Creamy Crab Soup

Creamy Crab Soup

 Nancy brought me some crabs, unexpectedly. She told me to cook it today as it's going to die soon. She has a friend that owns a restaurant and she's been getting fresh live crabs from her. I told her I like crab and was going to buy some frozen ones, so there, I've got some live crabs from her.

 I wasn't sure how to cook or kill the crab before, actually I am afraid of killing them. So I googled, and found several sites. They all said to put in the boiling water with salt for about 8 minutes, and so I did. I found something very funny about this site that mentioned, for more humane act, gently stroke the head and put it to sleep before putting it into the water, head down first. Well if you are to kill it, you are better just to do it quickly.

 This is how it looked like after being cooked. The shell suppose to turn red. I had trouble getting the shells out, it's sure wasn't easy. I pulled all the legs out and cracked it open inside. Honestly, my fingers still hurts. I should learn the proper method to crack it open.

 This is all I got from the 6 crabs. I was just going to eat it like that with butter, it is actually good that way too. My mom used to stir fry it with garlic, onion and other spices, but she killed it and chopped it before cooking it, I do not want to touch it so I just boiled it.

This soup actually turned out very good, hubby already had 3 small bowls of them. I found the recipe from allrecipe again. It's called South Carolina she crab soup, not sure how it is because I've never been there and never tried it. To me it tasted almost like those creamy clam chowder that I really like.

I did modify the recipe, as usual. I just put what I have at home to make it.

This is my recipe;

2 1/2 tbs butter
2 1/2 tbs all purpose flour
2 cups half and half cream
2 cups broth (chicken or fish )
1 stalk celery, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 small onion, chopped
some green onion or chives, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

I melted the butter in the pot, and added the flour, stirring it often until it's smooth.
Then I added the celery, onion and garlic, fry it for a couple minutes.
Add the half and half cream a little at a time, stirring it often. The real recipe asked for 1 cup whole milk but I don't have it, and 4 cups of half and half cream.
I used my leftover pork bone soup I had yesterday instead of the broth they called for. It turn out very well too.
Cook it in the pot, stirring it often, add salt and pepper, sprinkle with the green onion on top after it's cooked.
The original recipe also asked for sherry wine, worchester sauce and hot sauce, but I feel that this is good enough so I didn't add anything else. I am so happy that I can make my own creamy soup, I've always like this type of soup, now I can make it. If I can make it, so can you, and everybody else.