Recipe: Crispy Crab Cakes
Recipe for crispy crab cakes.
This recipe has a nice and mild crab flavor on the inside and a crunchy crust on the outside.
Have you been hunting for the right recipe to make your crab cakes crispy without the outer coating feeling like your eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch? Well look no further, we’ve cracked the code on how the high end restaurants do it. We will show you how the professionals chefs make the best tasting crab cakes even better by adding a light crispy crunch.
Believe me when I tell you this was a mystery that NEEDED to be solved. I order a lot of crab cakes in restaurants and try hard to mimic the flavor and texture when I get to my kitchen. I have tried everything to give these little suckers a crispy shell without too much crunch.
I tried the typical dipping in flour, then an egg wash and then smothering them in bread crumbs, which worked alright but wasn’t the same as what I had experienced on the weekend. So back to the test kitchen, I used crushed cornflake crumbs and when that wasn’t the answer I used crushed crackers. I even tried a combo of breadcrumbs and cornflake crumbs, which was really crispy but not light crispy.
Then I had an aha moment…but in a good way! I’ve had a little bit of experience cooking Japanese. The most important thing I learned was making tempura. You need to keep your milk and egg wash ice-cold and your oil hot.
So, to you, my favorite crab nerds, here’s the secret to the best light and crispy crab cakes –just like the pros do it.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb of crab meat, the better the crab the better these will taste
- 1/4 cup celery diced
- 1/4 cup fresh chives minced or substitute green onion
- 1/4 cup light mayonnaise
- 1 large egg beaten
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon hot sauce
- 1 1/4 cups panko (1 cup for dredging and the other for the recipe)
- 2 Tablespoons of ice-cold skim milk
- 1 egg
- oil for frying
- brown paper bags for draining the oil
Method to the Rad-ness:
In a large bowl add the celery, chives, mayonnaise, egg and hot sauce and stir together until blended. Add 1/4 cup of panko crumbs.
Using your hands, gently fold in the crab meat.
Preheat a heavy sauce pan, with about two inches of oil on medium-high heat.
In a small bowl add 1 cup of panko crumbs.
In another small bowl beat the egg and milk together to create the egg wash.
Divide your crab mixture into eight equally sized portions and form into crab cakes.
Test to see if your oil is ready by spraying a tiny amount of water into the oil. If the water pops and sizzles then your oil is hot.
Take each individual crab cake and dip it first in the egg wash, then the panko crumbs, then directly into the frying pan. Add four crab cakes at a time to the frying pan. Cook for 4 minutes then flip them and cook for another four minutes. Remove them from the oil and place them on paper bags or newspaper. Do not put them on paper towel or they will go soggy.
Continue to do the same for the second batch.
- 1 lb of crab meat, the better the crab the better these will taste
- ¼ cup celery diced
- ¼ cup fresh chives minced or substitute green onion
- ¼ cup light mayonnaise
- 1 large egg beaten
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon hot sauce
- 1¼ cups panko (1 cup for dredging and the other for the recipe)
- 2 Tablespoons of ice-cold skim milk
- 1 egg
- oil for frying
- brown paper bags for draining the oil
- In a large bowl add the celery, chives, mayonnaise, egg and hot sauce and stir together until blended. Add ¼ cup of panko crumbs.
- Using your hands, gently fold in the crab meat.
- Preheat a heavy sauce pan, with about two inches of oil on medium-high heat.
- In a small bowl add 1 cup of panko crumbs.
- In another small bowl beat the egg and milk together to create the egg wash.
- Divide your crab mixture into eight equally sized portions and form into crab cakes.
- Test to see if your oil is ready by spraying a tiny amount of water into the oil. If the water pops and sizzles then your oil is hot.
- Take each individual crab cake and dip it first in the egg wash, then the panko crumbs, then directly into the frying pan. Add four crab cakes at a time to the frying pan. Cook for 4 minutes then flip them and cook for another four minutes. Remove them from the oil and place them on paper bags or newspaper. Do not put them on paper towel or they will go soggy.
- Continue to do the same for the second batch.
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