Get big taste from a little crab

LONGBOAT KEY -- When celebrity chefs and superstar crabs get together with fine wines at the annual Stone Crab Festival at the Colony on Longboat Key, the results are usually something to dream about.

But this year, along with stone crab stuffed in striped bass or wrapped in smoked salmon, there was an affordable way to use Florida's most precious ingredient, even to stretch less than a pound of crabs to feed six.

It can be done deliciously in a souffle where high-priced crab meets humble egg.

This idea comes from the menu of blue-hot Azul in Miami and chef Michelle Bernstein. Her heritage is Argentine and Jewish, and her first career was as a dancer, but she's a Miami native and knows her way around stone crabs. She eats one crab claw a day in her kitchen and knows that the smart crab fans "go to Joe's (Stone Crab) two weeks after (the season) opens. That's when they start getting them really fresh."

Bernstein, who is one of the hosts of the Food Network's Melting Pot series and admits to being a brat, manages through effort and lack of diet to maintain her dancing trimness and a devil-may-care cholesterol level of 239. She says she tries to keep food simple and fun. "I like smooth flavors."

Bernstein indulged in a touch of caviar on top of her souffle but needed only 6 ounces of cracked crab meat -- and the shells -- to get a solid taste of crab.

The trick is to heat the shells in milk, which picks up the flavor of the crab much more quickly than making a stock. Adding mustard to the eggs also approximates some of the flavors in a traditional cold crab claw with mustardy mayonnaise.

The lowly egg also played a key supporting role, stretching out expensive flavors in another high-end dish from a guest chef.

For a sauce on slices of lobster claws and roasted pears, Fabrizio Aielli of Washington's Teatro Goldoni made a light, liquidy custard of egg yolks that the Italians call zabaglione (and the French call sabayon) and infused it with the heady perfume of truffles, white and black.

Kitchen wit and wisdom

You could learn a bit about cooking -- and living -- from cooking demonstrations at the Stone Crab Festival. Here's a taste:

"The only things I don't eat are foods I don't like."

"When I chop onions and celery, I try not to attack it. I want to keep the juices together."

"If you don't like fennel . . . so sorry for you."

-- Michelle Bernstein, Azul, Miami

"Knuckle meat (of a crab) that is in more contact with the shell has more flavor."

"Season vegetables at the earliest point in the cooking. Salt helps to break down the cell walls to marry the flavors together. . . . Salt on eggs breaks down the proteins and make them easier to combine (with bread and other ingredients)."

"Make a pan sauce that's a quick gravy: Use vinegar to deglaze a pan and get all the drippings and burned bits, add veal stock (or other prepared stock) and some butter. That's what the French call montee a beurre, a simple pan sauce."

"I use an electric knife to cut fish; I just pull the knife through" when slicing a whole fish.

-- Kerry Hefferman, Eleven Madison Park, New York

Stone Crab Souffle

6 ounces stone crab, any size, cracked completely

1 1/2 cups whole milk

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup flour

3 ounces grated Manchego cheese (see note)

4 large egg yolks

1 cup fresh corn kernels

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/8 teaspoon Coleman's English Mustard (dry)

2 tablespoons minced celery

2 tablespoons minced fennel

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

6 large egg whites, room temperature

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Separate stone crab meat, picking through and making sure no shell is left. (Save the shells.)

Butter and flour 6 ramekins or souffle dishes. Heat the milk and crab shells in a saucepan over low heat.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour, whisking constantly until smooth to make a roux. Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture turns golden.

Whisking, strain the milk through fine mesh (to remove the shells) into the flour mixture. Keep whisking over medium heat until the mixture thickens.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese, egg yolks, corn, shallots and both mustards.

Season with salt and pepper. Set aside and cool for 5 minutes. Add the crab meat, fennel and celery.

Whisk (or beat) the egg whites until soft peaks form, then fold into the souffle mixture in thirds with a rubber spatula. Pour the mixture into souffle dishes and place them in a roasting pan.

Pour hot water into the pan until it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake 25 to 35 minutes until the souffles have risen and are slightly firm. Serve immediately alone or with a little salad, shaved fennel, beurre blanc sauce or caviar butter.

Makes 6.

Note: Manchego is a Spanish cheese similar to white cheddar. It is available at larger supermarket delis. If you can't find it, substitute a crumbly white cheddar.

Source: Chef Michelle Bernstein, Azul, Miami.

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