Wow. This is so great – presidents’ recipes to help us celebrate this upcoming three-days-off Presidents Day weekend.
And who do we have to thank for this windfall? Why, Everett cook Jody Harnish, that’s who. “With Presidents Day coming soon, I thought I’d pass these recipes along to you,” she says.
“I found them in the back of a book that had hilarious stories and trivia about the presidents. I’ve tried them, and they’re delicious.
“The first one is Martha Washington’s recipe for crab soup. The book says, ‘Martha’s way with crab soup has pleased even modern presidents and their wives.’ I can certainly believe that!”
Then, moving along to the second recipe, Harnish tells us, “Historians seem to agree that Abraham Lincoln paid little attention to what he ate most of the time. However, these scalloped oysters were a favorite of his.”
You’ll notice the recipe calls for fresh oysters in the shell, but Harnish says, “I use two of the jars of fresh shucked oysters you can buy in the seafood section at the grocery store.”
With fresh oysters almost always readily available, and fresh Dungeness crabs coming in from the ocean on a daily basis right now, the timing is what we call Yorkshire “perfeck” for trying either or both of these:
Martha Washington’s crab soup
1tablespoon butter
1 1/2tablespoons flour
3hard-cooked eggs, peeled and mashed with a fork
Grated rind from 1 lemon
Dash salt
Dash pepper
4cups milk
1cup crab meat
1/2cup heavy cream
1/2cup sherry
Dash Worcestershire
In a large pot, combine butter, flour, mashed eggs, lemon rind, salt and pepper. In a separate pot, bring the milk to a boil, then pour slowly into butter and flour mixture, whisking constantly. Add crab meat and cook over medium heat 5 minutes. Add cream, stir and remove from heat before soup reaches a full boil. Add sherry and Worcestershire. Serve very hot.
Makes six servings.
Abraham Lincoln’s scalloped oysters
1/4cup butter, melted
2cups coarse cracker crumbs
2dozen oysters, scrubbed, shucked, drained, with liquid reserved
1/4teaspoon pepper
1/3cup cream
2tablespoons sherry
1teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Mix melted butter and cracker crumbs together; sprinkle a third of mixture evenly on bottom of greased shallow baking dish. Add a layer of half of the oysters. Stir together the pepper, cream, reserved oyster liquid, sherry and Worcestershire; pour half of sauce mixture over oysters. Add another third of the butter and crumb mixture to baking dish and top with remaining oysters. Spoon or pour on remaining sauce. Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over the top and bake at 425 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes or until crumbs are lightly browned.
The next Forum will appear in Friday’s Time Out section.
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