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Crabmeat au Gratin

Written by Danielle Oteri

My family tries to maintain the Neapolitan tradition of the “feast of the seven fishes.” Usually there is spaghetti vongole, fried smelts, calamari, and zuppe di pesce.

Stuffed lobster tails hearken back to the days when my grandmother would prepare this massive meal all by herself, and this year I very much wanted to make them as a gift to my family.

crabmeat au gratin with baguette slices
Photo: Casey Barber

My thinking was this: lobster goes for about $10-$12 per pound, so the tails would likely run me between $5-$8 each.

Sound thinking, right? Wrong.

Lobster tails–frozen, mind you–go for $18 per pound uptown, $28 a pound downtown. The nerve!

crabmeat au gratin with baguette slices
Photo: Casey Barber

As Casey surmised, lobster tails are like beef tenderloins. People will always buy them so the retailers can get away with jacking up the price.

I decided that I could not afford to feed lobster tails to 10 hungry Italians.

Plan B was crab, and since it had to travel to my aunt’s house up the Hudson, I decided to do crabmeat au gratin.

crabmeat au gratin with baguette slices
Photo: Casey Barber

I read about 20 different recipes for gratin over the course of Christmas Eve, including Julia Child’s, but given my notorious inability to follow directions, I ended up improvising.

The result… Fantastic! Delicious! A Christmas miracle! I surprised myself. God bless us, every one!

crabmeat au gratin with baguette slices
Photo: Casey Barber

Fortunately, I wrote down exactly what I did.

This crabmeat au gratin dish was so wonderful, so rich, so impressive, and so ridiculously easy to make that I highly recommend it for your next dinner party.

Seriously, this is foolproof. You may never go back to serving lobster tails again.

crabmeat au gratin with baguette slices

Editor’s Note: There’s no need to splurge on the pricey lump or jumbo crabmeat for this gratin. Crab comes in a variety of grades, based on which part of the crab the meat was picked. They are all succulent, so don’t worry about inferior taste.

For this recipe, I recommend a blend of special and claw meat–this will give you a few luxurious chunks of crab interspersed with delicately flaky crab throughout the gratin.

crabmeat au gratin with baguette slices

Crabmeat au Gratin

Yield: 6 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

Crabmeat au gratin is a buttery, creamy and elegant party appetizer that's more affordable than lobster tails or caviar.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound crabmeat, thawed if frozen
  • 1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley (about 1 small bunch)
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled + 1 tablespoon butter, cut into small cubes
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Mix the crabmeat, parsley, cream, egg yolks, melted butter, flour, and salt together in a large bowl.
  3. Spread the mixture in a 1-quart casserole or gratin dish.
  4. Sprinkle evenly with the panko and dot with the remaining butter.
  5. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the gratin is sizzling and golden brown in spots.
  6. Serve on its own or with baguette slices.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 6 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 289Total Fat: 22gSaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 195mgSodium: 455mgCarbohydrates: 6gFiber: 1gSugar: 1gProtein: 16g

The nutritional information above is computer-generated and only an estimate.

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