once they hit the water they die and proceed to simmer and cook until they're ready (I don't know how long).  That's when the fun begins.

Once the crawfish are done you dump them out on a table that has been covered with newspaper or trash bags and proceed to peel the crawfish.  Peeling basically means you pull their head/torso off (and suck the juice out of the head if you so choose) and then brake the exoskeleton off to reveal the tail meat (which actually ends up looking like a shrimp).  Yum yum!

Clearly New Orleans cuisine left a strong impression on me, so it was only a matter of time before I would develop a New Orleans grilled cheese.  After consulting with my Mardi Gras Sherpa, she pointed me in the direction of "crawfish bread," a delicacy she buys every year at Jazzfest.  It sounded like crawfish bread could easily be made into a sandwich, so she found me the perfect recipe to use as a jumping off point.

One other food I became obsessed with while in New Orleans are Zapp's Voodoo Gumbo chips.  Apparently they're limited edition and are only available during festival time (and are hard to find outside of New Orleans), so I had Whit ship me some so that I could somehow include them in this recipe!  This alone got me very excited :-)

The only ingredient that I couldn't find during a routine trip to the grocery store were fresh crawfish.   I did some Googling and came across a place called "Seaside Crab Shack" over in Seven Corners that purported to have fresh Louisiana crawfish.  This was actually a Vietnamese restaurant, so I was a little skeptical about what I'd get, but it was the best option I could find, so I went with it. 

It was definitely a random spot, but it had a neon crawfish in the window, so I felt good about it.  The recipe called for 2 cups of peeled crawfish tails, but I had no idea what this would equate to in terms of whole crawfish (considering you throw away like 60%  of the crawfish), so I ordered 2.5 pounds.

Now I was ready to go.  Step one was dicing up the veggies-- the recipe called for 1/4 cup diced red bell pepper, 1/2 cup diced onion and 1/2 cup diced celery.  I actually changed that up a bit and did the least amount of celery and more onion and pepper.  I used about 1/2 of a large Vidalia onion and a whole red bell pepper while only using a few smaller sticks of celery.  I'm not sure what the total final measurements on these were, but it looked like a good combination of veggies, so I think it was fine.

I recruited my sous chef to help me with the dicing while I started peeling the crawfish.  The shells were pretty hard, so peeling them was more work than I remember, but slowly and steadily I worked my way through the bag.  I took it as a good sign that the little cuts around my cuticles were burning-- this meant the crawfish were nice and spicy!

Finally I finished peeling them all and realized that I only had about 1 and 1/4 cup.  Oh well!  Two and a half pounds cost like $25, so I don't think I could have afforded to get any more.

Next I melted 1/4 cup butter in my non-stick skillet and tossed in the crawfish. 

Then I added the veggies and a minced clove of garlic and started sauteing the mixture for 15 minutes.

While this was cooking I went ahead and cut a loaf of French bread like I was making one big sandwich and proceeded to scoop out the middle to make room for filling it with the crawfish mixture.

The cheeses to be utilized for this sandwich were cheddar and mozzarella, so I also went ahead and grated some of each of these.

Once the crawfish mixture had sauteed for about 15 minutes I added 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard and 2/3 cup of mayonnaise.  The recipe only called for 1/2 cup, but my 1/2 cup measuring cup had gone missing.  Oh well!  I went ahead and stirred all that in and it looked kind of gross, but oh well again!

  

Next I was to add the cheese-- the recipe called for 1/3 cup of mozzarella and 1/3 cup of cheddar, but since I had done more veggies and more mayo than the recipe called for I figured I should keep up my over-adding and use 2/3 cup of each instead.

I stirred this in until the cheese was melted (which happened very quickly) and now the mixture was looking even more like vomit.  Hmm... maybe the extra mayo and cheese weren't such good ideas after all.  Too late now!

I grabbed the bottom half of my hollowed out loaf and scooped the crawfish mix in.  I used a spoon in hopes of getting some of the grease/fat that had separated out to stay in the pan.  This worked well, but some definitely still made its way into the bread.

Next it was time to integrate the Voodoo Gumbo!  I decided I'd crush them up to be sort of like bread crumbs and sprinkle them on half of the sandwich (so I would be able to compare the two versions).

I mashed them up using the bottom of the mayonnaise jar and added them to the top section of the sandwich.  I sprinkled a little extra cheese on top of the bottom half of the sandwich for good measure and then put the top part of the sandwich in place.

The amount of grease left in the pan grossed me out, but at least that meant it was grease that hadn't made it into the sandwich! 

The recipe called for buttering the outside of the bread, wrapping it in foil and baking it at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.  I couldn't fathom adding more fat to the sandwich, so I skipped the butter and just wrapped it and popped it in. 

25 minutes later it came out thoroughly baked and looking like this:

I sliced it into quarters and added some more Voodoo Gumbo chips on the side and was ready to chow down!

Taste Review:
Let me preface this review with the statement that Colin doesn't like seafood, so he was little help in providing an unbiased review.  I told him that crawfish were similar to shrimp, but in reality they differ in that crawfish actually have a taste whereas shrimp seem to take on the flavor of whatever they are cooked with/in.

You definitely noticed the seafood aroma of the sandwich, but in a make you hungry kind of way.  The veggies and cheese combined to make the sandwich look particularly colorful, which is always a good thing.  I got a crawfish in my first bite and immediately tasted the strong fresh seafood flavor.  Yumm.  The way the cheese, mayonnaise and seafood combined reminded me of a warm seafood dip (like a crab dip).

I was glad the bread had been hollowed out, because the sandwich filling was very dense, and putting it on a solid piece of bread would have led to a big mess!  Colin agreed with me on the density and said he actually thought the French bread ended up being too crunchy and hard and that he would have liked to see the filling spread on regular white bread and grilled instead of as a filling that has been baked.  I can see the merits of both-- using less filling to create a normal sized sandwich would have been interesting to try, but I also liked the way the French bread made more of a capsule to hold the filling.

As for the Voodoo Gumbo chips-- I could only taste them a little bit on the sandwich, so if I wanted to use the chips on the sandwich I should have added more.  I liked eating the chips separately from the sandwich, though, since they added some seasoning and crunch that was separate from the sandwich itself.

Colin didn't even try it with ketchup (crazy, I know) because he said it definitely doesn't need it.  The sandwich is very cheesy with a strong seafood taste and aroma that he found overpowering and smelly, but that I found delicious.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Cajun Crawfish Bread Sandwich
Gooey-ness:	3.5
Aroma:	4
Appearance:	Very colorful and appetizing/inviting!
Taste:	B

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

 In summary, if you like shellfish, you'll like this sandwich!  I may have overfilled it and used too much of the fatty ingredients, so I'd be interested to try it again with a little less filling and perhaps on regular sandwich bread that's been grilled.  I think if I had followed the recipe in terms of amounts of cheese and mayonnaise included that this would have been an A.  Also, this is a labor intensive sandwich, so I'd only make it when I'm sure I have plenty of time to spend cooking.

Next Week: Still TBD.

Sneak Preview...

Time to get excited for this week's sandwich!  Hints below:

It may not be fancy enough for this famous establishment, but it will still be delicious!

It may not be quite as coveted as a coconut, but it's certainly one of this city's most famous catches.

You could wash the sandwich down with a hurricane... or two.

 You may be in hot water if you can't tell what's so appeeling about this photo.

Is your mouth watering yet?

Havarti and Dilled Cucumbers on Rye

The first time I tasted Havarti cheese, it was as part of the beloved "Hail Caesar" sandwich that I used to get about twice weekly from the Safeway sandwich shop (well, maybe Mom got it for me and I ate it, but you know, same diff).  It was a delicious cheese topping to a delicious sandwich and I loved it instantly.  Obviously this love left me quite excited to try this week's sandwich: Havarti and dilled cucumbers on rye bread.  As usual, a brief shopping trip (and a call to my shopping resource) yielded me all the necessary ingredients and I was ready to begin.

The first step was preparing the cucumbers.  First you peel two medium sized cucumbers and then slice them into rounds that are about 1/4" to 1/2" thick.  Once the slices are ready, set them aside to prepare a sweet vinaigrette to soak them in.

The vinaigrette consists of 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup water, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. dried dill weed.  I combined these ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl (until the salt and sugar had dissolved) and added in the cucumber slices, stirring them up to help evenly coat them in the vinaigrette.  The cucumbers must soak for at least 15 minutes (basically long enough for the cucumbers to start soaking up the flavor).  Apparently you can even prepare the cucumbers the day before and refrigerate them as long as you bring them to room temperature before actually using them in the sandwich.

While these were soaking I went ahead and grated the cheese.  The recipe calls for 6 ounces of Havarti cheese (without dill, since we'll be adding dill via the cucumber/vinaigrette combo) and I had a chunk that was about 10.5 ounces.  I do like cheese, so I decided if I used about 2/3 of the block this would be about 7 ounces, which is more than is called for (only needs 6 ounces), but not so much that it would be out of control.  Colin and I then disposed of the remnants at which point he declared: "This is my favorite cheese so far.  I want that on the record."  Well, here it is.

From there it was just a matter of waiting for the cucumbers to finish soaking.  Once they were done I commenced making the actual sandwiches.  The first step was to evenly distribute the cucumbers over two slices of bread (well, the recipe calls for 4 slices of bread at this stage, but again I'm using the larger loaf of rye where one slice really equals two slices of normal sized bread).  I used a slotted spoon but transferred the cucumbers quickly, so a majority of the vinaigrette ran off, but some still sloshed over onto the bread.

After the cucumbers, naturally, came the cheese!  The texture of the Havarti reminds me of when we worked with the jack cheese-- both are soft enough that they sort of stick to themselves and make it easier to pile the cheese up on the sandwich. 

Once all the cheese was added I couldn't help but notice how HUGE these sandwiches were!  Not only was the bread huge (as expected), but the sandwiches were incredibly thick!  This would undoubtedly prove a challenge when it came time to flip the sandwiches.

In went the first sandwich and, once again, it was so big it wouldn't fit under my little red frying pan to cook/melt, but I covered as much as I could. 

As expected, flipping proved particularly difficult.  I had to go with a typical two spatula attack, but even that couldn't stop me from spilling some cucumbers and cheese on my first flip. 

Things got better as I went along, but I'd say a cucumber or two went astray pretty much every time I flipped the sandwich.  At one point so many dislodged that I had to perform open sandwich surgery to restore them to their proper locale. 

One unexpected upside to the messy flipping was that when some of the cheese spilled out it fried onto the outside of the bread, which I have concluded is my new favorite development in the world of grilled cheese making.  These crispy bits of fried cheese are DELICIOUS!  They make me want to just put cheese straight into a frying pan just to have tasty little fried cheese nibblets!

Anyway, once the first sandwich was done frying I transferred it to my not so tried, but already proven to be true sandwich warming pan to continue simmering while I cooked the second sandwich.  Again, the flipping proved difficult, but I persevered and both sandwiches were ready for consumption before I knew it!  Now, on to the taste review!

Taste Review:
In case it's not apparent from this much shorter description, the preparation for this sandwich was very quick and straightforward.  This is a sandwich that would be easy to whip up anytime assuming you had the ingredients on hand.  That's one plus point on its scorecard, but let's talk taste.  My first reaction upon biting into the sandwich was that the cucumbers add a lot of heft to the sandwich, but sort of make it runny (the cucumbers are watery and tend to slip and slide in and out of the sandwich). 

The cheese tasted creamy (as expected for Havarti), but it wasn't too rich-- I think this may be because the vinegar and sweetness of the vinaigrette cut any excess richness the cheese might have had.   I had been skeptical about adding cucumbers to a sandwich since I always think of them as a sort of "throw away" vegetable-- one that has no real taste and is more there just as filler.  In this case, the cucumbers were a filler, but also had their own sweet and delicious flavor thanks to their vinaigrette bath.  The cool feel of the cucumbers wrapped in gooey cheese was just the right combination.  This cool element makes me think this would be an ideal sandwich for summertime.

Yummm!

As for Colin's trusty ketchup testing-- it doesn't need ketchup, but he tried some anyway.  The ketchup actually made Colin wonder if the sandwich would be even better using tomatoes soaked in the vinaigrette rather than cucumbers.  An interesting thought for sure, but I must say I do like the classic cucumber/dill/Havarti combination.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Havarti and Dilled Cucumbers on Rye
Gooey-ness:	5.5 (cucumbers falling everywhere)!
Aroma:	2.5
Appearance:	Looks very full and chunky, but the inside is melty and delicious!
Taste:	A

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!


MUUUUCH better than last week!  It's good to be back on track :-)

*Addendum to Colin's favorite cheese comment: This is his favorite cheese so far to eat by itself.  His favorite cheeses on sandwiches are still jack and American.

NEXT WEEK: An exciting adventure with a BOO G8R original!!