Crab Cakes

[nutcakes]

I must mention that there is also a West Coast crabcake tradition, made with the local dungeness crabs (only after the season first comes in and we are sick of it cold and cracked). I like the ones made by Joyce Goldstein formerly of Square One restaurant. She calls them Portuguese Crab Cakes with Mint and Cilantro, but they have the definite Calif sensibility. Served with roasted red pepper aioli, they are great. I also like lightly curried crab cakes with mango salsa (though this would NOT be considered an old San Francisco style dish--plain ones only for this).

Shroomgirl...diced red bells are wonderful in crab cakes...I do that too..

MaryeO~~tonight's New Years and a special time for us (anniv)..we're steaming lobsters and making the crab cake recipe you posted in this thread. Not eating anything until tonight! Hubby bought extra dungeness "to snack on".....getting hungrier...

[KyleW]

I will bow to MaryeO and Baltimore!
The best crab cakes I have ever eaten come from a place called Faidley's. It is in the Lexington Market in downtown Baltimore. Huge chunks of crab and just enough other stuff to hold the crab together. Nancy Faidley Devine was interviewed in Gourmet and gave "a" recipe. She wouldn't give hers but said it was close enough

[cape chef]

someone just asked me for a crab cake recipe.
This is the most basic one I do, But the one people really love
1# fresh lump crabmeat picked over
1 cup roasted corn
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup diced red,yellow and green bell peppers mixed
1/2 cup peeled and diced celery
1 cup Mayo
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
pinch of cayenne
S&P
1 egg lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups saltines
2 tbsp spoons olive oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter

saute the peppers onions and celery very fast just to take a little rawness out and cool and add to the crab meat and corn and mix well.then add the Mayo,mustard and cayenne add S&P and fold in the egg and a 1/4 cup of the saltine crumbs, form into patties,what ever size you like. Then coat with the rest of the cracker crumbs and chill for at least a half hour heat a little of the oil and butter in a pan and brown nicely on both sides (handle with care)Serve it with a good old fashioned tartar sauce.
For Sisi
cc

[augiewren]

Maryeo...do you remember a place called Connelly's at the inner harbor? Years before they redid it? It was a dump but they had fabulous crab cakes. I was born and raised in Bawlamer and then lived on the Eastern Shore for 15 years. I can't eat any other crab cakes than those prepared in the Maryland style. I really miss soft crab sandwiches. All those crispy little legs stickin' out. Yum-Yum!

[Isa]

Thank you CC! Can't wait to try it out. Think I have salmon in the freezer....

Oh, Augiewren, I do remember Connelly's . . . they were great. Off the top of my head, I can't remember exactly where they were at the Inner Harbor, but when they were there, it was just "the harbor." I think that Obrycki's is probably the last of the true crab palaces in the city itself.

C'mon Mother's Day! Our family tradition is that we get the first crabs of the season the day before. If the weather's nice, we go out onto the deck (we have a wonderful view of the city from there), and cover the table with newspaper . . . we hold the papers down with rocks reserved for that specific purpose. Then we feast on the little guys, washing them down with gulps of cold beer. I can't even think about soft-crabs right now; I'll get too emotional.

i've gotta agree with margaret here about the whole lump or backfin argument in crabcakes. i worked with a friend of mine who wanted a great classic crabcake on his menu for his newly opening restaurant. i took it as a given that we'd use only "the best," meaning lump or backfin. we made like 10 batches and none of them really had that essential sweet crab flavor we wanted. after fiddling with the recipe for a while, i talked to my seafood purveyor who gave me a can of the cheapest crabmeat he had...pasteurized, canned crabmeat he said was "spun." literally, it's what's left after they pick the crabs for all the highest grades of meat...they put it in a centrifuge to get out the rest.

wow! did it make a difference. we used a half-half mix of lump and this spun stuff (cause there's not too many big pieces in the spun). think about it...where's all the flavor? in the shells...and this process extracts all of that flavor. the stuff's cheap too.

i absolutely love maryeo's above recipe, since i think that both old bay and crushed saltines are absolute musts in a crab cake recipe. i would, however, do a sautee with diced onion, bell pepper, celery, and some of the spices first...cool it down, then add it to the recipe.

so add me to the list of those that think lump or backfin (exclusively) in crab cakes is wasteful.

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eddie

[This message has been edited by elakin (edited 01-27-2001).]