Baked Crab Cakes

I wasn't planning on making crab cakes last night. In fact, not for a while till fresh crab prices come down. But someone needs a crabcake recipe that has just a "hint of 'heat'".

That someone being http://twitter.com/#!/cheeriogrrrl

I had to use the fake crab stuff. I'm sorry. I really am.

And I'm also a bit sorry --well, not really-- that this is another recipe with no exact amounts. Why? Cus when I make crab cakes or fish cakes I never measure stuff. The amounts depend really on just how much leftover mashed or baked potato I have leftover and I eyeball the seasoning amount.

But at least this should point you in the general direction! And there are pictures to help you.

And these are baked. That means healthy.


Dave's crab cakes

What you need:

Some leftover mashed or baked potatoes
Volume of crab meat that's about 2/3 of the amount of leftover potatoes
half an onion
minced garlic
dillweed
capers
dried mint
sea salt
white pepper
olive oil
grated parmesan
breadcrumbs
cayenne powder


What you do:

Put the large chunks of crab meat, the chopped onion, and a bit of olive oil in a saucepan. Cook on med-high heat for a few mins. Turn off heat, add the minced garlic, give it a good stir.

These pics show the before and after process.


This is before it goes on the heat


This is after 5 mins on the heat with the garlic added, and everything then minced finely.




Now take 6 to 10 capers and chop them up. See, look: capers!




Add to a large bowl the leftover potatoes, the minced crab-onion-garlic, the chopped capers, sea salt, white pepper, dillweed, dried mint. This pic may help you with the relative amounts:




Mixing it all together is the fun part!




Form them into "cakes" around 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter




Since I'm baking these I don't need to dip the cakes into eggwash to get the breading to stick as I would have to if I deep-fried them, so that step can be omitted when baking them.

Time to make the breading. Breadcrumbs, cayenne powder, sea salt and freshly grated parmesan.




Carefully coat the cakes with breadcrumbs and put on a baking tray. Sprinkle whatever leftover breading you have between and over the cakes.




Drizzle a bit of olive oil over each cake and bake in a hot oven till tops are browned (around 12 minutes or so). Carefully turn them over, drizzle with a bit more olive oil and bake for another 12 mins or so. All ovens are different so keep an eye on them since you don't want the breading to blacken.

For serving them I made a quick parsley sauce and fried some chips (french fries for you US folk). Doesn't this look tasty?




If you have questions about relative amounts or anything else about these just ask away in the comments, no worries mates.