A great recipe for crab cakes
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- November 6, 2023
- 736
It was a delightful surprise not long ago: a freezer case at the store filled with snow crab clusters at a remarkably low sale price, less than $15 per package. Most such seafood has been riding at high tide in terms of prices, so it was unexpected.
It turns out the crab supply has seen a bit of a glut. The Norwegians used to have a lock on the king crab business. Then the Russians flooded the market and drove prices down some years ago. Now there’s a good supply of snow crabs, and we get the deflationary benefit.
I’ve recently learned a few interesting things about crabs, and even more about lobster fishing. The interesting thing about crabs is nature loves them. They’ve gone completely extinct, all of them, several times, and nature recreates them in the same form again and again, from scratch. They are a very successful species.
Lobsters, which also have come down in price to a little more manageable level, are protected even as they are harvested on a large scale. Over or under a certain size, they have to be thrown back, and indeed, many of them are.
Females covered with eggs also are thrown back after having a notch cut into their tail indicating their status as a fertile breeder. They also can live a very long time. If a lobster can escape the traps and predators for a couple of decades, chances are they’ll make it to 70 or even 100 years old, growing and shedding shells until they just can’t get any bigger.
The biggest danger they face is barnacles, which attach themselves to the poor creatures, eventually preventing them from moving, shedding or feeding. I didn’t know much about barnacles until I started following the daily catch of Maine fishermen on social media, and now I know they are nasty, invasive little beggars who cause fishermen and slow-moving creatures a lot of headaches, attaching themselves to just about anything that will hold still a moment.
If you enjoy crab legs as we do, keep an eye peeled for a pretty good deal. Prices for crab are about 20% lower than they were last year at this time. We’re unlikely to find them live around here; they’re processed and deep frozen on the ship as soon as they’re caught, so that’s fine. I’m unsure if the price drop is reflected in canned crab, but that should happen as well at some point if the supply doesn’t run a little short again.
This is a great recipe for crab cakes that uses plenty of crab and not too much filler. You can add Old Bay if you like.
MARYLAND CRAB CAKES
2 pounds lump crabmeat
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup minced celery
1/2 cup minced red bell pepper (or substitute capers)
1 cup crushed saltine crackers
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
Dash of hot pepper sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup vegetable oil, such as canola
Lemon wedges for serving
Check the crabmeat for shell bits. Heat the butter in a shallow pan and add the celery and peppers, cooking until soft. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Into a bowl that will fit in your freezer, add the crabmeat, the cooked vegetables, half of the cracker crumbs, the egg, mayo, herbs, pepper sauce, and salt and pepper. Fold gently together, cover and place in the freezer to chill for 20 minutes.
Divide the mixture into six balls, then flatten each into cakes about an inch thick. Put the remaining cracker crumbs in a pie plate and turn each cake in them to coat. Put the cakes on a plate and back into the fridge for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375 F. In a pan, heat the vegetable oil, then brown each crab cake on both sides for 2 minutes until lightly browned. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes. Turn them and bake another 6 minutes, until hot. Serve with lemon wedges.