The class gave attendees a chance to participate hands on.

On November 15, 2011 J&W Seafood offered a unique cooking class that gave customers a chance an intimate cooking experience in the our very own kitchen. The Chef was Helen Elizabeth Ward a native of Deltaville, Virginia. Helen Elizabeth attended Johnston & Wales University and she is in the process of starting her very own catering business.

The class was limited to 10 people, but offered a very intimate setting that allowed our customers to answer questions directly to Helen Elizabeth.

Chef Helen Elizabeth Ward preparing for the class.

The class began with an appetizer of Crab Filled Cherry Tomatoes, then followed with an Oyster Stew and for the main course there was a Pan Seared Rockfish with a Whole Grain Mustard Sauce served with Collards with a Citrus Raisin Reduction and Sweet Potato Pecorino Gratin.

Be sure to check our website for more classes like this in 2012.

J&W Seafood of Va, Inc. has launched a new webstore called www.crabville.com. J&W Seafood will remain the sole producer/processor of products sold online for Crabville. Some of the products will be branded with the Crabville Brand. J&W Seafood has been in business since 1982 and the operation is still family owned and operated.

The Free Lance-Star
RICHMOND

You could be sure that canned crab meat claiming to be from the Chesapeake Bay really was from there if a bill filed in the General Assembly were to become law.

The bill, from Del. Lynwood Lewis, D-Accomack, says that canned crab labeled as Chesapeake Bay crab would have to have at least 51 percent of its meat from the Bay.

Lewis said his bill is more trying to prevent a future problem than address any current issues.

“There’s been a lot of competition from foreign crab meat,” he said.

His aim is to keep other countries from using the Chesapeake Bay label.

“Protect the brand,” Lewis said.

Billy Howeth at Capt. Faunce Seafood in Montross said federal regulations already require crab processors to label the country of origin of the meat, and whether it came from a farm or was wild.

He said he isn’t sure whether Lewis’ bill would actually change any current practices, but said it’s important to protect the Bay label.

“We certainly don’t want to get the Chesapeake Bay crab meat misrepresented with something else,” he said.

Chelyen Davis: 5404/368-5028
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
Artlicle Link http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/012011/01162011/600906

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fried Oyster Recipe

J&W Fried Oysters

Ingredients

• 2 cups vegetable oil for frying
• 1 pint shucked oysters and juice
• 1 egg, beaten
• salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning TM
• 1/2 cup dry pancake mix

J&W Seafood - Oyster Stew

Oyster Stew
Ingredients

* 3 tablespoons butter
* 1 clove garlic, sliced
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
* 1 cup milk
* 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
* 1 pint fresh shucked oysters
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (optional)
* 1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic, salt and pepper; cook and stir until

fragrant, about 5 minutes. Stir in the milk and half-and-half, and transfer to the top of a double boiler. If you do not have one, set the pan of soup over a pan of simmering water.
2. When the milk is hot, add the oysters and heat just until the oysters are opaque. Do not allow to boil. Season with fresh parsley, cayenne pepper.

Boston Seafood Show

J&W Seafood will be an exhibitor for the 10th consecutive year at the International Boston Seafood Show.  The Boston Seafood Show is an excellent showcase of anything related with seafood from around the world.  The show is 3 Days and includes various speakers and competitions.

J&W Seafood will be located at Booth 1617.  The 1600 aisle is reserved for Virginia based companies.  Our booth will showcase the products we process and produce from the Chesapeake Bay.

J&W Seafood - Chesapeake Bay Soft Shell Crabs

Our booth will include our Soft Shell Crabs that are processed every May for 2-3 weeks.  We sell and abundant amount during this period but the majority of the Soft Shell Crabs are dressed (cleaned) and wrapped for off-season usage.  We at J&W feel that nothing can compare to the Chesapeake Bay Soft Shell Crab.

We will also have on exhibit our fresh Wild Caught Oysters, Shukced Oysters, Blue Crabs and  Clams.

The event is a chance for us to see industry friends, meet with our valued partners and hopefully conduct some new business.  Interested in attending the 2011 International Boston Seafood Show?  Visit www.bostonseafood.com

J&W Seafood & Blue Dog Properties partnered together for the 6th Annual Blue Dog Properties Oyster Roast.  Blue Dog Properties is a full service real estate firm  headquartered

Roasting Oysters at Blue Dog Oyster Roast

in Richmond, Virginia  with offices in Roanoke and Meadows of Dan.

Baker Ellett is the owner/principal broker of Blue Dog Properties.  He is a native of Roanoke, Virginia and has over 20 years of real estate broker experience.    Baker started the Blue Dog Oyster Roast 6 years ago as a way to keep in touch with clients.  The event has expanded each year.    Baker states “The first few years we had the Blue Dog Oyster Roast in the alley behind my row house, for the last 3 years the event has expanded to 250 plus clients where we had to move the event to the parking lot of Blue Dog Properties”.

J&W Seafood has serviced the event for all 6 years.  Baker Ellett states  “J&W Seafood

Having a Great Time at Blue Dog

does a great job with the oysters!  Every year I have left to J&W to acquire different varieties  such as York River Oysters, Mobjack Bay Oysters, Rappahannock Oysters and Milford Haven Oysters.  People like the variety and the different taste profiles”.

For more information about Blue Dog Properties please visit http://www.bluedogpropertiesva.com

By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Soft-shell crabs are the jewel of the Chesapeake, a culinary luxury on par with truffles, caviar and champagne. Or so they say.

A crab destined for someone's dinner, on display at BlackSalt Market. (James M. Thresher for The Washington Post)

Delicate and expensive, sure. But I have to confess, I’ve never understood the fuss. Soft-shells don’t really taste like much besides deep-fried batter, the prevailing flavor in most preparations. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But there are cheaper and easier ways to satisfy that craving.

What was I missing? I talked to a few chefs, a seafood distributor and finally Kevin Wade, who sells soft-shells at J&W Seafood in Deltaville, Va., on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Most city folk like me, he said, have never tasted a good one: “You’ve only eaten hamburger. You’ve never tasted a steak.”

Watermen Travis Thompson and Fay Holloway "fish up" soft-shells from their traps. (Dominic Bracco II - For The Washington Post)

Getting a “steak” is harder than it should be, given that we city folk live just three hours from the source. Like tomatoes, which are transcendent only at the peak of ripeness, soft-shells must be eaten within two days of when the blue crab crawls out of its hard shell. Several hours is better. True connoisseurs will move the crabs from the water to the pan within minutes.

That is no easy feat. And that’s why so many soft-shells disappoint. The ones in most sushi rolls? Frozen. The ones at the grocery store? Cleaned at the processor days before you buy them, an absolute no-no according to chefs such as Bob Kinkead. “That’s nasty,” he said. “It’s like selling dead lobster.”

Even fresh ones can be a letdown. Many producers allow the crabs to develop a very thin shell, called a paper shell, before shipping. It’s a trick that makes them last longer but taste like mild-flavored crab cardboard.

Getting the perfect soft-shell — a delicately crunchy and juicy one — requires timing and precision from waterman to processor, distributor and chef. In the Chesapeake, crabs usually begin to molt after the first full moon in May and continue through until September; crabs from Florida and Georgia are available as early as March. This year, the run began late because of the cold, rainy spring. Peak season, when both males and female x crabs shed their shells, is happening now and will last until early June. J&W’s Wade expects 2009 to be a bumper year, with harvests at least 25 percent higher than in 2007.

Kevin Wade, owner of J&W Seafood in Deltaville, Va., catches some soft-shell crabs in one of his holding tanks. The crabs will be transferred to trays, where they will molt. By the time they get to restaurants, chefs and retailers have two days at the most.

Watermen are a crucial link in the fragile chain. Fay Holloway Jr., who has been crabbing for 31 years, checks his traps each day. It’s a tedious process. In Virginia, commercial fishermen are allowed up to 210 traps, known as peeler pots. (A peeler is a crab that will soon shed its shell.) Checking them all takes six to eight hours.

Crabbers pull each trap from the water and must inspect every crab. The watermen are looking for a pale pink or red color on the crab’s swimming fin, an indication that the crab will soon molt.

Peelers are thrown into a bushel basket; crabs with white fins go back into the water.

Watermen then deliver bushels of crabs to processors such as J&W. The peelers are held in molting tanks, which look like giant bunk beds filled with water, where they are monitored 24 hours a day. Once the crab crawls out of its shell, the staff has two to four hours to “fish up” or remove the crab from the water before it begins to form a new shell.

Relentlessly scanning a tank of crabs is head-wrecking work. In high season, Wade’s employees put in 80 hours a week. “This is why God created seasons,” Wade said. “Because you can’t do this all the time. You’ll die.”

Out of the water, an ideal soft-shell will feel like velvet or soft skin to the touch. The crabs are quickly graded by weight, packed in trays and stored in a cooler. Within a few hours, they’re on a truck to the city, and by 10 a.m., they arrive in restaurants and grocery stores.

But the potential pitfalls don’t end there. Once the crabs arrive, they must be kept at about 50 degrees. They like a little moisture but not enough to encourage them to grow a new shell. “There are lots of tricks to handling them,” said Scott Weinstein, fishmonger at BlackSalt Market in the Palisades. “You have to learn what you can sell and move through them. If I didn’t have [BlackSalt restaurant] here that blew through them, too, it would be even more difficult.”

All told, chefs and retailers have at most two days to sell the crabs. The longer they sit, the more water drains out of their bodies, which can leave them mushy or insipid. “It’s not really about the flavor,” chef Kinkead said as he popped two crabs into a hot pan of clarified butter. “What people like is the texture. All the little crispy bits.”

To deliver that, a little technical skill is required. First, it’s best to clean the soft-shells right before cooking. That will keep them juicy and light. And it’s easy. Flip the crab on its back and pull off the lift-off flap called the apron. Next, turn it over and use scissors to snip off the front of the crab, about one-half inch behind the eyes. (It sounds scarier than it is.) Then lift the pointed end of the crab’s outer shell and remove and discard the gills. Rinse the crab, and pat it dry.

A soft-shell crab that is about to molt is called a "splitter" or "peeler." (Dominic Bracco II - For The Washington Post)

Diners like deep-fried crabs, and most chefs will serve them that way. But everyone I spoke to prefers to pan-fry them. Never one to mince words, Kinkead explained why: “People deep-fry them because you can use older crabs and you won’t taste the paper shell. It’s also easier to deep-fry than sauté. Deep-fried crabs are popular for the same reason that Chilean sea bass was: You could have inept cooks cook the hell out of it and still get away with it.”

Or to put it another way: Deep-frying masks a multitude of sins.

Instead, many chefs recommend the simplest preparations. Clean the crabs, then dust them with a layer of low-gluten flour such as Wondra. (Those who are wheat-intolerant can substitute rice flour or pulverized quinoa.) Heat butter or canola oil in a pan and sauté the crabs for two to three minutes per side, depending on the size. You can also grill them. Oil the grates and flip the crabs every two to three minutes until they are red, about five to seven minutes total. Most chefs like “hotel” or “prime” crabs, medium-size ones that weigh between 1.9 and four ounces.

From there, the sky is the limit. Kinkead serves them topped with lemon-butter sauce alongside a ragout of spring vegetables: “I’m here to make it taste good,” he said cheerfully. “I’m not running a spa.” Down the road at Equinox, chef Todd Gray serves them over squid-ink fettuccine tossed with tarragon-tomato sauce, with sautéed spinach and house-cured bacon, and on an upscale sandwich with caper remoulade and romaine.

I tasted all of Gray’s preparations, plus some oversize whales that J&W’s Wade deep-fried right out of the tank in Deltaville. None had an intense crabby flavor, but done right, they had a texture that was something special. The fried crabs were meaty, salty and juicy, a combination impossible to criticize. In Gray’s dishes, the crabs added little juice explosions to the delicate sauces and flavor combinations.

“People are intimidated by soft-shells,” Gray told me. “But if you’re from here, you have to like them.”

Done.