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| A Crabmeat and Cheese Po'boy, known locally as a Vancleave Special, is made with seasoned, thin crab patties, served on po'boy bread with mayonnaise, cheese, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes and pickles. Add a cup of gumbo and a cold Barq's root beer in the bottle. |
Crabmeat and Cheese Po'boy
It rained long yesterday, ahead of a cold front that will be bringing some welcomed lower humidity and temperatures for a day or three again. I love a good rainy day though, especially now that I work from home and don't have to make that 60-mile, round trip commute on a dangerous interstate highway.Honestly, with a legal career that was already stressful enough, the stress started well before I got there with that drive most days. It was a fine paying job, and I really enjoyed my work until Hurricane Katrina took it away, but honestly, there are so many things that I really don't miss about it anymore.
So today, I'm bringing you a Deep South favorite that I wrote about in my column a few months back at Eat. Drink. MISSISSIPPI magazine. If you're a Mississippian, I hope that you'll check out the magazine, because J.J. and the rest of the real journalists there (which I am not), do a mighty fine job bringing all things foodie from my home state to light.
My food bucket list has gotten far more interesting since reading that magazine!
Just a quick reminder.... if you aren't interested in the chit chat, info, photos, tips and such on a blog, as always, you'll find the complete recipe text with measurements and instructions, as well as a printable document, a little bit further down the page. Just swipe or scroll down to the bottom of the post!
You would be hard-pressed to find someone who has lived around Biloxi for any length of time who has not heard of a Vancleave Special.
The sandwich is believed to have originated in the late 1940s, at the old Rosetti's café, now long gone, but once located on the corner of Myrtle Street and East Howard Avenue in Biloxi, at the foot of the original War Memorial Bridge that crossed over the Biloxi Bay into Ocean Springs. Y'all pretty much know that area now as Casino Row if you've ever visited Biloxi.
The joining of the two cities at that time brought new life to the Point Cadet area of Biloxi by literally bridging the landlocked peninsula of Biloxi to her sister cities to the east.
As the story goes, Kipp Dees, a customer of Rosetti’s, who happened to be from the Vancleave area across the bridge, one day requested something that wasn't on the menu - a crabmeat po’boy with cheese.
It caught the eye of the owner who put his own slant to it by melting that cheese, and eventually added it to the menu, calling it the Vancleave Special Po'boy. At $1.75, "it was the most expensive sandwich that Mr. Rosetti sold," Dees was quoted as saying in a 2001 The Sun Herald feature. "I'm mighty proud of that sandwich."
Though the name was initially associated with Rosetti’s, the combination quickly spread across the Gulf Coast where you could order it by name pretty much anywhere that served po’boys, and the server would know exactly what you wanted.
The official Vancleave Po'boy Special of Rosetti's is long gone now, and nobody seems to still have, know, remember, or is willing to share the original crab patty recipe that Rosetti's used, so this is my own recipe, written in the style of the Vancleave Special.
Made with the classic combination of seasoned crab with some type of breading, a mixture more typically used to make deviled crab, crab cakes, or used as a stuffing for other seafood, the patties for the po'boy are formed into thinner, more oval shapes that fit nicely on po’boy bread. Don't bother to use the expensive lump or jumbo lump crab for these though, as this is the perfect place to use the lesser expensive claw crabmeat instead.
The patties are then pan-fried, placed onto po’boy bread, topped with cheese, and served "dressed and pressed," as we call it down here in Mississippi, differentiating our po'boys from the Louisiana versions, meaning it is garnished with the usual suspects of mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and often pickles and then pressed in a skillet or sandwich press, if ya have one!
It gives the bread a crisp outer bite, while retaining the tender inner crumb of the French bread.
The traditional way to serve this po’boy, is with a hot cup of seafood gumbo on the side and an ice cold Barq's root beer, preferably in the bottle. A small side of fresh, hot French fries is a pretty common addition also.
I know the list of ingredients appears a bit daunting, but it's really not ... that's mostly seasonings you're seeing, and it makes for a well-flavored crab patty that you definitely want!
The patties may certainly also be made ahead and frozen. Just form the patties, dredge in flour and line them up on a parchment covered baking sheet, freezing until solid. Transfer to a zipper freezer bag or vacuum seal and they'll be ready for whenever you're in the mood for a po'boy! Just place them frozen into hot oil and brown.
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| Wanna bite? Boy do I love these things. |
Here's what you'll need to make a Crabmeat and Cheese Po'boy:
For the Crab Patties:
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided, plus more for the bread
- 1/2 cup finely minced onion
- 1/2 cup finely minced green bell pepper
- 1/2 cup finely minced celery
- 1/4 cup chopped green onion
- 2 tablespoons finely minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper, or to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon Creole or Cajun seasoning, optional
- 1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
- 2 teaspoons of fresh, chopped parsley, or 1 teaspoon dried
- Dash Worcestershire sauce
- Dash hot pepper sauce
- 6 slices of white bread, toasted
- 1 pound claw crabmeat
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice, optional
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil, divided
- 1 to 2 packages thin po'boy bread (like Leidenheimer)
- Butter for the bread
- Dressings, noted below
- Mayonnaise
- American cheese or Velveeta cheese, sliced thin
- Shredded lettuce
- Sliced tomatoes
- Pickle slices or spears
Here's how to make a Vancleave Special of your own!
Toast the bread slices, remove crust if desired and reserve for another use.
Cube.
For seasoning veggies, we're using classic trinity of onion, bell pepper and celery with garlic.
Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onion, bell pepper and celery; cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
Slice up the green onion.
Sprinkle each piece of toast with water to dampen and set aside in a bowl. Let rest for 2 minutes.
Stir in the salt, pepper, Creole or Cajun seasoning, Old Bay, parsley, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.
Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.
Drain bread into a colander and squeeze all of the water out of the bread.
Add the bread to the vegetable mixture; gently mix, taste and adjust seasonings before adding the beaten egg.
I'm using local blue crab, claw crabmeat sourced out of Slidell, Louisiana. Pick through the crabmeat to check for any stray shell. I find using a black light flashlight is super handy for this task!
Add the crab and lemon juice to the breading.
Lightly toss.
Add the beaten egg.
Blend in.
Add the green onion.
Place flour in a pie plate. Use an ice cream scoop to measure out the crab mixture evenly, then shape by hand into thin, oval patties. You want the patties to be very thin for these po'boys. Dredge patties in flour, lightly coating on both sides.
Line a baking sheet with a silpat, parchment paper or wax paper and set tray in refrigerator for 30 minutes or longer, until needed to firm up. May also freeze at this point if you're making these ahead.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil with 1 tablespoon of the remaining butter in a large skillet and add the crabmeat patties.
Cook until browned and crisped on both sides, adding additional oil and/or butter as needed.
Of course you can eat these on a bun instead of po'boy bread or even just as a crab patty!
Prep the French bread, cutting crosswise into the size po'boys you want and then splitting in half.
Butter the cut sides of the bread.
Place cut side of bread down into skillet to brown lightly.
Start building the po'boy by adding mayonnaise to the cut sides of the bread.
Top with crab patties. I'm using two per po'boy here. How many will depend on how you size your bread cuts.
Top with cheese - plain American is most traditional.
Close up the bread.
Transfer to pan cheese side down. Toast, using a wide spatula to press down, then turn and toast the other side, continuing to press down.
Transfer po'boy to cutting board.
Now. At this point you can certainly just eat it as is!
Otherwise, let's get it dressed! Open the po'boy on the non-cheese side.
Add tomato slices.
Add shredded lettuce.
Yum Yum Y'all!
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