MARYLAND CRAB CAKES
About Crabmeat: The best crabcakes are made with hand-picked, lump backfin crab meat from steamed live Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. Unfortunately, that's impossible to find in most places in the U.S., and even in Maryland, it's only available seasonally. I use refrigerated lump crabmeat from Costco, which works fine. Never use canned crabmeat. The refrigerated crab claw meat sold at Trader Joes does not make good crabcakes.About Breading: Most supermarket and restaurant crabcakes are lousy, even the ones you get in very expensive restaurants, mainly because they put too much breading in them. Bread crumbs are a lot cheaper than crabmeat. Bread crumbs act as a binder, keeping the crabcake together. My recipe uses a minimum amount of bread crumbs, so you have to be careful handling these crabcakes to prevent them from falling apart.
Mark Tarses
Ingredients:
1 large egg
2 tablespoons mayonnaise (1 ounce)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Dash of cayenne pepper
1 pound lump backfin crabmeat
1/4 cup unseasoned bread crumbs
Vegetable oil for fryingIn a large salad bowl, using a wire whisk, mix together the egg, mayonnaise, mustard, pepper, Old Bay, cayenne, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix until frothy. Do not add salt. Old Bay is very salty.
Place the crabmeat and bread crumbs in the bowl. With your hands, gently toss everything together, taking care not to break up the lumps of crabmeat. Form into crabcakes with your hands. I use a 2-1/2" diameter ice cream scoop to measure portions.
Heat the oil to 375 degrees. Gently place the crabcakes in the oil with a metal turner. Deep fry the crabcakes a few at a time until golden brown, about 3 minutes on each side. Remove and drain on paper towels. Serve at once with freshly made tarter sauce.
