This recipe feeds two adults two large crab cakes each, using canned crabmeat, and it is very inexpensive. If I want to make really seriously good crab cakes I do not use canned crab. Instead, I buy fresh lump crabmeat. Then it is no longer inexpensive, for top quality fresh lump crabmeat (Phillips®) sells at Costco® for about $19 per pound. You can use the top quality crabmeat with this recipe and the quality rating increases to: ☺♥

Ingredients:

2 or 3, 6 oz. cans crabmeat (I buy it at Costco® for about $3 per can in a four can pack … or at least I did until I found it at Wal-Mart® for $1.74 per can!)

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup bread crumbs

½ tsp. sea salt

½ tsp. pepper

1/3 cup finely diced onion

1/3 cup finely diced green pepper

1 egg

¼ stick butter

Directions:

Drain the crabmeat, press it to remove excess moisture and discard the liquid. Whisk the egg in a one quart bowl and then add the crabmeat and mix well. Add the salt, pepper, mayonnaise, onion and green pepper and mix well. Add the bread crumbs and mix thoroughly.

Melt the butter in a medium to large non-stick skillet on medium heat.

Form four large or six medium patties with the crabmeat mixture and place them well spaced in the skillet. Flatten the patties slightly with a spatula to create flat top and bottom surfaces. They should be about ½" to 5/8" thick. Sauté the patties for about five minutes per side on medium low heat or until they have a rich golden surface color.

Serve and enjoy.

Some people like tartar sauce with crab cakes, so you might want to make that in advance with sweet relish (1/4 cup) and mayonnaise (1/3 cup), mixed. Heat aficionados can add 1/8 cup Tabasco sauce and reduce the relish to 1/8 cup, or replace the relish with 1/8 cup chopped jalapeño peppers.

Crab cake sandwiches are another possibility. Put the finished crab cakes on a plate in a warm 200ºF oven, then butter and grill the inside surfaces of a Big Marty’s® or similar sandwich bun (the ones with sesame seeds) for each sandwich, in the same skillet used for making the crab cakes. Grill on medium heat to a light golden brown. Serve with lettuce and your favorite type of tartar sauce.

Crab cakes go well with many other dishes. I like them with French fries and coleslaw. Recipes for both are in this book.

Variation:

If you are feeding more than two adults, consider frying some Virginia country ham (not Smithfield® ham), very thinly sliced, to accompany the crab cakes, for the different taste sensations complement each other and result in pure pleasure. In fact, if you have fresh lump crabmeat and the country ham, don’t make crab cakes. Instead, heat the crab gently in a skillet in some butter with a small amount (1/2 tsp.) sugar added. Then serve small scoops of the buttered, sweetened crabmeat, sprinkled with paprika, over the thin slices of fried country ham. Wow! The moist sweet seafood taste vs. the drier, saltier ham taste is superb. And you definitely want fries and coleslaw to round out that combination.

Where’s my Corona®???