Name: She-Crab Soup
Yield: Makes 5 to 6 Cups or Servings
Cuisine: United States
Ingredients: cayenne pepper and freshly ground black pepper to taste amontillado sherry; ⅔ cup long-grain white rice; 1 quart milk; 1½ tablespoons seafood boil; 12 to 13 large female crabs; 3 quarts water; 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste; 1 cup cream

Preparation info

Makes
5 to 6 Cups
or Servings

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Hoppin John’s Lowcountry Cooking

By John Martin Taylor

Published 1992

About

No dish is more quintessential Lowcountry than our famous she-crab soup, yet judging from the pasty versions served in most restaurants you would think its major ingredient is flour. In Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking, published in 1930, the recipe is attributed to “Mrs. Rhett’s able butler, William Deas, who is one of the greatest cooks in the world.” His recipe for a dozen crabs calls for only a teaspoon of flour as thickener in more than 2 cups of liquid.