Crab fest part II
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Crab fest part II
Originally uploaded by lunamania
Being in Orange County, land of the Costo size immigrant grocery store, means an abundance of affordable fresh produce, meat and seafood. Seafood is sold swimming and clawing, of course. My perusal of the Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese groceries coupled with the Monkey Mom’s discount radar pointed to a Christmas crab dinner.
Blue crab meat is sweeter than that of the dungeness and king crabs, but is increasingly rare in restaurants and stores. But H Mart had a box of blue crabs scrambling for their lives and Ranch 99 had dungeness waving from the tank. We were on for a full blown crab fest.
We steamed the blue crabs and ate them with ginger and soy sauce dip. We cooked the dungeness crabs two ways. One was a simple steam with ginger and scallions. The other was a fry and wok braised ginger scallion recipe. I saved the crab miso for pan fried noodles. Nothing says Christmas like getting your fingers all messy with crab…uh ok, maybe not so Christ is Born like, but it was quite tasty.
Here are the recipes:
Steamed crab with scallions and ginger.
Ginger and scallion crab in a wok.
The noodles were improvised:
Chinese egg noodles
2 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Chinese cooking wine
3 inches of sliced ginger
3 stalks of scallions (cut to ~2″)
Half a bulb of garlic
Dash of canola or peanut oil
Miso of whatever crab is in the pot cooking
White pepper to taste
Heat oil and get heat through the scallions, garlic, ginger and crab miso
Toss noodles and sauce in the pot
Add pepper
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Grocery stores of first generation peoples
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One of the things I’ve come to love about California and Southern California in particular is the prevalence of grocery stores catering to immigrant communities. I have a soft spot for the Nijiya of San Francisco’s J-town, but the Ranch 99’s, H-Marts and Garden Grove Vietnamese market make my stomach sing. Set me wandering the aisles of any of these grocery stores over strolling Rodeo Drive or West Hollywood.The country of origin may be different, but the groceries are united by cellphones and Johnnie Walker under glass counters, ye olde Berkeley Bowl fresh produce amped with herbal leafy greens, delectable prepared foods and live seafood with an optional fried fish station. Granola is nowhere in sight and Yakult is the closet thing to yogurt. The spices, sauces and snacks spur salivation and a reassuring connection to “home.” Best Buy v. first generation groceries…it’s a really tough call in Lunamania.
Tomorrow, I will head to the Korean H-Mart for live blue crabs, Ranch 99 for live dungeness crab and Von’s for penne to toss with crab juice–these stores stir immigrant nostalgia and make me hungry.
Southern California, land of good eats
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Smog, traffic, strip malls, drought and zero public transit nearly condemn Southern California to hell, but it’s saved by the delicious eats. I’m in the OC visiting in-laws, nieces and nephews and having a SoCal food appreciation moment. So far, I’ve made my now regular rounds of:A&J’s Diner in Irvine; the dumplings in spicy sauce, hand cut noodles in sweet and hot sauce, turnip cakes, thousand layer bread and scallion pancakes make me most happy;
Quan Hy on Bolsa in Westminster; the best banh beo, clam salad and hue noodles;
Champion Foods, Irvine; the Monkey swears by the pudding/custard boba and I savor the gua bao–pork makes life good;
Alegria on Sunset; Lisa G introduced me to the tacos a la crema which are now on rotation in Lunamania.
In-n-Out Burger; I know they are up in the Bay Area too, but nothing like looking for my hidden biblical passages in the land of the mega-churches!
I’m going to supplement all this eating out with home cooked roast crab from Ranch 99. Goooood!
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