Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Waiter, there's a crab in my bivalve!

Last Crabday's shellback crab got me thinking (and hungry): how would a crab-stuffed clam taste? I'm just guessing, but I'd say AMAZING! And while I'm not about to head out and go digging for clams around here (call me Miss Cautious, but paralytic shellfish poisoning is pretty prevalent up here and kind of freaks me out), this recipe from Food Network caught my eye:

Stuffed Razor Clams with Alaskan King Crab Rice Filling

Ingredients
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh garlic
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger
  • 6 razor clams (make sure it's a real razor clam, and not a robot!)

a razor clam and its roboclam counterpart

  • 1/2 cup scallions, white and green parts, sliced 1/4-inch thick
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 cup short grained sushi rice, washed, cooked and cooled, as for sushi
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped Alaskan king crab meat
  • 1 1/2 quarts water mixed with a pinch of sea salt and 1 sheet of nori (the original recipe calls for actual sea water mixed with a cup of bull kelp... so go crazy if you can rock that ingredient!)

Directions
Shuck, clean, and chop the razor clams. Reserve the shells and about 1 cup of the clam meat.

(image found here, with another tasty lookin' recipe)

Wash, cook, and cool the sushi rice just like you would for sushi. You'll want about 2 cups cooked rice for the stuffing.

Heat the oil in a wok over high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for about 2 minutes until soft. Add the chopped razor clam meat, scallions, and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and mix lightly. Fold the mixture into the rice with the chopped crab meat.

Divide the filling among 6 razor clam shells (I'm imagining that you'll actually have a total of 12 things since you can fill each half separately). Pour water/nori mixture into a wok fitted with a steamer. Bring the water to a boil and place the stuffed clams in the steamer. Cover the steamer and cook until heated through, about 10 minutes.

how I imagine this dish might look
(baby crab picture by Jon Felis)

Let me know how it turns out if you try this recipe, or any other crab+bivalve combo!

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