James Beard's New Fish Cookery - James Beard [124]
Cook the noodles and drain. Pour the clam mixture over the noodles.
VARIATION
Combine the clam mixture with 1/2 cup of tomato sauce and cook until well blended. Thin with a dash of white wine or vermouth. Serve the same way.
SPAGHETTI WITH CLAM SAUCE
Use the preceding recipe but substitute spaghetti for the noodles.
Conch
This southern shellfish has a fine flavor, but its toughness presents the same problem as the Pacific Coast abalone. There are several ways to tenderize it. One is to pound it with a sharp-edged instrument, or as the average housewife does, with the edge of a plate. Another way is to parboil it and then pound until the flesh is tender. Still another method, followed by Sloppy Louie, the famous New York fish dealer and restaurateur, is to immerse live conch in boiling water. As soon as the live conch (pronounced konk, by the way) is affected by the heat and retreats into its shell, take it from the water, drain, and shell it. It must be shelled at almost the instant it releases its muscles or it will still require beating or parboiling.
CONCH FRITTERS
6 conchs
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped tomato (peeled and seeded)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup rolled cracker crumbs
1/4 cup chopped parsley
3 eggs, separated
Grind the conch meat and combine it with the onion, tomato, garlic, salt, parsley, crumbs, and the yolks of the eggs beaten lightly. Beat the egg whites until stiff. If the batter seems stiff thin it with cream, then fold in the egg whites. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls on a well-buttered pan or griddle. Cook until nicely browned and turn to brown the other side. Serve with lemon butter (page 31).
STEWED CONCH
4 conchs
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon basil, or more
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup red wine
Tenderize the conchs. Sauté the onions and garlic in oil. Add the basil, salt, tomato sauce, and wine and simmer for 30 minutes. Dilute the sauce with a little more wine if it gets too thick. Add the conch and cook just until it heats through and is tender. Taste for seasoning and serve on rice.
FRIED CONCH
For 4 people, tenderize 4 conchs. Cut them into thin slices. Dip them in flour, then into beaten egg, and roll in crumbs or corn meal.
Heat the fat in your deep fryer to 375° and fry the strips of conch for about 3 minutes or until nicely browned and crisp on the edges. Remove to absorbent paper and season to taste. Serve with tartar sauce (pages 35–36).
Crab
Crab is second to shrimp as the shellfish most preferred by Americans, and the supply is varied and fairly abundant. The magnificently flavored Pacific Coast crab — the Dungeness — is now brought frozen to the East. The giant king crab is flown fresh from Alaska and is also shipped frozen. Crab caught in the Gulf and in the North and South Atlantic is sent in refrigerated tins to all parts of the East and far inland. In addition, the famous stone crabs from Florida often appear in our markets, and quantities of soft-shelled crabs are shipped all over the East.
There is general misunderstanding about soft-shelled crabs. They are not a distinct soft-shelled species — they are the same blue crabs (Callinecte sapidus) found all along the Atlantic Coast. It is the habit of the crab to shed its shell many times before maturity, and the soft-shelled crab is one caught just as it has shed one shell and before it has grown a new and larger one.
On the Pacific Coast, most crabs are sold whole and freshly cooked. In the East, with the exception of the soft-shelled, crab is usually sold already cleaned and shelled in 1- or 1/2-pound tins. There are many different grades of this crabmeat on the Eastern market. The larger, choice lump crabmeat is hard to find