Cooking Crab & Seafood Boils

A New England Clam Bake would include lobsters, corn, potatoes, sausages, and, of course, clams. The cooking technique, however, is steaming. Essentially, you build a fire, burn it down to coals. The coals are covered with wet seaweed, then the food is piled on, a second layer of seaweed covers the food, and the whole think covered with canvas. Sometimes the whole mass is covered with sand as well.

A crab boil, while similar, isn't quite the same thing. So I wouldn't be looking to model it on something that happens in Maine. It's also a misnomer, because little liquid is actually used, and the contents are also steamed rather than boiled.

The main difference is that a crab boil is done in a pot, using heavily flavored liquid. Indeed, there are crab boil flavorings available in any grocery, in both liquid and powder form.

Why seawater? Other liquids not only add flavor, they can be used as the base of a sauce. For instance, let's say you use beer as the liquid and Old Bay as they over-riding flavor base. You can use that, mixed with melted butter, as a great dipping sauce for just about everything that comes out of the pot.

That said, I would definately add some sausage to your crab boil; any good smoked sausage will work, but, personally, I'd go with chorizo.

One thing to keep in mind is that a crab boil is not a long-term cooking thing. Once the liquid is steaming you're talking what? 20, 25 minutes for the crab to be cooked. Half an hour at most. So nothing is going to turn mushy. 

A good number of crushed garlic gloves would be an excellent addition. Several bay leaves wouldn't hurt, either. You want to boil the water/broth at least a few minutes to get the seasonings well-infused before you drop the crabs.

A different approqch is to make a slurry of room-temp butter and large amounts of garlic, then boil the crabs until they're about half cooked. Let them cool enough to handle, then break them up and thoroughly crack all the shells. Then massage the garlic-butter slurry through the cracked shells and finish on your grill. Mesquite smoke is good with this, though I'm sure alder would do fine.

You want the pot at a simmer, not a boil.  Add the sausage first so it can contribute to the pot.  Give it ten minutes then add the potatoes.  Another fifteen, and add the cleaned crab.  Five more and the corn (and chunks of fish if you're using fish).  Another five, and add the shrimp and clams and/or mussels.  Turn off the heat, let it steep, and in exactly eight minutes and 12 seconds -- give or take -- the clam and/or mussel shells will open, the shrimp will be cooked to pink perfection, and unless your friends are like mine there should still be cold, refreshing beverages.

Hammers for pounding the crab.

It's official.

The Kitchen Terminal is now open!

What started as a simple conversation between friends, culminated on Thursday May 15, 2014 as TKT celebrated its grand opening.
 
Guests were treated to some serious, stainless steel eye candy, over 4000 square feet of top-of-the-line shiny, new appliances beckoned for a touch as the air was buzzing with excitement over LA County's newest, premiere commercial shared kitchen. 

Hand sliced tuna bites, fresh oysters shucked as you waited and charcuterie were served effortlessly by cocktail waitresses as your eyes feasted on the possibilities of what this space had to offer. Drinks in hand, industry insiders and well wishers gathered to watch as the ribbon cutting was conducted.

The ribbon cutting ceremony was set up against the Kitchen Terminals' very own Hollywood backdrop banner emblazoned with the TKT logo.  Sunita Singh, Daniella Davis and Geoff Roth were joined by members of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce and the ribbon itself was cut by the illustrious chef Roy Handler.

Speeches were made, fun was had and pictures were taken. One only had to stand and take in the beauty within the walls of the Kitchen Terminal, to know that its future will be just as bright and shiny.

The Finishing Touches

    Have you ever had a meal that is lacking something, but you are just not sure what that is? The three top components of cooking that are grossly over looked when it comes to a certain “je ne sais quoi” that change a dish from mediocre to fantastic are fresh herbs, acid and salt.

  Recently I had dinner guests over to my home for dinner, these are friends I know quite well, the kind I take leftovers to the next day, because I know her and her family will enjoy them. I was serving the meal and stopped to sprinkle some fresh minced cilantro atop the meat dish I had set aside from cooking. She looked at me and said, “Why bother doing that, its just us eating”. My answer was as automatic as was the finishing flourish of herbs. I explained that the final touch is not strictly because of the way it looks, but because it adds a burst of flavor to a dish that had been cooked to a stew like texture. The small pieces of fresh herbs pop in you mouth giving that cooked dish another layer of depth as you bite. 

  Branch out from there, ( no pun intended) and use herbs you wouldn’t normally sprinkle on afterwards, Tarragon? Sage? Lavender?  Experiment and you might be surprised.

  Now what about acid. What do foodies mean by acid? Using citrus, vinegars and wines to perk up dishes while cooking and as a finishing spritz. Vinegar is not just for vinaigrettes it can also be used sparingly in the cooking water of vegetables to help maintain color and as they cook, the vinegar is absorbed lending a delicious flavor. I was cooking with a friend recently and I commented on how delicious a sauce she made was. I begged and got the ingredients out of her ,  and low and behold, apple cider vinegar was the secret ingredient!

Lets not forget our tried and true friend, citrus. In the form of lemon juice, lime juice or in some case orange juice. Citrus based acids are a great way to round out a dish, a small squirt over steamed beans, pan fried potatoes, roasted chicken and so much more all creates great balance. Next time you feel like your meal is missing something, try reaching for a lemon.

Now we come to the most overlooked seasoning of all. Salt. No matter where and how you harvest it, its delicious yet so many meals are lacking enough of it. 

The western foodie world is used to table salt, which in its over processed, pure white state does add flavor, albeit a flavor devoid of nutrients. Table salt has over 80 minerals removed during its processing, and only one put back in, iodine. Iodine is a naturally occurring mineral abundant in real sea salt, Himalayan salt and many more salts now available for daily use. 

But user beware! Sea salt is usually a gimmick the food industry uses to entice the consumer. All salt on the market is essentially sea salt, that's where it originated,  and real sea salt should have naturally occurring minerals, including iodine.  A rule of thumb is if the ingredients list iodine as added back, that salt has been over-processed, concurrently the color of a salt will tell you a lot. Grey and brown colors and a random flake en each grain are all signs of a pure, unadulterated salt.  

Which brings me to my next point. There are a plethora of finishing salts available on the market. Some  of my favorites include, truffle salt, lemon salt and rosemary salt.  Salt is undervalued, and highly underestimated when it comes to seasoning food.  Don't forget your sweet foods too!  More often than not the best meals have an abundance of salt in, on and sprinkled after cooking, even the desserts. Experiment here too, use a Himalayan pink to cook, then a crunchy, Celtic grey to finish.

        Snip your herbs, squeeze on some acid and sprinkle on your salt, your taste buds will thank you. 

All Star Chef Classic event

Friday we attended the All Star Chef Chef Classic event at LA Live. Entering restaurant stadium, the air was charged with excitement and anticipation. We were thrilled to be a part of this sold out event. A gathering of these dynamic French Chefs makes for a glamorous and
fantastic event. Led by Ludo Lefebvre, it was a competition but with an underlying sense of camaraderie.
Florian Ballanger was engaging, funny and charming. Taking the time to come to our table a snap pictures with us!
Marc Maneau had a sense of old world charm and grace about him, you just know his food would be full of passion and tradition.
These amazingly talented chefs along with Alain Passard, Inaki Aizpitarte and Pierre Maneau made our evening a night to remember. You couldn't help but to get charged up with excitement.

Food Safety Modernization Act- FDA on the right track?

Ever wonder where that plump, tomato was grown before it made its way onto your plate?

Well, worry no longer.

In December 2010, the Federal Drug Administration created the Food Safety Modernization Act geared towards traceability and prevention of food borne illness as it pertains to foods prepared for public consumption.

In the past the FDA has chosen to treat a problem rather than prevent it, this act does just the opposite. It was created to shift the responsibility from responding to a food contamination to instead, preventing it. The CDC estimates that each year 1 in 6 Americans get sick every year due to food borne illnesses, that translates to billions of dollars overall to help clean up, what was not so clean, to begin with.

So what does that mean for you?

On January 4, 2001 President Barack Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA. This act along with its seven main proposals, would seek to create a nationwide, if not international (when that food is used for import and/or export to the US ) set of guidelines to have all food industry facilities in a sense “speak” the same food language. The act would prevent hazardous practices from coming in to play, by setting up guidelines for growing conditions, soil and water amendments, equipment and building sanitation to name a few. A FSMA mandated qualified exception will be in place for farms with food sales of less than $500,000, as long as half or more sales come directly from consumers within the same state or no more than 275 miles from that farm, including those to restaurants and retail outlets. Food grown for use on farm or for personal consumption are also exempt.

For those others in the food and beverage industry it could mean more that just cooking to code. Cooking in a commercial kitchen, and in turn selling to the consumer via farmers markets or stands qualifies you as a retail food establishment. Food industry businesses across the board will need to have the ability to trace the movement of its food products through each stage, production, processing and distribution either way. The traceback of food product from shelf to source and the trace forward from source to consumer is a right that the FDA is giving back to the end consumer.

Although the act was passed and signed in Jan 2011, the FDA was not able to meet their original deadlines to finalize all parts of the act, an agreement was settled and all guidelines will need to be instated as of March 2016. The FDA proposed their seventh and final rule, they are however not law yet. This gives manufacturers a proactive approach to be ready and think about how the FSMA will impact manufacturing plants, manufacturing business systems, production methods and supply chains.

In the end there may be a mad dash to prepare for what he FDA has in store for us, but will we be ready for all the changes it will bring.

Only time will tell.

The Kitchen Terminal isn't like yours.

The Kitchen Terminal isn't like yours. 

We don't have an ice maker built into the fridge, we have a ramp built into our fridge.  We don't have 1 oven, we have 6.  It took over 3000 sq feet of PVC pipe to inter-connect the underground maze of drains. If you listen closely you will hear the sounds of knives mincing, mixers whirring, ingredients sizzling.  Sprinkle in a dizzying array of sinks and storage,  a group of serial entrepreneurs with a passion for small business and food and thats when the magic begins. 

That magic happened for a trio of like minded culinary enthusiasts, Sunita Singh, Daniella Davis and Geoff Roth when they got together to create The Kitchen Terminal.  Like the entrepreneurs who are excitedly lining up, these three are self professed lovers of all things food and drink, and know that some of the best foods come from new ventures into the food industry.  Creating a space for others to come together and hone their craft, seemed like the next logical step.  Together, they bring culinary knowledge, sommelier expertise, and culinary institution know how, to a relatively new branch of the gourmet industry.  

Ask any of the owners, and they'll agree, the Kitchen Terminal is more than just a commercial kitchen.  We offer a place for like minded individuals and their businesses the chance to grow, in a competitive industry where they might not have had the chance.   From inception, incubation and beyond, the Kitchen Terminal is a multi-level starting point for the many entrepreneurs that walk through our doors.   Whether that be using one of our 5 fully equipped commercial kitchens, 4 prep stations,  bake station or serving it all up in our warm and inviting event and tasting room, this kitchen definitely has it all. 

Creating a successful, food business can be quite daunting. Many artisan food businesses struggle simply because they do not have access to the amenities needed. Perhaps they simply need a space a handful of times throughout the month.  Well, just like a home business which functions all hours of the day and night, the Kitchen Terminal is never closed. We boast work spaces which are available 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. 

Bookings can be scheduled as far as 60 days in advance,  and can be made for as many hours as you might need within a range of availability.  Cold storage needs? Bake station only? That can be arranged as well. Perhaps you would like to host a dinner party or a special event. Our talented team can arrange for all your needs, down to the most minute detail, we'll bring our expertise, you bring the guests and together we will help you create a memorable experience. 

Situated in the heart of the foodie scene in Redondo Beach and simply one of the most unique commercial kitchens around the LA area, the Kitchen Terminal is sure to attract some delicious attention, which I for one, cannot wait for you to taste.