02/05/2014   English German

  Edition # 106  
San Francisco, 02-05-2014


Figure [1]: Two five-star cooks on the quest for the Michelin star.

Angelika It's really not easy to find a present for Michael, as he has the bad habit of buying everything himself, especially as short a week before his birthday or Christmas.

He's reading books, but exclusively as e-books, and instead of listening to CDs, he prefers streaming services like "Spotify" or "Rhapsody". That makes finding presents for him extremely difficult, and I've been surprising him with joint adventures instead.

Figure [2]: The instructor teaches correct knife techniques for chopping thyme leaves.

Figure [3]: Angelika takes a live Dungeness crab from the box.

Because Michael likes to cook and I once enjoyed taking cooking classes a long long time ago, my gift to him this year was a cooking class for the both of us. After researching quite a bit, I found "Jordan's Kitchen" just around the corner from us in the Mission neighborhood. Jordan, a famous chef, offers four hour classes teaching how to prepare a four course meal. Since Michael and I love "Dungeness Crab", and we've always wanted to know how to cook them starting from scratch, so I signed up for the "Crab Cookout".

Figure [4]: The Dungeness Crab are cooking for about 12 minutes in boiling water until they're ready to be served.

Dungeness Crab are native to the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean close to the U.S. west coast, harvesting season is typically between November and June. They are truly gargantuan in size, the massive body harness measures between six and eight inches in diameter and the whole crab weighs about 2 pounds. Our cooking class happened at the end of January, there were fourteen students and chef Jordan told us everything there is to know about cooking crab. We had such a great time! At first I had some doubts whether I would dare to grab a living crab and place it in boiling water, but we learned that you need to snatch the crab from behind so that it can't get your fingers with its claws and bravely I gave in to group pressure.

Figure [5]: After cooking the crab are placed in ice water.

Interestingly enough, the clawed creatures first seemed quite apathic, but started fidgeting as soon as we picked them up. When quickly submerged in boiling water, they stopped immediately, thankfully. We were sipping some wine during the class, and the participants were all pretty relaxed. Jordan also demonstrated how to take out the inedible parts of the cooked crab. We removed the upper plate, and took out intestines like the lungs. There's some meat in the crab body as well, which can be pulled out after cutting the carcass in quarters, but the main source are the crab's claws and its eight feet, and getting to the delicious meat inside requires cracking their hard outer shells first.

Figure [6]: Now the Dungeness Crab needs to be cleaned and dismantled.

Here's the list of the four courses we cooked: Dungeness crab meat in coconut milk on cucumber slices; Bucatini pasta with crab meat; roasted crab in orange and garlic butter; apple and pear compote with cornflower croutons. What was nice was that all participants cooked and later ate as one big team. And I received a personal training from Jordan on how to use a chef's knife! Highly recommended class!

RSS Feed
Mailing Liste
Impressum
Mike Schilli Monologues


Get announcements for new editions

New editions of this publication appear in somewhat random intervals. To receive a brief note when they're available in your mailbox (about once every two months on average), you can register your email on the 'usarundbrief' Google Groups list.

Your email address



All Editions:
2024 153 154 155
2023 148 149 150 151 152
2022 143 144 145 146 147
2021 138 139 140 141 142
2020 133 134 135 136 137
2019 129 130 131 132
2018 125 126 127 128
2017 120 121 122 123 124
2016 115 116 117 118 119
2015 111 112 113 114
2014 106 107 108 109 110
2013 101 102 103 104 105
2012 96 97 98 99 100
2011 91 92 93 94 95
2010 85 86 87 88 89 90
2009 79 80 81 82 83 84
2008 73 74 75 76 77 78
2007 66 67 68 69 70 71 72
2006 59 60 61 62 63 64 65
2005 54 55 56 57 58
2004 49 50 51 52 53
2003 43 44 45 46 47 48
2002 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
2001 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
2000 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
1999 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
1998 7 8 9 10 11 12
1997 1 2 3 4 5 6
1996 0

 

Send us a comment
We'd like to hear from you, please send us feedback if you want to comment on the content or have suggestions for future topics.

Simply write your your message into the text box below. If you'd like a response from us, please also leave your email. If you want to stay anonymous, simply put 'anonymous' into the email field. This way we'll get the message, but we have no way to respond to you.

Your email address


Message

 
Contact the authors
Latest update: 05-Jul-2018