Blue Crab Soup with Picada

This recipe is inspired by those wonderful soups you find along the Mediterranean that are almost frighteningly pungent with garlic but that seem to satisfy some deep craving for foods with unreserved amounts of flavor.

This soup is flavored with picada—a powerful Spanish paste of garlic, bread, nuts, and olive oil—which can be used to finish any number of soups. Here it is used to finish an already tasty broth made from fresh blue crabs.

The soup can be made entirely