Let them eat (crab) cake

We’re mixing things up today with a one-dish focus: Saltpig’s Ode to Crabcakes.

Crabcakes are a special occasion meal in our house. We like to keep things fairly simple and easy when making them, so they’re not a big time commitment. But good crab can be pricey. I recently made some for my wife for her birthday, which inspired this post.

There are many many crab cake recipes out there, but my personal favorite is an adaptation of this Baltimore-Style Crab Cake recipe from Food and Wine. My adjustments:

• I gently sweat diced bell pepper (half of a bell pepper) and one diced shallot in two tablespoons of butter and add that mixture to the mayo-egg mixture.

• I just use panko bread crumbs in replace of the crackers, so I don’t have to bother crushing saltine crackers.

• I add some minced flat leaf parsley to the mixture and a teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning.

• After tossing all the ingredients together I first form the crab cakes and then refrigerate for at least an hour (the recipe has you refrigerate and then form, but I think my way results in the cakes holding up better in the pan).

• I like to serve with a simple dijon mustard sauce — you can make this by mixing half a cup of sour cream, half a cup of mayo and two tablespoons of dijon mustard (or a little more or little less depending on how dijon-y you like it).

I hope you give our favorite crab cake recipe a try next time you want to put together a special meal. But if you’re looking for some other crab cake options, here are some different twists:

• Crispy Crab Cakes with Tomato Butter — This recipe uses pureed whitefish as part of the binder. It’s a bit fussy for me, but the sauce is a fun twist worth trying.

• Crispy Herbed Crab Cakes — This recipe is not drastically different from an ingredient perspective, but has a few different techniques. It involves rolling the crab mixture into a log, chilling and then slicing into cakes. And then has you dip the crab cakes in an egg wash and panko crust before pan frying.

• Kimchi Crab Cakes — Something a little different, with a kick, from Alton Brown.

If you’ve made it all the way down here, then you deserve the poem inspired by my wife’s affection for crab cakes:

Let us know what you tried (just reply)! More soon.

Your Salt Pig Pals