Day One Seventy One - An ode to Maryland GCF

When you think of Maryland, what do you think of food wise? That's an easy question right!? Crab, crab cakes, blue crab, crab legs, crab salad -- pretty much anything crabby. 

Since I will be spending the weekend in Maryland, I thought I might as well make this week's GCF in honor of my weekend destination. For my ode to crab, I decided to do a crab salad sandwich melt but before we get to that, interested in a few crabby facts?

Did you know that each year over 1.5 million tons of crab are ingested by humans?

Or that crabs account for one fifth of all sea creatures that are caught from all bodies of water worldwide?


Or that just two ounces of crab meat will provide you with enough Vitamin B12 for a full day?
See by reading today's post you learned a few more things about crab! Exciting, isn't it?
Moving on from the factoid portion of the blog to today's GCF recipe.

Crab Salad Ingredients:

1 can of jumbo lump crab meat
1 Persian cucumber diced very finely
1/2 cup of steamed corn kernels
1/4 cup of finely diced scallion
Finely diced cilantro and basil (about a handful of each)
Small drizzle of lime juice for acidity
1 1/2 teaspoons of sriracha of if you prefer you can use red pepper flakes for the necessary kick for this salad
2 -3 tablespoons of Greek Yogurt (I like to utilize this to make it creamier as opposed to utilizing mayo)
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt

This is a very easy salad to make, pretty much dice up all of the ingredients that need chopping and combine with the drained crab meat then add Greek yogurt and sriracha and lime juice and mix together. This salad of course will benefit from fresh crabmeat but should that not be available or in your budget, canned crab meat isn't all together awful. Once you've made the salad, it's time to grab your bread and cheese and assemble your grilled cheese.

For this sandwich, I like to use a nice multigrain bread, nothing with an abundance of dried fruit or seeds or nuts, but some delish multigrain bread is perfect. For today's cheese, I like to utilize a Fontina Fontal. Fontina is a hard pasteurized cow's milk cheese originating from the Lombardy region of Italy. I like to think of it as Italy's answer to Swiss style Alpine cheeses. It's full of flavor with an inherent paste-y sweetness with hints of mushroom, woody-ness, and earthiness. It is a very versatile cheese and pairs well with everything from sauces to fondues to pastas and pizzas or grilled cheeses like I am suggesting here.

Once you've topped your bread with the crab salad place a few nice thick slices of Fontina and bake this in the oven till the cheese is melted. Trust me, you won't be disappointed! I'd have this with a nice glass of medium bodied Italian white wine, like a Gavi.

Enjoy your Friday evening folks.