12 crabs, soft
12 oz beer, warm
1 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp baking powder
Directions
Pour beer in mixing bowl, add flour then remainder of ingredients. Mix
well. Prepare batter at least 1-1/2 hours before use as it will
thicken standing. Dust crabs lightly in flour; dip singly in batter.
Deep-fry at 360 degrees for 2-5 minutes depending on size. Crabs
should be golden brown. Drain and serve.
Servings: 6 servings
Beer Batter Softshell Crabs Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Beer; Crab; Fish; Seafood
The History of Recipes
Academics have tracked the existance of recipes far back into antiquity, in fact as far back into recorded history as the Egyptians, and possibly even further. However, generally, these old cookbooks were just very basic pictorial instructions for meal preparation.
Interestingly, the most ancient recipe discovered so far, according to academics are some clay tablets in ancient Sumerian which describe the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made those who drank it feel wonderful and blissful. During Roman times around 25BC a roman called Apicius wrote a number of scripts showing how to cook the recipes prepared by the Romans. In his scrolls, Apicius recounts how the roman meals were split into starters, entrees and afters, a very modern way of dining. This early Roman chef recounts how the ancient Romans were skilled in the use of a good variety of spices and herbs, including some that we all recognise such as basil, fennel and asafoetida. In the fifteenth century, people returning from the crusades brought back many new foods, spices and herbs from Arab cuisine, including spices such as coriander, parsley, basil and rosemary. These new foods and spices was responsible for a surge in manuscripts on cooking, most of which are kept safe in academic collections. During the succeeding few hundred years, the powerful and rich houses strove to lay on the best banquets, and because of this chefs and their collection of recipes were at a premium. Nevertheless, it was during the 1800s that cooking and recipe books reached a high level of popularity. Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, devoted much of their lives to collecting, testing, and writing down popular recipes of the day. Like it or not, the introduction of television gave us celebrity TV chefs and the spin-off recipe books. Which brings us neatly up to date and the invention of the internet, permitting everyone to access massive numbers of recipes such as those found on this site. |
We hope you enjoy this Beer Batter Softshell Crabs recipe.
