She-crab soup might just be this city’s most overworked culinary icon—so much so that in restaurants of quality in Charleston, you can detect more than a few chefs assiduously avoiding it. But an expertly made she-crab soup is a rare pleasure at home, and should be a part of every cook’s repertoire. When we were in our teenage years, the soup seemed extra special because it’s seasoned with sherry and traditionally served with a cruet of the fortified wine, the latter to pass around the table in case you wanted to add an extra jolt. But she-crab soup isn’t about the sherry (and in fact, we’ve come to realize that too often the sherry overpowers the crab), it’s about the roe; and we don’t think we’d ever truly reckoned with how important that roe is—coupled with the freshest crab meat you can find, of course—until the recent spring day we picked and cleaned an entire bushel of crabs (eighty, give or take) in a sitting. Since female crabs with roe inside are most prevalent in the spring, we found crab roe inside many of the adult females, called “sooks,” as we cleaned them, after cooking. When you remove the carapace (or top shell) from the body of the crab, the crab roe—if it’s there—will appear as a mass of bright orange in the middle of the body, and sometimes you may also find more roe tucked in the sharp left and right points of the carapace. The roe has an earthy-briny flavor, and adds a pale orange color to this soup. In our recipe, we blend it into the soup itself and also use a portion to garnish each bowl. Is it possible to buy crab roe alone? Unfortunately, no. So when we make this soup now, we buy picked crab meat and a half-dozen female crabs with roe from our local market. Any fish market that takes the time to sell hard-shell blue crabs will know how to spot a female with crab roe, because the roe makes the underside of the carapace appear light orange. It really is worth going to the trouble to find the real deal; you won’t be disappointed! Regarding the sherry: recently we’ve taken to giving each guest his or her own shot glass full of fino sherry (one of the most delicate expressions of the fortified wine) to drink as a paired beverage, instead of sending a cruet around the table.
Ingredients:
- 6 live hard-shell sooks (female blue crabs with roe)
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup finely minced shallots (2 to 3 large)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 quart half-and-half
- 1 tablespoon plus 4 teaspoons dry sherry, preferably fino, plus more for serving
- 1 1/2 cups picked lump, backfin, or jumbo lump crab meat
- Chopped fresh chives (optional)
Instructions:
- 1 Bring a large pasta pot two-thirds full of water to a boil, and using tongs, transfer 2 of the crabs to the pot. Cook until their shells turn bright orange, about 3 minutes, then transfer the cooked crabs to a colander set in the sink and run cold water over them. Add the next 2 crabs to the pot and repeat until all the crabs have been cooked.
- 2 As each cooked crab becomes cool enough to handle, slip your thumb beneath the place on its underside where the cape of shell tapers to a point, and lift the bottom shell up, pulling the entire carapace off the body of the crab. Clean out and discard the spongy-feathery gills on the body. Carefully pick out any orange roe you may see inside the body, and reserve. Then snap one of the smaller legs off the body of the crab to use as a pick, to tease out any roe in the hollows of the carapace that taper to a sharp point, and reserve. Repeat with the remaining crabs until all the roe has been picked. Then split the crab bodies and legs, pick the meat from them, and add it to the rest of the picked crab meat.
- 3 Pour off all but 3 cups of the cooking water, and add the picked crab bodies, legs, and carapaces, then return to a boil. Let boil until reduced by a third, about 10 minutes, and strain the crab broth into a 4-quart saucepan or Dutch oven.
- 4 Heat the broth over high heat until it simmers. Put the flour in a small bowl or ramekin, spoon 3 tablespoons of the hot broth into it, and whisk it to a smooth paste with a fork. Pour the remaining broth into a blender, add 1/4 cup of the crab roe, and liquefy until the roe is completely dissolved in the broth. With the blender running, add the flour paste to the broth.
- 5 Return the Dutch oven to the heat and melt the butter over medium-low heat until it's frothy. Add the shallot, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallot is soft, fragrant, and translucent, but not brown, about 4 minutes. Add the half-and-half, the broth mixture, and 1 tablespoon of the sherry, and cover. When the soup comes to a simmer, turn the heat to low, uncover, and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the soup has reduced by about one-sixth, 12 to 15 minutes.
- 6 Add the crab meat and cook for 2 minutes over low heat, stirring to combine. Season the soup with salt and black pepper.
- 7 Pour a teaspoon of sherry into each bowl before serving, and garnish each bowl with about 11/2 teaspoons roe and chives, if using. Serve with additional sherry—in a shot glass for each guest, or in a cruet for passing around the table—for those who might want more.
She-Crab Soup • Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
- 6 live hard-shell sooks (female blue crabs with roe)
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup finely minced shallots (2 to 3 large)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 quart half-and-half
- 1 tablespoon plus 4 teaspoons dry sherry, preferably fino, plus more for serving
- 1 1/2 cups picked lump, backfin, or jumbo lump crab meat
- Chopped fresh chives (optional)
She-Crab Soup Nutrition Facts:
• Diet:
• Calories: 97.25
• Fat: 137.42
• Carbs: 27.14
• Protein: 93.16
• Cholesterol: 237.78
• Calcium: 140.24
• Sodium: 148.26* E.g. 137.29 = 137mg or 137g – 29%
Nutrition Facts labels are not always factual.