Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Crab cakes




Crab meat has been on my mind lately and it is all Design, Wine and Dine's fault. She has posted a couple of very tempting recipes on her blog in the past months and I have been dying to make them. They are quick, easy and inexpensive (she suggests using cheaper claw meat in them) yet utterly satisfying and sophisticated enough to make for guests. I had bookmarked them and got home the other day set to make her crab cakes.

Lo and behold, I went to turn my computer on to get the recipe and had no signal. No Internet?? Well, I was disappointed to say the least, but by then I had to get my crab meat fix, I had to have me some crab cakes. I used some of the ingredients I remembered, added in some other things I found in various cookbooks, et voilà, in 10 minutes tops I made these deliciously creamy yet crunchy cakes and served them with a little tartar sauce. They make a perfect snack to serve with drinks in a smaller version but are an excellent starter or main course too.
Next time I will remember to sautee some shallots or onion to put into the mix and I am thinking a little corn wouldn't hurt either. And some horseradish perhaps for an adult version.


A side note/useful tip: when I had already mixed the crab meat with the cream cheese I realized that the jar of breadcrumbs I was sure I had seen just the other day was gone! What to do? I happened to have some rusks at home (fette biscottate in Italian and better known as twice baked bread or zwieback) and mashed up 6 of those in a bag with a rolling pin. They saved the day.

Ingredients (makes 5 medium-sized cakes)
1 can crab meat (170gr - 6 oz.)
1 small pack cream cheese (80gr - 3 oz.)
5 tbsp (or more) bread crumbs (or rusks)
1 egg
1 tsp whole grain mustard
parsley
salt
pepper

Mix the cream cheese and crab meat in a bowl. Add a lightly whisked egg, salt and pepper to taste and part of the bread crumbs (you will be making patties, so don't leave the mixture too sticky). Last but not least, about 1 tbsp of chopped parsley. Form your patties, roll them in the left over bread crumbs. Heat some oil in a pan and brown the patties on both sides, making sure the egg is cooked through.






4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the mention! :) I know...I have crab meat on my mind often - and now I do again thanks to this post!

    Yours here look fabulous!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. We like to eat crab cakes, too. They are so yummy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DW&D - It was a pleasure, I loved your recipes and was really sorry not to be able to access them when I needed them. Looking forward to making the soup too. I wanted to write you yesterday telling you I had linked to your blog and got sidetracked at work. Glad you saw it.
    My K in the R - They are such an American thing to me...I never have them here and had never thought of making them myself, so it was a real treat.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Perfect post-Thanksgiving food! We all need something totally different over here!!!

    ReplyDelete

Leave a suggestion, opinion or your own experience. I love hearing from you.