The Playboy Gourmet: Crab Meat Bourbon (1972)

Today’s recipe is from the Playboy Gourmet by Thomas Mario.

Bourbon and crab. Together? Will this work? Let’s see!

The reasons why I selected this recipe:

1. I still had a good deal of crab leftover from my Great Maryland Chesapeake Crab Imperial Experiment.
2. This recipe includes a lot of booze (and I love bourbon and sherry)
3. This recipe calls for a chafing dish and I had just purchased an honest-to-god warming tray from JoRetro in Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Chafing dishes and warming trays are, like, almost the same thing, right? Let’s see!

I have very limited notes on this. Here they are.

1. Sambuca for Pernod. 

What the hell is Pernod? I mean, the only time I ever see anything about it is in seafood recipes like Oysters Rockefeller, so I don’t keep it on hand. But I do have a bottle of Sambuca (that is probably older than me) and the liquor lords say that it is a suitable substitute, so Sambuca it is!

2. Hot tray not warm enough. Move back to stove top.

So this begins to answer the question whether or not a warming tray can be used the same way as a chafing dish. I may have done this multiple times.

3. I feel like everything should have been done first and then crab folded in at the end.

This is true. The lumps of crabs just disintegrated. There was so much stirring and combining once it was added.

4. Just trying to cook down to thicken it!

I expected Crab Meat Bourbon to be more crab dip-like. A thick concoction that bread or crackers could be dipped into.

Alas, this was none of that. It was soupy. Like a very misguided crab bisque.

Final verdict: Bourbon and crab together, meh. And a warming tray is not the same as a chafing dish.