Summer Makes Me Crabby Week: Crabmeat Terrapin Style

I know, I know, I owe you a ton of recipes and catchups! Thatboy and I just got back from our 4 year anniversary trip (can you believe we've been married 4 years? It seems so weird given that we've dated over twice that many years!) and blogging is not the only thing I'm behind in.

Returning from a vacation back to regular life is always hard for me. I'm a schedule person by nature, and while I'm fine with venturing afield, part of me is always distracted by missing out on my usual routine at home. So now we're back and trying to get back into the swing of things. I finally caught up with most of the housework and can devote myself back to frivolous stuff like blogging. Which is exciting because you have a lot to look forward to: Vacations, adorable babies, a race, and eventually we'll move away from crabs onto something equally as fun!

But for now, let's continue on with the crab recipes, shall we? The next recipe is for crabmeat terrapin. I'm not really sure what the name means. I have no history or no reasoning for what makes this dish a terrapin. Because frankly, when I think of terrapin I picture this guy:

And there are certainly no turtles in this dish. Although both turtles and crabs have shells, there aren't a lot of other similarities. For instance, for many years I had a pet turtle named Chris - and I've never had a pet crab. Wait a minute. I think I might have had a hermit crab at one point in time, although I'm fairly certain that's not the type of crab you would use in this dish. I used those snow crab legs I was telling you about ages ago (or at least that's how long it seems).

The finished product reminded me of a crab omelet. It would make an excellent breakfast, although we ate it for dinner with some rice. As a dinner, the finished product reminded me a bit of an egg foo young, so I paired it with some steamed rice. Of course, adding some peanuts and celery helped with that whole egg foo young comparison, but if I were serving it for breakfast I'd probably top it with some avocado instead.

Crabmeat Terrapin Style (The Fannie Farmer Cookbook)

3 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cups crabmeat
3 Tbsp dry sherry
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 egg yolks
salt
dash of cayenne pepper

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.
2. Stir in the onion and cook over low heat until soft and yellow.
3. Remove the onion and set aside.
4. Stir in the crabmeat, add the sherry, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes.
5. Beat the cream and egg yolks together. Slowly add to the saucepan, stirring briskly.
6. Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes until the sauce is smooth and thickened.
7. Remove from the heat and season to taste with salt and cayenne.
   

Steamed Rice with Peanuts

3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp butter
1 cup brown rice
1 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup peanuts, chopped

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.
2. Add the salt and butter.
3. Slowly add the rice, celery and peanuts.
4. Cover and simmer. Don't remove the cover for 40 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork before serving.