So Your Family Made Too Much Seafood Boil: What To Do With 3 Pounds of Seafood Boil Leftovers
Recently, my uncle had the ingenious idea to do a low country boil with me, my parents, and my grandparents who can't eat spice and have famously arthritis riddled hands. He started by buying about 5 pounds more seafood than we needed (enough to feed 15 people), and under seasoning the boil. Im framing these as negatives when in reality he was just trying to be sure everyone had enough food and that said food was palatable for my grandparents. What a great host!
Once gathered at my uncle’s house, my uncle and my mom proceeded to spend an hour and a half dumping heaps of seafood and sausage into a boiling pot, slinging out bowls of cocktail sauce and melted butter, and frantically asking every 3 minutes if anyone was keeping time on the boil. Why didn't anyone help them you ask? It's funny, they asked the same thing. By the time the food was ready my mother had run thin on patience, she and my uncle poured the boiling beast into those disposable metal trough-like pans you buy at the grocery store, and left us to our own devices.
Armed with 2 metal crackers between the four of us; my grandparents, sister, and I got to eating. We picked, poked, and prodded at our crab and shrimp until we convinced ourselves we were full, although I think our fingers were just tired. For all my complaining and negativity, the food was absolutely delicious: colossal shell-on shrimp and sweet succulent blue crabs, dunked in salted butter and complimented by potato and sausage. It was really a treat for me, especially since I love to pick at meat and eat with my hands.
Aforementioned shrimp and crab
When all was said and done and the crackers returned to the center of the table, it looked like we had barely made a dent in the trough. There were still crabs and shrimp a plenty, leaving us all to wonder: was there another event after this one that we weren't invited to? Nope. Just us. So now what? 4 pounds of seafood all dressed up with nowhere to go. What's a lone shrimp to do? I pondered this a lot that night. I thought endlessly about the mountain of seafood that had been loaded into a gallon freezer bag and shoved in our fridge, and how it would live its second life.
Then, it came to me: aguachile. Cold shrimp, chili sauce. The perfect leftover meal. This began a string of recipes I made over the subsequent days following the seafood boil, all of which used ingredients I already had in my fridge. In a food culture that considers seafood leftovers to be especially heinous, there are dedicated home chefs who will toil over how to use them properly. They are part of an elite squad known as the... uhhh... how to use a big ass bag of leftover boiled seafood club. These are their stories.
First up is aguachile. As I lay awake, tormented by the aging seafood, I thought of another aging ingredient in my fridge: a green chutney I had made 3 days prior. That recipe was inspired by @shreyaskitchen2, and I used it on a breakfast of roast potatoes and a fried egg (delicious). But since then I had struggled to find a use for it, until now. The chutney had very similar profile to aquachile sauce: cilantro, citrus, and spice. So I tossed the sauce with a bunch of cubed jumbo shrimp, lime, salt, and cumin. Added diced mango from one of the fruit "dessert" items my grandparents brought but nobody ate, some red onion, and voila! Served the stuff on some air fried tostada's made with store bought corn tortilla's I had in my fridge, took a picture of one, and ate four.
Next is something a little more decadent, a lot more labor intensive, and not for the faint of heart. We had 3 blue crabs and a bunch of rogue claws left in the bag. What to do what to do... Then I thought maybe, just maybe, if I picked in every tiny little crevasse of every crab, I could have enough to make a crab pasta. Then I thought of the saffron in our spice cabinet that everyone in my house is too afraid to use because it's so expensive. Creamy saffron crab linguine, it came to me like a bathroom break in the middle of the night. So I picked and picked, the whole time my brain telling me it wouldn't be enough. And when I finished the 2nd crab, I was starting to think it wouldn't be. I needed enough to feed me and my mom so the stakes were high, I had to find a way to optimize the crab flavor without having enough crab. I stared at the bowl of meat and then at the bowl of shells, how could so much of the crab be garbage? Garbage. What do you do with food garbage that nobody wants? Make a stock!
So I started 2 hours too late on a crab shell stock, all the while telling myself it'd be worth it. When my meat was all picked, my stock all simmered, and my saffron all steeped, it was time to get started on the sauce.
I started by simmering some thinly sliced cloves of garlic in some butter over medium-medium low heat, careful not to burn the butter. Once the garlic was fragrant and soft, I added the crab, let that cook for a couple of minutes and deglazed with a glug of white wine. After the wine cooked off a bit I added the crab stock. I let the meat simmer in the stock while the pasta cooked, adding more stock as needed.
Next I poured in some heavy cream, let that simmer, then added pasta water from the pot and let THAT simmer. I added the saffron water, some parm and pecorino I had grated up, and a bit of lemon zest for brightness. Then I added the pasta directly from the pot, and tossed it around for about 20 minutes messing with the consistency of the sauce. Adding pasta water, simmering, more cheese, more cream, too dry, more pasta water, repeat.
The pasta was a bit overcooked and the first bite slightly disappointing, but as we ate we began to appreciate the subtle richness of the flavors melding together in the dish. It boasted a delicate yet ever-present crab flavor, and by the time we were finished we couldn't shut up about it. All in all this took me about 3 hours, but worth it to see my vision come to fruition. I reckon it could take you two if you make the stock ahead of time.
Last but not least is this crab and shrimp bisque that I whipped up with the remaining 5 crab claws, shrimp, and crab stock. This one is a pretty standard improvised bisque recipe. I cooked down a mirepoix, 2 cloves of garlic, and half a tomato (not standard but I wanted some tomato vitamins or whatever). I seasoned the mixture with thyme, parsley, a little cayenne, salt and pepper (basically whatever dry herbs I had on hand that made sense). Then I stirred in a dollop of tomato paste, let that cook for a minute, deglazed with a little white wine, and added the remaining crab stock. I let that simmer for as long as it took me to clean up the mess that I had made thus far, and de-shell and chop up the remaining crab and shrimp.
I blended up all those mushy simmered veggies and then promptly returned the mixture to the pot, where I added some heavy cream, dumped in the chopped seafood, and let it simmer for a few more minutes to let everything come together.
Delicious and surely the most photogenic of the bunch, this soup was enjoyed thoroughly by me and this baguette I got from Whole Foods.
That brings me to the bottom of my big ol' barrel of seafood. Even though shrimp and crab are pretty blank canvases in terms of ingredients, I really enjoyed testing my creative limits and pretending I was on a 3 day long episode of Chopped. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading. If you didn't, then I guess you're not reading this so I don't have to worry about it. Bye!!
