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| Clam Cakes
Clam cakes make any seafood meal sing. Serve them alongside fisherman's stews such as cioppino or bouillabaisse, or along with grilled salmon or swordfish or halibut. For a less ambitious meal, you hardly need a main course. Simply serve clam cakes and chowder or lobster stew, with strawberry shortcake or wild blueberry pie for dessert. There you have a genuine summertime Downeast feast!
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| Clam Hash
We've not seen clam hash on a menu other than at Pat's Kountry Kitchen, but it has deep roots in Yankee cookery. Founder Pat Brink told us that her recipe was developed when her kids accidentally threw away the broth retrieved from a batch of clams that were destined to become clam chowder. Without the broth, there could be no chowder; and so Pat improvised and created hash. This recipe is not hers, but comes pretty close.
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| Crab Cakes
The secret of great crab cakes is to use the most amount of crab and as little binder as you can get away with to hold the cake together. Of course, the quality of the crab meat crucial. Fresh-picked Chesapeake Bay crab or Dungeness crab is best.
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| Crab Louie
Crab Louie can be made with any good fresh crab meat (or, for that matter, with cooked shrimp instead of crab), but tradition demands it be made with Dungeness crab from the Pacific Northwest. We concocted this recipe based on the Louie we found long ago at a downhome restaurant called Jerry's Farmhouse in Olema, California. It makes four very large whole-meal portions or 6 modest-size ones.
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| Crab Melt
The better the crabmeat, the more delicious the sandwich. At the Cottage in LaJolla, California, rock crabmeat is preferred. Dungeness crab would work fine, too. If using canned crab, be sure you rinse it well and drain away any excess water.
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| Hot Lobster Roll
While the typical hot lobster roll comes with the meat already gilded with melted butter, the Maine Diner's version is even simpler than that: plain, warm lobster piled into a toasted bun, presented with a cup of drawn butter on the side. Proprietor Dick Henry explained, "We found that if we served the meat already buttered, the bun fell apart." So it is eater's choice: either pour all the butter all over the sandwich, risking bun disintegration, or simply pick chunks of meat and shreds of toasted bread from the plate and dip them in the cup of butter as you wish.
While not essential, New England split-top hot dog rolls with flat surfaces on each side are by far the best kind of bun to use. They are made for grilling … in butter, of course!
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| Shrimp de Jonghe
Shrimp de Jonghe is unique to Chicago. Its essential ingredients are shrimp, garlic, bread crumbs, and butter; variations around the city range from shrimp swimming in a pool of melted, flavored butter to casseroles in which the bread crumbs form a crunchy lid atop the fish. Our recipe is between the extremes -- moist, but edible by fork. The goodness of this dish depends on top-quality shrimp.
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| Surf and Turf
The big lobster tails called for in this recipe tend to be very pricey, more so even than prime filet mignon; but that’s the point of surf and turf. It is essential to any topflight steakhouse menu because it is the height of luxury – two of nature’s richest foods combined on a single plate.
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