Crab Juice Recipe from The Simpsons
2 min read
The Recipe
Crab Juice Recipe from The Simpsons
Ingredients
- 500g cooked crab shells and bodies
- 1 litre water
- 1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
- 1 small onion, quartered
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Ice
- Lemon wedges
- Hot sauce, to taste (optional)
- Celery sticks, to garnish
Method
- 1SimmerPut the crab shells, water, chopped celery, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns and salt in a large pot. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer for 30 minutes. Don't go much longer or the broth turns bitter.
- 2Strain and chillStrain through a fine sieve lined with muslin or a paper towel and discard the solids. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until very cold, at least 2 hours.
- 3ServePour over ice in a tall glass. Squeeze in a lemon wedge, add a few drops of hot sauce if you like, and garnish with a celery stick.
This crab juice recipe is a cold, strained crab shell broth with lemon, the closest a home kitchen gets to what Homer drinks in Manhattan. It tastes like a light seafood stock served over ice. Nobody orders it for the flavour.
Wear it
The scene
Crab juice is from "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," Season 9, Episode 1, first aired on 21 September 1997 and written by Ian Maxtone-Graham. Homer's car is clamped outside the World Trade Center and he can't leave it until the parking guy turns up. He's hungry.
The only food on offer is khlav kalash from a street cart. "No bowl. Stick. Stick." Homer eats it, calls it awful, and asks what he can wash the taste out with.
"Mountain dew or crab juice."
Homer makes a series of noises: "Blech! Ew! Geez!" Then: "I'll take a crab juice."
He drinks a lot of it. Shortly after, he needs a bathroom, and the cart has no men's room, only khlav kalash. "Men's room in tower." He still can't leave the car. "Oh, why did I drink all that crab juice?"
The show never says what Homer thinks is wrong with Mountain Dew. He just doesn't pick it.
Is crab juice real?
Not as a bottled drink. You won't find crab juice next to the soft drinks. The nearest thing on a supermarket shelf is bottled clam juice, which is sold as a cooking stock.
Making it from shells is the honest version. It's the same method as a quick seafood stock, strained hard and served cold.
What it tastes like
Briny, light and a little sweet from the crab, with celery and pepper in the background. It's closer to a cold consommé than to juice.
Serve it very cold. Lemon helps, and so does a dash of hot sauce. Warm, it's soup.
Recipe notes
Use shells from crabs you've already cooked and eaten. Blue swimmer or mud crab both work. Shells from a whole cooked crab from the fish market give more flavour than picked meat alone.
For a clearer drink, don't stir the pot while it simmers, and strain it twice.
No crab shells? Chill a bottle of clam juice and season it with a pinch of seafood boil spice. It's a shortcut, and it tastes like one.
For something you'd actually choose, mix one part crab juice with two parts tomato juice, add lemon, hot sauce and a shot of vodka, and you have a seafood Bloody Mary.
What to serve it with
Khlav kalash, obviously. The cart only sells the two, and they come as a set. Our khlav kalash recipe is grilled meat on a stick, and the khlav kalash explainer covers the rest of the cart.
