Soft-shell crabs are back in season! Here our Seafood Merchant, Michael Kanter, shares his cornmeal-crusted soft-shell crab recipe. And if that doesn’t sound delicious enough already, Mike’s paired it with his special spring vegetable slaw and ravishing ramp pesto. Is anybody else drooling over their keyboard?

What You’ll Need:
Makes 2 servings
4 soft-shell crabs
½ cup milk
4 stalks asparagus
3 multi-color carrots
½ cup shucked fava beans
4 oz fiddlehead ferns
12 ramps
¼ cup olive oil
Cornmeal
Salt and pepper
Vegetable oil

Find all the ingredients to our soft-shell crab recipes here.

What to Do:
Soak cleaned soft-shell crabs in milk for 10 minutes.

Clean root end of ramps and any loose skin from root.

Peel carrots, make long ribbons from the peeled carrots using a mandolin or peeler.

In a boiling pot of well salted water, blanch vegetables individually in the following order until tender: carrots, asparagus, fiddleheads, favas, ramps. Remove the carrots and place in a mixing bowl. Remove asparagus and slice lengthwise into ribbons, add to the bowl with carrots. Remove fava beans, after cooling for a few seconds peel skins and add to the bowl with other vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil.

Remove ramps from boiling water, rough chop the ramps and add to a blender. Place top on blender and blend on low speed. Start to drizzle in olive oil and increase speed until the ramp pesto forms.

Remove crabs from milk and dry on a paper towel. Season well with salt and pepper.

Dust with cornmeal, shaking off excess.

Heat oil in a pan under medium high heat.

Place crabs in pan one at a time, top shell-side down. Be careful of splattering oil. Sauté, mildly shaking the pan occasionally for 2 minutes. Turn over the crabs and sauté for an additional 2 minutes.

Remove from pan and place on a paper towel.

Place the slaw in a bowl. Drizzle with ramp pesto. Top with two soft-shell crabs.

Enjoy!