Cook: Quest for the Perfect Crab Soup

Many years ago I had a craving for crab soup. Not the veggie heavy, tomatoey Maryland style soup. I wanted a soup with cream and fat lumps of crab meat. The traditional cream of crab soups from local restaurants didn’t do it for me. Some of them tasted like sherry-spiked library paste.

I started experimenting in my kitchen. The first couple of incarnations of this soup also had fish and shrimp. I finally settled on this recipe. It is a mashup of cream of crab, chowder, and bisque. It is rich and satisfying and uses fresh summer produce. And there’s bacon! Everything’s better with bacon!

Marion’s Crab Soup

 1 pound lump crab meat
4 ears corn
1 large onion, diced
6 ounces bacon, diced
1-1½ pounds new red potatoes, diced
1 pint white (button) mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon Old Bay Seasoning
¼ cup flour
4 cups seafood stock
2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Cut kernels off of the shucked corn cobs and set aside. Place 7 quart pot over medium heat. Add diced bacon and cook, stirring until bacon is crisp and browned. Remove bacon and drain on a paper towel. Add onions, potatoes, mushrooms, and corn. Sauté vegetables in the bacon fat until onions are translucent. Sprinkle with Old Bay and stir. Sprinkle with flour, stir, and cook until flour starts to brown slightly and smells slightly nutty. Add cooked bacon. Stir in seafood stock, scraping up browned bits. Add salt and pepper. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer until potatoes are cooked.

While soup is simmering, carefully pick through crab meat and remove any bits of shell – taking care not to break up the lumps. Once potatoes are cooked, stir in cream and simmer until soup is heated through and is reduced slightly. Do not let the soup boil.

Once the soup is reduced, add crab and stir gently – again taking care not to break up the lumps. Heat until crab is warmed through. Add salt and pepper to taste – if needed. Serve and Enjoy!