Maryland Style Crab Cakes

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I’ve posted about crab cakes before. First, I tried a mix from Williams Sonoma and then made crab cakes from a recipe that I found in a regional cookbook, which Michael and I both like a lot. I’ve heard a lot about Maryland crab cakes but have never had them before so decided to find a recipe and give that one a try. I found this recipe on the FaceBook fan page of CrabPlace.com. I’ve had this recipe for a few months and decided to wait until I was at Michael’s to prepare it since he is a huge crab cake fan. I planned to make these when I first arrived but unfortunately, I had a run in with a patch of ice and the ice won and I was out of commission for several weeks. The older we are the harder we fall. Today was the first day in over two weeks that I felt like spending time in the kitchen so I got busy and made up for lost time by making crab cakes and Garlic-Herb Mac & Cheese.

Maryland Style Crab Cakes
Print Recipe
4 slices white bread
1 cup milk
2 pounds jumbo lump crab meat
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
2 teaspoons seafood seasoning (I use Old Bay)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons chopped parsley (if using dried parsley flakes, use approx. 1 tablespoon)
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
juice of ½ lemon
salt and pepper, to taste
2 eggs, beaten
oil for frying (I sometimes like to use a combination olive oil and butter)

Put bread in bowl, pour milk over it and soak 15 minutes. Squeeze bread fairly dry in your fist, transfer it to a large bowl and break it into crumbs with two forks. Add crab meat, mayonnaise, mustard, seafood seasoning, baking powder and parsley and stir until well mixed. Sprinkle with Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and stir and taste for seasoning. Stir in beaten eggs. Crab cake mixture can be prepared up to 4 hours ahead and refrigerated. To finish, divide mixture into 16 parts and shape into cakes about 1/2-inch thick. (Work gently so cakes are light.) In a large frying pan heat oil and fry half the cakes over brisk heat until golden, about 2 minutes. Turn and brown the other side. Add more oil to the pan and fry remaining cakes.

Approximately 16 crab cakes (depends on how large/small you make them).

Recipe can easily be halved.

**I like to make the crab cakes about an hour in advance and put them in the fridge prior to frying. It helps them to keep from falling apart while frying.

Pour milk over bread and soak for 15 minutes.

Squeeze bread fairly dry in your fist, transfer it to a large bowl and break it into crumbs with two forks.

Add crab

Add mustard and mayonnaise

Then add baking soda, seafood seasoning (I used Old Bay) and parsley. Stir until well mixed.

Sprinkle with Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and stir and taste for seasoning.

Stir in beaten eggs. Once the mixture is prepared you can either cover the bowl and store in the the fridge for up to four hours or form into cakes.

Divide mixture into 16 cakes. After I've done this, I like to cover the platter and put in the fridge for about an hour. I find this helps to keep them from falling apart while frying.

Fry on both sides until golden.

These crab cakes are very different from the ones that I’ve been making and Michael and I both liked them. Now we aren’t sure which we like the best. Guess I’ll have to prepare both recipes on the same day and have a taste test. I'm sure Michael won't object to this. :)

Crab Cakes Revisited

As the title of this post says, this is crab cakes revisited. I made crab cakes, for the first time, about a month ago. I had never made them before so instead of making them from scratch, I chose to use a mix from Williams-Sonoma. Even though the mix was excellent, I still wanted to prepare crab cakes from scratch.....and I finally did.

I've searched for several months for a recipe that I wanted to try  finally coming across one in a cookbook that I recently ordered called,  The Best of The Best from the South East, it contains a collection of different recipes from that region.

1 pound lump crabmeat, picked clean of shell
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 green onions, chopped fine
2 dashes Tabasco
1 dash Worcestershire
1/2 cup coarse bread crumbs, plus more for coating
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground thyme
2 eggs
1/4 cup half-and-half

Combine all ingredients, except eggs and half-and-half. Form into desired cake size, about 4 ounces each. Make egg wash by combining eggs with half-and-half. Dip crab cakes into egg mixture, then roll into more bread crumbs. Saute' cakes in butter or olive oil until golden brown.

The ingredients. Here in SW Ohio, fresh crab is impossible to find....at least I haven't been able to find it, even going to my favorite place, Jungle Jim's. For those of you who don't know yet, I am a huge fan of Jungle Jim's and when posting to The Breakfast Club forum, on BakeSpace, I talk about this store a lot....so you'll probably see me mention it frequently as well. Anyway, I am able to find some really nice canned crab at Jungle Jim's, so pick up a can whenever I'm there. The recipe calls for Tabasco, but I inadvertently used a bottle of Red Hot sauce instead....I'm not sure if there is a difference between the two or not, but it worked well in the recipe regardless. I also didn't have, and couldn't find, coarse bread crumbs so used whatever I could find at the grocery.

Jumbo lump crab.....not bad for canned.

Mixture of crab, mayonnaise, green onion, Tabasco (or in my case, Franks Red Hot Sauce), and Worcestershire. Then mix in bread crumbs.

Formed into cakes and ready for next step.

Coat in egg wash mixture

Dredge in bread crumbs

Ready to fry.

The recipe calls for frying in oil or butter, I like to use a little of both.

The finished product....yummy!

So my favorite taste tester, Michael, gave these crab cakes excellent reviews. He even said they tasted as good as any he ever had while in South Carolina....interesting comment especially considering that this recipe came from one of his favorite restaurants in Charleston, 82 Queen (minus the Red Pepper Sauce, which I plan to make later), I say that's pretty good review from a man who loves crab cakes as much as he does! Oh....this midwestern, meat and potatoes gal liked them too.

Crab Benedict

While Michael and I were on vacation in South Carolina, one of our favorite places to eat was Toast , in Charleston. His favorite dish was Eggs Meeting Street...it reminded me a lot of Eggs Benedict, only with crab cakes and fried green tomatoes. He enjoyed that so much that I planned to try to come up with something similar...minus the tomatoes.

One day I was watching Paula Dean on the Food Network...she was preparing breakfast foods and one of her recipes caught my attention...Crab Benedict. She made it look easy...even easy enough for me to attempt. The whole thought of making a hollandaise sauce and poaching eggs had me feeling a bit intimidated but she made it look so easy that I decided to give it a try. So I printed off the recipe and forgot about it for a while.

I was going to Michael's for the weekend, actually his birthday weekend, and was going to do a good bit of cooking so before leaving, I packed the Crab Benedict recipe along with my other cooking supplies. I knew I was making crab cakes and would save a few to prepare Crab Benedict.

Monday morning, I decided to attempt making this meal. I was a little nervous preparing this since I've never made or eaten hollandaise sauce or poached eggs. I had to make the hollandaise sauce twice...the first time egg yolks were scrambled...the second time, it was perfect. My first poached egg had to be tossed but the other three worked out well...one egg..the white started to separate from the yolk so I took that one and gave Michael the two nice ones...once it was covered in hollandaise, it looked pretty good.

I didn't follow her recipe, exactly...she made a crab salad (which looked very good and that I plan to prepare in the future), where I used crab cakes, but I did exactly as the recipe said for the hollandaise sauce. So after two attempts at the sauce, one poached egg in the trash and one emergency run to the grocery for more eggs (thanks to Michael), the food was plated and ready to eat. If I do say so myself, it did look yummy (sorry no pictures, but I was too stressed and didn't even think about pictures until after we had eaten). I couldn't wait to try it but was sadly disappointed after my first bite. The sauce was sour....horribly sour; I was not at all happy. Poor Michael took it like a man and ate every bite of the two that I had plated for him....not saying a word, even when I said something about the sour taste. He eventually admitted that it was a bit tart but not bad...the man must have a cast iron stomach.

The next day, I posted a question on BakeSpace about my hollandaise sauce, asking if it was supposed to taste sour and telling them that I had used the juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 T of white vinegar in the sauce as the ingredients and directions said. Both DD and Karen wrote back and said it shouldn't taste sour and that they had never heard of putting vinegar in hollandaise. So we came to the conclusion that this had been a misprint.

I will attempt making Crab Benedict again and use the same recipe, omitting the 1 T vinegar...I may even make the crab salad instead of crab cakes. I think it's definitely worth a second try. I promise pictures next time too...

Here is the recipe...as I said before, I substituted crab cakes for the salad and used toasted English Muffins instead of the cheesy biscuits and as you can see, I've removed the offensive vinegar from the sauce ingredients and directions.

Crab Benedict

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen, 2008

Prep Time: 20 min Inactive Prep Time: hr min Cook Time: 15 min Level:
Easy Serves:
4 servings

Ingredients
Crab Salad:
1/4 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (recommended: Tabasco)
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups lump crab meat, picked free of shells

Hollandaise Sauce:
2 egg yolks
4 tablespoons cream
4 large tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 lemon, juiced
Dash cayenne
Pinch salt
Pinch sugar

Poached Eggs:
3 cups water
1 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
Parsley, for garnish
Cheesy biscuits, to serve

For the Crab Salad:
Directions
In a large bowl, whisk together all ingredients except for the crab and red peppers. Gently fold in the crab and peppers. Reserve.

*Cook's Note: When mixing the crab and peppers, be careful not to break up the crab too much.

For the Hollandaise Sauce:
Combine all ingredients, except the vinegar, in the top of a double boiler, over boiling water. Whisk until thick, approximately 3 minutes; set aside until ready to use. Do not reheat or cover the pot. Thin, if needed with a little chicken broth.

Bring the water, vinegar and salt to a low simmer in a medium saucepan.

Crack an egg into a small ramekin and gently slide the egg into the water. Crack another egg into the same cup and while the water returns to a low simmer, slide the second egg into the water. Repeat. Let lowly simmer until the eggs are set. This will take about 2 to 3 minutes for soft runny yolks. Remove with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel lined plate.

To Plate:
Top a cheesy biscuit with a poached egg. Add a small scoop of crab salad on top of the egg. Spoon the hollandaise over the egg and garnish with parsley. Serve immediately.

Crab Cakes

Michael and I met, via Internet, on November 2, 2008 and it didn't take me long to realize that he liked seafood and especially liked crab cakes. It seemed as though whenever we would talk on the phone, he had just finished eating crab cakes, or was getting ready to eat them for dinner. On our trip to the Carolina's, while in South Carolina, he usually ordered a meal that had some type of crab in it, and more often than not...you guessed it, it was crab cakes. Then and there I decided that sometime I was going to make some crab cakes for him.

Not being a seafood lover myself, I felt mystified at preparing anything that wasn't poultry, beef or pork. One day, while shopping in Williams-Sonoma, I picked up a Crab Cake mix...I thought this would be an easy way to make them, and they should be good. I was afraid if I tried something from scratch, it could be a failure. I left the box of mix at Michael's and finally on Sunday, got around to making them.

I looked everywhere trying to find Jumbo Lump Crab...I found some on the shelf at Kroger, but wanted something a little more fresh. I was shopping at Jungle Jim's one day and went into their seafood shop and found a 1 pound can...it was in the cooler section and said it was to be kept refrigerated. So, I packed it in my cooler and took it to Hilliard with me. I wish I could remember the brand of crab that I bought...the crab was very nice indeed. I'll buy it again sometime and post the name.

Sunday night, around 9:00 PM, I decided to make the crab cakes. I had been trying all weekend and something always came up. Actually wanted to make them for Michael's birthday on Saturday, but ended up going out to dinner with a few members of his family. Anyway, I opened and drained (I was impressed because there wasn't much to drain) the crab then proceeded to follow the directions on the box....that was the easy part. The box of crab cake starter consisted of two packages of bread/seasoning mix and two packages or panko crumbs...this way you can make crab cakes using 1/2-1 lb. of crab. When I tried to make the crab and bread/seasoning mixture into patties, I couldn't get them to hold together....needless to say, when I tried to turn them in the pan, they fell apart. I was not at all happy! Michael kept saying that it wasn't important as long as it was good. Not being someone who likes to cook, he doesn't understand that we want the food we prepare to look nice as well as taste good. Around the time I tried making the fifth cake, they started staying together, so I ended up having several crab cakes...intact. Michael and I sampled some of the ruined cakes and both decided this mix was quite tasty.

The next time I make crab cakes, and there will definitely be a next time, I want to make them from scratch, although I will pick up another box of this mix when I'm in Williams-Sonoma, to keep on hand for a quick meal...it was delicious. That says a lot coming from a meat and potatoes girl.