Legal Seafood's Double-Stuffed Baked Shrimp

Legal Seafood is my all time favorite seafood restaurant.  It was founded in Cambridge, MA in 1904 as a successful fish market and later a restaurant opened in 1950.  Today there are over 30 restaurants along the East Coast as well as an online seafood market catalog.
Did you know that Legal Seafood's award winning clam chowder has been served at every Presidential Inauguration since 1981?  It was started when Ronald Reagan wished to feature foods from all 50 states and has continued since then.
Bon Appetit has said a meal at Legal Seafood is among America's top ten "tried and true" dining experience (did they know the name of my blog?).  Legal Seafood is also included in Patricia Schultz's popular guidebook "1,000 places to see before you die".
As my friends would confirm, every time I'm in Beantown I have to get my Legal fix.  Last year after a Yankee/Red Sox show down at Fenway we went to Legal's at the Prudential Center for dinner.  While waiting to be seated I realized they were selling their cookbooks.  In full Yankee gear I asked if the chef would sign it for me and he did (see below). Wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but I did laugh.

Last week I tried the baked stuffed shrimp. It was both delicious and easy to make. I used a mix of whole wheat and low fat Ritz crackers to make it healthier/lighter.  I would also suggest cooking the celery down longer than the recipe calls for (it was a bit too crunchy).  The next day I chopped up the left overs with some chopped red peppers.  Formed the mixture into cakes, dusted with some flour and sauted in a little butter for a round two recipe of shrimp and crab cakes.  Tried and True- enjoy!

Double-Stuffed Baked Shrimp
Legal Sea Foods Cookbook By Roger Berkowitz and Jane Doerfer
Serves 4
One 4 ounce package of Ritz crackers
4 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup chopped scallions (both white and green parts)
1/2 cup of celery
2-3 teaspoons of minced garlic
1- 2 tablespoons of dry white wine
1/8 teaspoon of Old Bay Seasoning
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1- 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
8 ounces backfin crabmeat picked over for shells
salt
fresh black pepper
1 large egg
16 jumbo shrimp ( about 2 pounds) peeled and cleaned

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Place crackers in plastic bag and crumble with your hands or a rolling pin.  Put them in a large mixing bowl and set aside.  In a large skillet melt 2 tablespoons of butter over med heat and cook scallions celery and garlic for 5 minutes.  Toss with crackers.  Stir in wine, Old Bay Seasoning, lemon juice, parsley and crab meat.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Mix in the egg.
Place the shrimp in a large buttered pan (I used parchment paper to cut down the butter calories).  Cover each shrimp with about 3 tablespoons of crabmeat.  Dot the crabmeat with remaining 2 tablespoons of butter.  Bake for 15 minutes and serve with lemons.

Super Bowl Crab Dip

According to CNBC, Super Bowl Sunday is second only to Thanksgiving for the most single day food consumption in the United States.  70 million pounds of avocados were smashed, 1.25 billion chicken wings were consumed and 3.5% of the annual total beef sold in the US was sold for this past weekend's celebrations!  Did you know that half of all Americans would rather go to a Super Bowl party than a New Year's Eve party and that 50 million American women tune in to watch?  Until about 8 years ago I tuned in only for the great commercials.  That year a friend and co-worker, Tim Tobin, challenged Heather and me to fantasy football.  I knew next to nothing about football, but Heather convinced me (yes, the same Heather who convinced me to start this blog) to create a team with her.  A night or two before the draft, we ventured out in the Upper East Side with our fantasy football magazines in hand to "prep" for the draft.  We hit the sports bars and got some key advice from the fellow patrons on strategy, but in the end we decided our game plan would be to pick the best looking players (or ones that we could successfully makeover). Playing on a theory that good looking people may get an edge on life, we hoped the same would be true on the field. We lined up the players head shots and with a bottle wine, not beer, we headed to our draft.  Our team's name was DBs short for Demon Bitches and we had hats and shirts made with our logo and we wore red pumps to finish off the look.  Tim and the others in the league cringed on how we were drafting our team especially, when we chose Jessie Palmer as our back up QB.  Getting the former Bachlelor contestant on our team was the icing on the cake!  Long season short...with a lot of dumb luck and good looks we won!! I ran to Jimmy Choo with my winnings and bought a new pair of shoes.  I came back to the office and showed them off to a lot of disgusted guys....thus the start to my love of fantasy football and the Giants!

According to the National Restaurant Association 69% of people with plans for the Super Bowl said they considered salsa spreads and dips to be an absolute must have.  I agree.  Many years ago my friend Paula Muller shared her crab dip recipe with me.  I think it was from her Aunt in Canada.  I've made it over and over and still have the envelope she wrote it on.  I brought it to my neighbor's Super Bowl party on Sunday and it was a hit again. The biggest hit of the party though was Big Blue's win!

Paula's Crab Dip
18 oz of cream cheese
1 teaspoon of milk
2 tablespoons of chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon of horseradish
1/4 teaspoon of Tabasco
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Combine all the ingredients in an oven proof dish and bake for 8 minutes pull out and mix it up and put back in the oven and cook an additional 8 minutes.  Add toasted almonds to top after it's cooked.