Every inch of chef Scott Clark’s new book Coastal (written with Betsy Andrews and photographed by Cheyenne Ellis) screams California. Starting with the stunning cover (a literal picture of the coast), every page feels like a perfect representation of what it feels like to live and eat along the California coast.

Coastal is organized as a road trip, with each chapter representing a stop along a route running from Scott’s restaurant, Dad’s Luncheonette, in Half Moon Bay, down to Morro Bay (and then out to the Channel Islands). Scott, Betsy, and Cheyenne stop at farms and vineyards and fisheries along the way, and each chapter’s recipes are based on their experiences in that place. (The first chapter also has recipes for everyone’s favorite dishes at Dad’s.)

Scott and I have been working on finding a way to talk soon—schedules are hard when two people are both launching books!—so I’ll have an interview with him to share with you later in the spring, but for now, I wanted to share this gorgeous recipe so that everyone can make it before crab season ends.

One note before you dive in: Scott is a professional chef, and while his food isn’t as complex as the dishes he’s made in restaurants over the course of his life, most of the recipes in this book have one or two (or three) sub-recipes, as you’ll see below. So plan ahead and don’t try to tackle a dish in one evening.

My cookbook, SNACKING DINNERS, comes out this week! It’s full of simple, delicious recipes to make dinnertime easy, fast, and fun. Order before April 8th to take advantage of the pre-order bonuses, including drink recipes, a signed bookplate, and a chance to win a fun prize.

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Dungeness Crab Rice

Crab season is huge in Half Moon Bay. We get screwed out of it often because of domoic acid, a toxin that builds up in the crustaceans from algae blooms, which are getting more frequent due to climate change and agricultural runoff. The pleasure of catching and eating Dungeness crab is just one small reason to be better stewards of the planet.

When the harvest is on, there’s this buzz about town, weird knots to learn, and a giant ocean to deal with. On a fifty-foot boat, you feel small as a sea flea, packing fish heads into pots and heaving them overboard. They soak in the water for twelve to twenty-four hours, depending on restrictions around whale migration. Then you pull the crabs in with a fifteen-foot gaff. The ocean wants to swallow you, the captain wants to push you harder, and the crabs want to bite you, but you don’t often feel so alive.

Back home with my catch, I always make crab rice. This is not fried rice; it’s delicate, fragrant, and light. Asian pear elevates the crab’s sweetness. Chrysanthemum greens, available at Asian markets, accentuate the depth of flavor of a beast from the ocean floor. If you don’t want to kill a crab, or if Dungeness isn’t available, lump crabmeat is all good.

Time: 1 ½ hours for live crab; 30 mins for lump crabmeat
Yield: 4 servings

For the Crab
2 live 2 lb [910 g] Dungeness crabs
2 lemons, preferably Meyer
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt

For the Rice
1 tablespoon sesame oil
5 shallots, cut into paper-thin slices on a mandoline
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
½ cup [55 g] peeled, diced Asian pear
4 cups [720 g] cooked short-grain white rice
2 Tbsp white soy sauce
1 lb [455 g] fresh Dungeness or lump crabmeat
6 green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup [70 g] roughly chopped chrysanthemum greens, baby spinach, tatsoi, or bok choy
Hot sauce, for serving
Chile Jam (below), for serving
Sweet Soy Glaze (below), for serving

To make the crabs:

1. Ask your fishmonger to dispatch the Dungeness or other live crabs, in the most humane way, or put them in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes to knock them unconscious. Working with one crab at a time, flip the crab onto its back with the pinchers facing you and shove the tip of your sharpest knife into its body at the tip of the triangular piece that forms its abdomen. Force your knife blade downward through the head and between the eyes. Turn the crab around, pull up the triangular abdomen, stick your knife under the base of the triangle between the top shell and the body, and yank the crab free of its top shell. Cut it in half, pull the gills off, and clean the guts out.

2. Fill a large bowl with ice water.

3. Fill a large stockpot with 6 qt [5.7 L] of water, squeeze the lemons into the water, and then drop the lemons in. Add the vinegar and a large pinch of salt and bring it to a boil. Carefully drop the crabs in and bring it back to a boil. Then start your timer. Cook the crab for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on how well-cooked you like your crab. If you shy away from it on the rawer side, go the full 12. Using tongs, immediately plunge the crabs into the ice bath. When they’re ice-cold, shake them dry, and pick the meat out of them right away.

To make the rice:

1. In a medium Dutch oven over medium-high heat, heat the sesame oil. Reserve a handful of shallots for garnish and add the rest, along with the garlic and ginger. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon and adding a few drops of water to release any stuck bits that might burn, until the veg are deeply caramelized, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the Asian pear and cook, stirring, until it has some color, 2 to 3 minutes more. Add the rice and white soy sauce and stir to incorporate everything. Kill the heat, then gently fold in the crab. Garnish the rice with the reserved shallot, the green onions, and the greens. Drop the pot on the table with the condiments on the side.

Sweet Soy Glaze

This sauce gets loads of deep flavor from bonito flakes and kombu, but it’s a cinch to make. Slather it on tomatoes. Braise any kind of veg in it for extra umami love. Stir it into your stir-fries. Squeeze in lemon juice and swap it in place of ponzu sauce for dipping dumplings and tempura. Rip mushrooms in it and then slam those in the pan and sear them off for a steaky ’shroom situation.

Time: 5 minutes active; 12 hours total
Yield: about 1 cup [240 ml]

½ cup [120 ml] tamari
¼ cup [85 g] honey
½ cup [2.5 g] bonito flakes
1” by 1” [2.5 by 2.5 cm] piece kombu

In a small saucepan, bring the tamari, honey, and ½ cup [120 ml] of water to a boil. Pour the mixture into a heatproof container. Stir in the bonito flakes and kombu, then cover and let it marinate in the fridge for at least 12 hours. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a fresh container. It keeps, in the fridge, for up to 1 month.

Chile Jam

This jam is salsa-chunky, caramelly-charred, and hot-sweet. You’ll use it in the Dungeness Crab Rice. You’ll also want it to marinate chicken, slam onto roasted veg, stir into eggs, and pack on your next camping trip to throw on everything you’re grilling.

I used to work with a line cook who always forgot to turn on a timer. He’d sprint across the kitchen, rip a pot off the flame at the perfect moment anyway, and declare, “Born to do it.” He had a sixth sense. This jam isn’t for people like that. It’s meant to be coddled and stirred every five minutes, so use your timer.

Time: 1 ½ to 2 hours
Yield: 2 cups [700 g]

2 red bell peppers
6 jalapeños 1 cup [250 g]
Oven-Dried Tomatoes (below) with their oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1½ cups [300 g] packed dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons [90 ml] champagne vinegar
Juice of 2 lemons, preferably Meyer
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
½ teaspoon fish sauce
½ teaspoon kosher salt

1. In a cast-iron pan over high heat, or directly on the burners of a gas stove set to high heat, char the bell peppers and jalapeños, rotating them, until you burn the living daylights out of them on all sides, about 10 minutes. Drop the peppers and jalapeños into a paper bag, close it up tight, and let them cool to room temperature, about 10 minutes. Peel the peppers and jalapeños by rubbing them with a paper towel to remove the charred skins. Discard the stems. Halve 3 of the jalapeños lengthwise and remove their seeds. This softens the heat so the sauce doesn’t knock your head off.

2. Transfer the peppers and jalapeños to a food processor, then add the oven-dried tomatoes and their oil, garlic, and ginger and pulse until chunky. Pour the mixture into a Dutch oven. Stir in the brown sugar, vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce, fish sauce, and salt and bring the mixture to a ripping boil. Knock the heat down to a simmer, stirring every couple of minutes, until almost all of the liquid is gone and a wooden spoon can part the mixture like Moses, about 1 hour. Let the jam cool to room temperature, then stow it in the fridge. It keeps, in the fridge in an airtight container, for up to 3 weeks.

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Oven-Dried Tomatoes

These aren’t chewy and leathery like sun-dried tomatoes. They’re jammy and still a bit juicy, with their flavor intensified after a long stretch in a just-hot oven. They amp up the love in the Miso-Braised Gigante Beans. But after you make them once, I guarantee you’ll be making them on the regular to have in your fridge for throwing into a grain salad or stir-fry, on top of a soup, on franks and burgers, in BBQ sauce or shakshuka, and of course, in your next pasta. They go anywhere you want their rich, punchy, garlicky goodness.

Time: 15 minutes active; 5 hours and 15 minutes total
Yield: about 3 cups [745 g]

2 lb [910 g] Early Girl or other medium tomatoes (about 8 tomatoes)
½ teaspoons kosher salt
6 to 8 cranks black pepper
8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
12 fresh thyme sprigs
½ cup [120 ml] extra-virgin olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 250°F [120°C]. Line a sheet pan with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

2. Core and halve the tomatoes crosswise. Lay them, cut-side up, on the prepared sheet pan and sprinkle them with the salt and pepper. Scatter the garlic and thyme over the tomatoes, then drizzle everything with ¼ cup [60 ml] of the olive oil. Bake until the tomatoes are curling at the edges and half-jammy, half-juicy, about 5 hours. Let the tomatoes cool until you can touch them, then peel and discard their skins and the thyme. Put the tomatoes and garlic in a jar and pour the remaining ¼ cup [60 ml] of olive oil on top. They’ll keep, in the fridge, for up to 2 weeks.

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Photos: Cheyenne Ellis
Materials Courtesy of Chronicle Books