Recipe: Venetian Style Crab Stuffed Deviled Eggs
- 8 oz. Fresh Picked Dungeness Crab Meat, separated into claw and body meat piles
- 1 dozen Cage-Free Organic California Eggs
- 1 pint California Grape Seed Oil
- 1/2 cup Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
- 1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
- 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
- Cayenne Pepper and Coarse Kosher Salt, to taste
Recipe steps:
Bring 10 eggs to a boil in 1/2 gallon of cold salted water with the vinegar. Allow the water to boil for 5 minutes. Drain and cool eggs down in ice water. Peel eggs under cold running water, cut in half vertically, remove yolks and set aside. Separate the remaining two yolks into a mixing bowl and whip violently until fluffy, adding in cooked egg yolks and crab body meat and continuing to whip. Add half of the lemon juice, the mustard and a pinch each of salt and cayenne and combine. While whipping, slowly pour in oil to emulsify into a crab aioli. Season to taste with lemon juice, cayenne and salt. If the aioli breaks - put into food processor and whip until thick. Pipe mixture into egg whites, top with claw meat and more cayenne.
Serve directions: Serve with Prosecco, Champagne or a Martini. Also good lined up in a baguette as a Panino.
Makes 10 portions (assuming 2 devilled eggs/person).
Palio d'Asti
640 Sacramento St.
San Francisco, CA 94111
415.395.9800
www.paliodasti.com
About Dungeness Crab Week:
Diners, get your crab crackers in hand: San Francisco Chefs. Food. Wine. and Visa Signature announce that Dungeness Crabs will be the star of the first week-long tribute to the city's favorite crustacean. Forty-four esteemed chefs have teamed up, shared recipes and posed for portraits in honor of one of the most quintessentially San Franciscan foods. Each of the restaurants will don crab-clad menus at the end of February to support the celebration.
In addition to Dungeness crab inspired dishes, diners who visit participating restaurants during the promotion and pay with their Visa Signature card will also receive a complimentary commemorative cookbook featuring all things crab, including special recipes from the chefs and restaurants involved in the promotion, while supplies last. Dungeness Crab Week will run from Thursday, February 19 through Sunday, March 1. For a list of participating restaurants: http://www.sfchefsfoodwine.com/RelatedEvents.aspx
About Dan Scherotter:
Drawn to cooking while getting his Philosophy degree at The College of William and Mary in Virginia, Scherotter started his formal training at La Academia Italiana della Cucina in Bologna and in a number of that city's famed trattorie and ristoranti, and continued at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, graduating with honors. Scherotter interned for Gary Danko, at the Ritz Carlton, and worked for the likes of Bruce Hill at Oritalia, Craig Stoll at Palio d'Asti, Tony Gulisano at Marina Central, and Jody Denton and Reed Hearon at Lulu before running Puccini and Pinetti for the Kimpton Group, all in San Francisco. Scherotter came back to Palio as Executive Chef in 1999, becoming a full partner in 2004 only to finish buying out Gianni Fassio in 2006. Scherotter brought with him not only an appreciation for the lavish table of Emilia Romagna, but also an affinity for the exotic fusion of Sicily, where in 2003 he married his wife, Nina, in a secret civil ceremony set in a castle outside Cefalù, the setting for Cinema Paradiso. Chef Dan (as he's known to the conoscenti in the financial district) decided to elope while on a business trip researching one of Italy's most mysterious and gastronomically intriguing regions. If there is a goal to his cooking, it would be to take the diner back to the old country for the evening, using local ingredients and traditional Italian technique.
Scherotter, a 39 year old California native, currently resides in San Francisco. When he's not cooking at Palio, this seasoned, three star chef consults on the latest trends for multinational food companies, is helping the SFUSD develop their Academy of Hospitality and Tourism, writes menus for fellow restaurateurs and enjoys Gin Martinis, Latin American literature, Puccini Opera and Improvisational Jazz. Chef Dan returns to Italy yearly for inspiration, education, good eats and old fashioned techniques. Now that he's married, he's started working on his first book, The Bachelor's Guide to Cooking, and serves as the President of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, promoting and protecting the entire industry.
