An improvised recipe for Maryland Crab soup

(Photo credit: from Diane at White on Rice)

There’s something really beautiful about having the confidence and skill to improvise. Musicians do it when they see beyond the black notes on a chart and close their eyes to jam. It’s the same with creating something impromptu in the kitchen; it comes when the cook understands more than just the basic chemistry of cooking and ratios and starts to feel their way into a never-before-created dish.

Like a musician that can hear a tune unwind in their head, a chef must be able to cook and taste a dish before ever slicing into product or turning on the stove. The day I cooked crab soup from beginning to end without ever boiling a pot of water, was the day I realized I had started to think like a chef.

Take me to the bridge!

I have my friend Chef Brian—sous chef of Hatfield’s restaurant–to thank for my recent transformation. Over the past year he’s taken me under his wing, described the way he creates dishes and has talked me through the way prepares every ingredient. Thanks to his willingness to share culinary secrets, he’s given me information that can only learned by spending thousands of hours in the kitchen.

I recently invited a handful of my very best culinary friends to our Los Angeles apartment for a night of eating. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate our love of food than with a casual dinner that celebrated the bounty of California’s farmers’ market featuring freshly caught Santa Barbara crab. With the Hungry Cat Crab Fest–one of my favorite LA dining events–as inspiration, I began to put together my menu.

Standing in the Hollywood Farmer’s Market I saw it all so clearly. I would serve a multi course dinner, starting with a cucumber and lime cocktail. I’d begin with a savory fruit salad (Suzanne Goin style), follow it with a Maryland-style crab soup and corn bread, and finale with a huge Santa Barbara rock crab, mallets and plenty of corn on the cob. I felt confident about the salad and the simple boiling of the crab and ears of corn–but the soup was a different matter completely.

I didn’t have a recipe, nor any hope of finding one. I asked my boss (Suzanne Goin herself) if she had a copy of her husband—Chef David Lentz‘s—soup recipe but she didn’t. Oddly confident I thought, I can figure this out.

I began to doubt my abilities the moment after I had navigated through the crowded Hollywood Farmers Market with bags stuffed full of fresh produce and angry Santa Barbara crabs. Suddenly my mind was flooded with an imagined future of disappointed food bloggers politely eating a watery crab soup.

Just as I was at my lowest low, the culinary gods smiled upon me as I stumbled across the path of smiling Chef Brian—a Maryland native and crab expert.

“My god,” I gasped. “Can you tell me how to make crab soup?”

With my hands occupied with heavy sacks, he ran down the basic procedures of preparing a Maryland crab soup. Unable to take notes, I visualized the cooking of the crab, the messy job of pulling out the crustacean’s sweet meat, the sautéing of the shells and cooking the bodies down with mirepoix to create a rich stock. I saw it all as I repeated the steps all over again at the stove. Thanks to Brian’s advice and my newfound confidence, the soup was a huge success.

Like a family recipe that is shared through generations, this soup is created by feel and instinct. I offer you the recipe here, as it was described to me at the Hollywood Farmer’s market.