In the Kantine Kitchen: Dungeness Crab Buns

 

Yes, those are Dungeness crab buns!

My mom inherited her love of seafood from her father, an avid Lake Erie sailor and fisherman. As a kid, I grew up eating fish for dinner at least twice a week, and always (as “good” Catholics do) each Friday.Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of many of my mom’s fish dishes, but every so often, particularly on special occasions, she’d bust the food budget and make steamed Alaskan snow crab legs with drawn butter for dinner. To me, as for her, those extravagant yet simple meals were sheer indulgence.Once I headed off to college, the regular seafood dinners ceased, and it wasn’t until years later, when I moved to Denmark, that I started incorporating fish and shellfish back into my diet.While living in Copenhagen, my Scandinavian shellfish of choice became crayfish. For a number of years, we owned a summer cottage in Sweden, where crayfish is widely available, and I got hooked. The sweet meat reminded me of the crabmeat I’d eaten as a kid, and I used it in pastas and risotto dishes, salads and sandwiches.Now that I live in San Francisco, crayfish isn’t a local option anymore, so I’ve reverted back to using crabmeat, specifically Pacific Dungeness crabmeat, in my recipes instead. Just a few weeks ago, I used crabmeat to make a scrumptious twist on a Swedish shellfish salad called Skagenrøre.The traditional recipe is a creamy medley of assorted cooked shellfish, mayonnaise and fresh dill; sometimes lemon zest, grated horseradish and dijon mustard are added for zing. A mound of the mixture is wonderful atop a crispy green salad, a slice of rye bread, or, in my version, as a filling for toasted hot dog buns.Instead of stirring all the ingredients together, I prefer to layer them up one by one in the buns, making for a beautiful presentation. I use pickled pink radishes (a staple in my refrigerator) in my recipe, but one can easily substitute fresh horseradish instead.When I’ve made Skagenrøre previously, I’ve always foregone the assorted shellfish part, and simply used crayfish tails. Substituting Dungeness crabmeat was a no-brainer, especially after the devastating scarcity of it in my kitchen last season.In March, my mom will be coming to visit me here in San Francisco, and while she’s here, I’m sure we’ll make a lot of meals together. One of them is undoubtedly going to be these crab buns, because even though she’s never tried Skagenrøre, the flavor of sweet crabmeat is one we both adore.[tasty-recipe id="1553"]