Christmas Eve Crab Cakes

In A-Tooch’s family, Christmas Eve dinner is always a traditional Italian “Seven Fishes” meal. Since she was on call to cook this year, seven fishes became two. Still very ambitious.

What can I say… small apartment and a lack of experience cooking fish (new year’s resolution 2012) made me settle on two seafood courses. I did plenty of research on crab cake recipes to concoct this moist, rich and flavorful appetizer.

Crab Cakes (loosely adapted from Ellie Krieger’s Crab Cake recipe)
(makes 6 small or 4 large crab cakes)

1 lb. jumbo lump crab meat
1 cup Italian seasoning bread crumbs
1/4 cup diced shallots
1 1/2 tbsp. dijon mustard
1/4 cup light mayonnaise
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice, plus lemon slices for garnish
2 tbsp. fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, diced
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning (always a key ingredient in crab recipes!)
dash of salt and pepper
butter, for cooking

Sautee shallots in a pan over medium heat until translucent (about 5 minutes), add garlic and sautee for another 30 seconds.

In a mixing bowl, blend egg, Worcestershire sauce, mayo and dijon mustard. Add seasonings — Old Bay, salt and pepper — then add shallot and garlic mixture. Add the crab meat and fold gently into mixture until fully coated. Squeeze lemon juice over the top to coat.

Three beautiful looking ingredients I require fresh — parsley, lemon juice and garlic.

Next, blend in the parsley and breadcrumbs, making sure the crab meat pieces stay intact. The mixture should be moist. **The most important step: Form mixture into crab cakes, place on a baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Allow the crab cakes to sit in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. This will help the cakes solidify for when you pan fry them.

When you are ready to serve, take the crab cakes out of the refrigerator. Melt about 1 tbsp. of butter in a frying pan and place the crab cakes on the pan, cooking for approximately 4-5 minutes on each side. Serve with a lemon slice on the side and/or a dash of fresh parsley on top. I also served these with tartar sauce but they were so flavorful and moist that I’m not too sure they required sauce.

Oops, I was so consumed with the cooking and eating that I forgot to snap a shot of these beauts! I like to think they came out looking like these Crab Place crab cakes in size and texture.

I love this recipe as an appetizer. While you can make larger crab cakes I think they are often too heavy and rich with all of the breading as a main course. For our Christmas Eve entree, we had a light shrimp scampi over capellini — with (more) fresh garlic and lemon. Ho ho ho!