Getting green crabs on the plate: Meet Chef Ali Waks Adams

The Manomet Team | January 29, 2019 | Newsletters

Danielle Smaha

Director, Marketing & Communications

Manomet’s work with invasive green crabs in the Gulf of Maine aims to create a value-added product that would provide a new source of economic opportunity for fishers and coastal communities. Our focus has been primarily on ways to use the green crabs for food, modeling our work on the soft-shell crab fisheries in Venice, Italy. To achieve our goals, we need talented chefs who can take these tiny little crabs and transform them into appealing food that consumers love.

That’s where our partner Chef Ali Waks Adams, Coast Bar + Bistro, located in The Daniel Hotel, in Brunswick, Maine, comes in! Chef Ali has been working with Manomet’s Senior Fisheries Scientist Marissa McMahan for nearly two years to find new ways to use the green crab in dishes like Green Crab Rangoon, Green Crab Ramen, or Green Crab Bouillabaisse. When we talk about putting our science to use, this is exactly what we’re talking about…in the most delicious way possible!

Manomet: Can you tell us a little bit about how you first got involved with Manomet?

Chef Ali: I was working with the Robinhood Free Meeting House in Georgetown, Maine, on an event called ‘Sea the Future,’ which focused on underutilized and invasive species; that’s where I first met Marissa. I really never had any experience with green crabs at all, but when they started talking about them, I had a vision in my mind of things like Asian street market dish of all these teeny tiny little fried crabs in a paper cone.

So I was like, let’s do that. But we ended up not doing that, but using them for a bouillabaisse instead. But that was my first experience with them and I just found them so intriguing because one of the benefits of being a chef, especially in a place like Maine, is that you’re not just someone who makes food – you can actually have an impact on your community through what you buy and what you use. And that’s really important to me.

Tell us what it’s like cooking with green crabs.

They’re difficult, you know, because it’s not like you taste green crab and go, ‘Oh my god, where’s this flavor been my entire life.’ But the exciting thing about the green crab is that it gives this boost of umami flavor to things and it’s just a powerful punch.

I was making a smothered shrimp for an event two weekends ago and it wasn’t quite right. Then I realized I had my green crab mince, so I threw some of that in there and all of a sudden the dish worked. But, you couldn’t taste it; you didn’t know what it was. The whole dish just came together because of this one thing. So I think what’s great about the green crab is what it does.

Green crabs are not a familiar ingredient for a lot of people. How have you convinced people to try them?

When I highlighted them at the Brunswick Inn, people were really excited to eat them. Here in Maine, everyone is so connected to their food sources. So it hasn’t been a challenge at all. The first thing I did at the Inn was a green crab dip; we had so many people come in and everyone was excited because they wanted to try it. They wanted to like it. They want it to be the next great thing; they want it to be the next sea urchin.

What other culinary possibilities do you see for the green crab?

Right now, Marissa, the University of Maine food sciences lab (Dr. Jennifer Perry and Dr. Denise Skonberg) and I are working on a grant to produce a green crab fish sauce. I got the idea as I was talking to a woman who owns Vietnamese restaurants. During the green crab summit, it came up how in Asia, they see something that’s edible and they eat it. There’s no, ‘what kind of crab is that?’ It’s just, it will kill you or we can eat it. This woman was telling me that the best, highest quality fish sauce in Vietnam is made from crab, and so I asked Marissa, can we do this?

We have the crabs, we have time, we have space. And it would be great to market this as made from an invasive species and try to get people to purchase that. This would be a product that can then be sold widespread and in larger amounts, instead of trying to ship green crabs live to California.

We hear that you’re moving from the Brunswick Inn to be the chef at Enoteca Athena. Congratulations!

It’s great. I walked in there four years ago, was like, I would like to work here, so I’m excited to be making the move. I’ve known Tim O’Brien, the owner of Enoteca Athena, for the whole time I’ve been here in Maine. We are on the same page as far as using local ingredients and we see food in the same way. You know, let’s take what we have and use every part of it. Green crab is definitely a product that we can really get a lot of flavor out of and find a way to use. I’m really interested in doing a Philly-style dish which is a crab gravy with spaghetti.

What inspired you to become a chef?

So it was a very long way to get here. I never really thought about it but I always cooked, and my family is a very food focused family. At some point, my mom went to go explore part of her life and I ended up living with my father. So I started cooking dinner for my dad and my brother and I. And I’ve always been interested and fascinated by restaurants and I love knowing the ins and outs.

And since moving here to Brunswick, I really found my culinary voice and it’s an amazing thing to find this at this point in my life. I’m 48 years old, so it’s really very interesting and exciting.

Have you talked with Marissa about some of the other species she works with like Black Sea Bass or kelp?

Black Sea Bass, I think, is really exciting. It’s one of my favorite fish. The sad thing is it’s coming up here because the oceans are getting warmer as other fish are leaving, but they’re fabulous fish to work with. I usually do kelp with my green crab, especially when I make Dashi, which is a Japanese stock which really relies on seaweed for the flavor.

Plus, Tim and I have been talking about ways to integrate different seaweed into pasta. Like dulse was one of the ones we are thinking about putting into the actual pasta base. Kelp is great especially when you’re trying to cook something that’s vegan; it gives so much body and so much flavor; you’re not going to get that from just a basic carrots, celery, and onion mirepoix. With kelp, you have something that makes you go, ‘umami, umami, umami.’

Any last thoughts for Manomet readers.

I hope they make the effort to go out and find restaurants that are working with these species and try the green crab risotto or have Tautog or dogfish or whatever it is that you’re not comfortable with. Getting out of our comfort zone is a huge part of doing something to make an effect on our world and even though it seems like this one little tiny thing, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal. I just spent $17.95 on some risotto. I didn’t really change the world.’ But it’s all these tiny little steps. And I think that one of those is to go out to restaurants that are working towards the same goal that you have, like protecting the Gulf of Maine’s waters and native species.

See Chef Ali demonstrate how to cook with green crabs!