Whiskey Crab Soup

What do you get when you mix a 3 day weekend, leftover crabs, and excitement about an upcoming cooking class on stocks?  You get homemade crab stock, that's what.  As I picked through my crabs, it occurred to me that it would be ideal to take the shell pile from a kid who isn't good at picking crabs to make your stock. You don't need a ton of meat, but some is good.  It's perfect because you know you hate picking through kids' shells when there are more crabs available and it kills you that they're wasting meat.  Until now.

I started with 6 smallish to medium sized crabs.  I removed the gills and the head sack and picked out most of the meat to use later in my soup.  Everything else went into the stock pot, along with 6 bay leaves, 4 twigs of thyme, 12 peppercorns, a can of diced tomatoes, 1 diced onion, and 5 chopped celery stalks.  That all got covered with water (about 1 inch above everything) and brought to a boil.  Once it boiled, I reduced it to a simmer and cooked it for an additional 40 minutes.  I used a fine strainer to separate the stock from stuff and then tasted it.  Magical.  I knew I was on to something good.  Mine produced 10 cups of deliciousness (6 of which now live in the freezer for a later date).

Now time for the soup.  I will mention up front that this is a west coast crab soup and thus there is no Old Bay in the recipe.  It tasted amazing without the Old Bay, but being Marylanders it just wasn't the same so we added Old Bay at the table.

Ingredients:
2 Tbs butter
1 cup diced onion
3 Tbs flour
4 cups crab stock
2 cups of crab meat
2 cups heavy whipping cram
1/4 cup whiskey (one of those little bottles at check out did the trick)
chopped chives to garnish
Old Bay to taste

Saute the onion in the butter until aromatic and tender.  Add the flour and mix well.  Slowly add the stock and mix well.  Add the crab meat.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, allowing it to thicken a bit.  Slowly add the cream and whiskey and cook for about 10 minutes.  Garnish with chives.  Add Old Bay to your liking.  Grab a cold beer and enjoy.