Crabs, Curries, and Christmas: Our Family’s Wild Holiday Tradition
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I didn’t grow up with Christmas.
Not the trees, not the ornaments, not the holiday rhythms that feel automatic to so many American families. I’m a first-generation Indian American who grew up in San Diego, and for most of my childhood, December meant one thing: India. School was out, and that was when we’d go visit my grandparents in Dehradun and Jaipur.
Those trips never felt like “the holidays,” at least not in the classic American sense. They felt familiar, the way a place feels when you’ve walked the same streets and eaten the same foods your whole life. They smelled like they always smelled: that faint, warm burn in the winter air that somehow feels comforting now. They tasted like okra folded into hot chapati, like mutton curries from the late-night non-veg restaurant, like the flaky snap of a hot pyaaz kachori grabbed on the street. Loud, chaotic, ours. But not Christmas.
My wife grew up on the opposite end of the spectrum—small-town Ohio, where Christmas traditions are stitched into the fabric of the place as tightly as the winter cold. Her family didn’t travel much. Her food memories are simpler, quieter—gentler. What stood out was the togetherness. Games, stories, and that ornament-passing tradition where a long, looping tale determines which ornament ends up in whose hands.
We met in college in that same small Ohio town. Over time, nothing merged. We just kept adding to the table. Her family traditions stood on their own. Mine did too. What changed was how naturally they started sharing space, each bringing something the other didn’t have, without replacing anything.
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Years later, when we started hosting Christmas in San Diego, I realized something about myself: I like creating a table that tells the story of my year. Cooking became my way of showing up for the people I care about—not to overwrite anyone’s traditions, but to add to them. Food became a bridge between where I came from and where I am now, between the things I hunt and catch and the people I share them with. Food that connects my harvest to my home.
Today, our holiday table doesn’t look like anyone else’s. It looks like us—a blended, multi-cultural, multi-flavored family in California, where December lines up perfectly with Dungeness crab season.
By now it’s a ritual: Christmas morning starts with me breaking down the first crab of the day while my five-year-old “helps” by eating more than he preps. Fresh crab on the cutting board releases that soft, briny sweetness—the kind that makes you stop and take a breath before you start working. Somewhere between the cracking shells and the little hands stealing meat, the moment becomes something unmistakably ours. A tradition we built.
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The centerpiece dish is always some kind of crab. Over the years it’s taken different forms, but two dishes have become part of our family lore:
Crab Tikkis
If you’ve ever stood outside an Indian sweet shop and watched the cooks pat aloo tikkis between their palms—steam rising, griddles hissing—you know the rhythm of this dish. My version starts the same way, only now there’s the sweetness of fresh Dungeness crab threaded through the potato. It’s the kind of tweak that doesn’t announce itself so much as it quietly deepens everything you already love about a tikki.
I start with the sauce: whisk together chili sauce, yogurt, tamarind, and lime juice until it’s bright and tangy, the kind of drizzle that wakes everything up. Set it aside.
Then the heart of it: warm potatoes mashed with your hands, not a spoon, the warmth helps everything bind. Fold in the crab gently so you don’t lose the pieces. Add shallots for sweetness, serranos for heat, curry powder and turmeric for warm earthiness, and just a touch of tamarind for a tart compliment.
Once the mixture feels cohesive, shape it into small patties, flattened slightly. Then comes my favorite part: the aloo bhujia crust. Roll each patty in crushed bhujia and it clings instantly, giving you that crunchy shell every tikki aspires to. Into hot oil they go for two to three minutes per side until the crust turns the color of toasted bread and the kitchen smells like a street cart in Old Delhi.
Plate them immediately and drizzle with that tangy sauce. Bright, hot, crisp, sweet. Exactly what a holiday appetizer should feel like.
Dungeness Crab Pot Pies
This one came from doom-scrolling recipe videos. I saw a seafood chowder on Instagram and wondered how to make it South Asian and wild. The result: a pot pie with a spiced crab curry chowder filling and a Midwestern biscuit top.
Start by boiling the crabs. Once they’re cool enough to handle, pick the meat and set it aside. The shells go right back into their own cooking liquid with star anise, cinnamon stick, and Kashmiri chilies to make a deeper, more aromatic broth.
In a separate pan, butter goes in first, then mustard seeds, cumin, and curry leaves. When they start popping, add shallots, carrots, garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, garam masala, and tomatoes. Everything cooks down until softened and concentrated.
Whisk in a little flour to form the base, then add the strained crab broth. It thickens into a proper stew, and a splash of cream rounds it out. The crab meat gets folded in at the end to keep the pieces whole. The filling goes into ramekins and gets topped with fried shallots.
Then comes the practical, Midwest-style finish: a simple cheesy biscuit topping spooned over each one. They bake until the biscuits are golden and the filling bubbles at the edges.
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From there, Christmas dinner expands into a full spectrum of wild food. The things I’ve hunted or caught that year, the flavors I love, and the dishes that tell the story of where I come from.
Some years it’s berbere-spiced rockfish, crispy, hot, and dipped in an African inspired tartar sauce. Sometimes a venison chili that simmers all afternoon. Other years, a wild boar curry loaded with warm aromatics. Indian vegetarian food too, because a table without it doesn’t feel complete.
My wife’s family adds their touches: her mom’s cheese ball, the spinach dip, the inevitable Midwestern sheet-pan dessert. None of this feels like “fusion.” It’s simply our family, on one table.
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I cook wild game and wild-caught fish because it roots me. Because harvesting something myself and turning it into a meal for the people I love feels like the most honest celebration I know. Holidays, for us, aren’t about recreating the traditions our parents had. They’re about making our own.
My kids may not remember every gift they opened. But they’ll remember the mornings I cracked open that first crab. They’ll remember stuffing their mouths with fresh Dungeness before I could even get the bowl filled. They’ll remember that Christmas tasted like the ocean, like spice, like home.
When I think back on all of this—India, Ohio, San Diego, wild food, spice, family—it strikes me that our Christmas table is exactly what a blended family meal should be. Not a compromise. Not a negotiation. An expansion.
A table where spiced Dungeness crab pot pie sits next to a cheese ball, where my son sneaks crab meat while a sheet-pan dessert cools in the corner, where berbere rockfish shares space with spinach dip.
A wild Christmas. Our Christmas. Made one dish at a time.
A beautiful write up on food culinary how the east and west meet through spices and food. Keep it up Nikhil and Buck Up. Nothing like a good hobby to make the people delighted through taste of tongue on the food table. CHEERS.
DADU