Hello and welcome to Blends Bash 2022, hosted by the lovely folks at The Book Club Cook Book.
Every year they send out some of their delicious spice blends to bloggers like myself who experiment and then share the results with you!
This year I was assigned 3 different spice blends to play with. This is my first one–Where the Crawdads Zing, a Gulf Coast Bay Seasoning.
As someone who has lived in Maryland for over a decade, I couldn’t help but wonder…
…what the hell is the difference between a Gulf Coast Bay Seasoning and a Chesapeake Bay Seasoning (a.k.a. OLD BAY)?
I did a side-by-side and, honestly, not too-too much. The Gulf Coast Bay is sweeter–lighter, so consequently the Old Bay is just more aggressive.
When searching for a recipe, I knew that I could easily swap one for the other, but somehow it felt wrong using a Gulf Coast Bay Seasoning for a Chesapeake Bay recipe or vice versa.
Speaking of Chesapeake Bay recipes, this 1960 cookbook is chock-full of them:
Fun With Sea Food compiled by Mrs. Virginia Roeder and illustrated by Richard Q. Yardley.
Flipping through this book I was surprised that very few of the recipes called for “seafood seasoning,” which I assume is code for Old Bay.
In the shrimp chapter, I came across a recipe that specifically called for “shrimp spice.”
I googled “shrimp spice.”
The majority of them are Cajun or New Orleans-inspired.
Like this one:
SEAFOOD MAGIC!
It makes sense–Mr. Shrimp up there is hanging out on Bourbon Street.
I found the perfect dish–a Gulf Coast recipe in a Chesapeake Bay cookbook.
Although only the shrimp are supposed to be boiled with the shrimp spice, I threw some into the Red New Orleans Sauce as well.
Although the red sauce looked like cocktail sauce, it was definitely not cocktail sauce.
The consistency was slick because of the oil and thick because of horseradish, chopped onion, and celery. It was bright red because of the paprika but there wasn’t any chili sauce in it.
Since I used a smoked paprika (it was what I had in the kitchen) the sauce was definitely smoky.
Mr. Sauce, Esq. liked it–he doesn’t like classic cocktail sauce. He said, “this would be good on a hot dog.”
And it’s definitely good on shrimp!
As a bonus, I also made Easy Crab Soup from Fun With Sea Food because I ended up with some leftover blue crabs from an event at work.
“This isn’t a production number. You can whip it up easily for supper!”
I picked about 6 crabs and ended up with approximately 10 ounces. Picking crabs IS a production number. Tiny cuts all over my hands!
Well, let me tell you that this was unlike any Maryland Crab Soup I ever tried before.
Most recipes use red tomatoes as the base (I assume that more often than not–canned). So if you’ve never had a Maryland Crab Soup, just imagine a tomato-vegetable soup that just happens to have crab in it.
This soup was not that. It called for one fresh tomato–not canned–and I happened to have some homegrown yellow tomatoes from my friend Rick’s backyard garden.
I don’t know what a box of mixed frozen vegetable looked like in 1960, so I used this vegetable mix from my local giant–carrots, potatoes, green beans, peas, corn, lima beans, okra, onions, and celery. I didn’t even have to add potato and onion–it was already there!
But there was also okra. Ew.
Although it only had 2 teaspoons of Old Bay, it still gave it a very pleasant hit of mild spice. There was lots of crab, but it wasn’t fishy and it didn’t taste of canned tomatoes (you know what I’m talking about).
And I didn’t hate the okra!
What a pleasant surprise.
If you want to learn more about Song Blends, Book Blends, and TV Blends, go HERE.
And I’m not saying this because they’ve given me free spices–they really are excellent quality and make lovely gifts.
And here are some of my previous Blend Bash posts:
BLENDS BASH 2021: IRISH HALLOWEEN BREAD & IRISH COFFEE (1966)
BLENDS BASH MULLED APPLE CIDER
D’ATRI SPECIAL SEASONED LETTUCE
MORE COWBELL! CHICKEN VINDALOO
I had the immediate leap to Old Bay too. Love the cat in the cookbook illustrations, So many of these old cookbooks are hilarious (and not just because of what they want you to combine in the recipes!). That plate of shrimp looks amazing and I love how you nonchalantly discuss having extra blue crab from a work event — how does one go about that? ; )
I love the clever concept behind these spice blends, and both of these dishes looked really good. I’m like you, I normally hate okra, but I’ve had it in really good soup with other veggies and I didn’t mind it.