Saturday, February 6, 2010

Crab Imperial - a weekend recipe

Many years ago, I took a field trip to Venice, Louisiana with some fellow geology students from NLSC (now University of Louisiana, Monroe). We spent the night in an onshore barracks and then took a crew boat out to visit a few offshore drilling rigs the following day. After reaching a location on a choppy sea, we had lunch on one of the rigs.

Drilling crews stay on the offshore rigs for days on end, twenty-one days on, seven days off. There is television and the game room, but little else to occupy your time while stranded miles from shore. The food makes everything bearable. When my geology class visited, I was impressed (as any twenty-one-year-old man would be) at the steaks, chicken, red beans and rice, multiple desserts, etc. available four times a day.

Offshore cooks are the best in the world at keeping people happy. I found this recipe on the web, donated by Dick English, a cook on an offshore drilling rig. Thanks, Dick. Try it and enjoy it.

Crab Imperial

Ingredients:

½ pound of butter
1 cup of flour
2 cups of milk
½ cup of celery, chopped fine
½ cup of mushrooms, chopped fine
½ cup of parsley, chopped fine
½ cups of green onions, chopped fine
½ cup of pimentos, chopped fine
2 pounds of lump crab meat
Worcestershire sauce, to taste
Tabasco sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
Breadcrumbs

Cooking Instructions

Melt butter over low heat and stir in flour. Cook until bubbles appear on top. Add milk slowly, stirring constantly. Add celery and mushrooms. Continue cooking while adding parsley, green onions, and pimentos. Fold-in crabmeat. Add Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, salt, and pepper, to taste. Pour mixture into individual baking dishes and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake until brown in a 350-degree oven.


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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his AmazonBarnes and NobleKobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

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