Quarantine Cooking: Anatomy of the Grilled Crab Sandwich

At the Sardine Can in my hometown of Vallejo, I usually order the Grilled Crab, Avocado and Swiss on Sourdough. I finally took out the Dungeness crab I bought from the freezer to cook seafood pasta the other night and decided to eat a lunch today of my favorite crab sandwich though I had no sourdough. I looked online for recipes, and they were either too simple or too complex. I wanted something more akin to the one I eat at my favorite seafood shack. And so I started with crab salad. I didn't have any tarragon, nor any celery. And just went with green onion and chives and mayonnaise and Dijon mustard and sour cream but added lemon herb (I think dill)aioli, which I also used as a dipping sauce for last night's fried baby artichokes.

I also didn't have sourdough bread--that needs to be my next loaf when my bread runs out--but did have rye bread with the hopes of making grilled cheese with tomato soup. But no matter because at least I had Swiss cheese and a small avocado (I really need to use them up asap before they turn....carnitas tacos instead of other leftovers I had planned for me and the hubs. I toasted the bread first on the side onto which to adhere the fillings.

I also melted the cheese by nuking the sandwich in the microwave before browning it by slathering it with butter and laying it on the hot cast iron. I do think it looked potentially scrumptious at this stage if I do say so myself.

My filling was a bit runny albeit delicious. Next time no sour cream in the filling, and I'm glad I hadn't salted the avocados because they were a delicious counterpoint to the saltiness of the crab (besides mustard and mayo and the aioli had enough salt). 

Yeah, french fries would've been a delicious accompaniment, but I was grateful to re-live my Sardine Can meal at home. I've enough crab too for either another sandwich or more crab in my leftover squid ink pasta. Decisions, decisions, decisions. My husband thinks I watch too many cooking shows and obsess too much over what meal to cook next, but it's a pandemic. And I'm on summer break from teaching. And I find happiness in these little decisions on how to entertain the palate.

And now it's the next day and time for lunch again. Like I said, my sandwich filling was too wet yesterday, and so I added crab to my salad and discovered I was out of avocado. To the store for more and then discovered once home I was out of Swiss cheese, but luckily I had some Emmenthaler and Gruyere in the freezer and decided to slather more Dijon mustard on the rye bread.

Again alas no french fries, and so I made do with sport pickles and homemade bread and butter pickles and coca cola. Twas good and now I've got crab leftover for squid ink and shellfish pasta tonight for dinner.