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Crab Cakes from Maryland Governor's Kitchen

5.0(6)

Diet-conscious Eastern-shore style, showcases the natural sweetness of Blue Claw Crabs with the minimum of filler and extra ingredients. Derived from MIL's newspaper clipping, her favorite crab cake with minimum of spice. This was from Maryland Governor Tawe's cook. For saltine crumbs, may substitute 2 slices of decrusted white bread broken into small pieces, or use 1/4 cup panko crumbs. I dared to vary from my mother-in-law's crab cakes by substituting saltine crackers for the traditional white bread and then serve her a "renegade" cake; this one variation was deemed by her as possibly better. She sneered at the addition of Old Bay seasoning. It is vital to have freshly steamed blue claw crab meat to achieve superior results. If you are not so fortunate as to live between North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and you use Phillip's crab meat from Costco, be aware that you are using Asian blue swimming crab which lacks the sweetness; in that case, I would recommend adding 1/2-1 teaspoon dried horseradish and 1/2-3/4 teaspoon lemon juice to add some pizazz. I find that canola oil "falls off" the crab cakes, and prefer frying my crab cakes. Preparation time includes 1 hour refrigeration prior to cooking.

by KateL·published 2008-07-02

Open original recipe

Crab

Servings

(4–6)

Total time

1h 6m

prep 1h

Calories / serving

380 kcal

Ingredients (7)

serves

1 lb crabmeat, picked clean
1/4 cup saltine crumbs, about 5-6 crackers
2 tablespoons mayonnaisemayonnaise
1 tablespoon mustardmustard
1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning (optional)
2 egg whites, beaten stiffegg
1/2 cup canola oil, up to 1 cup to reach 1/4-inch oil in pancanola-oil

Instructions (10 steps)

01Pick through crab meat twice to remove cartilage or shell. Try not to break up lumps of Backfin. Keep crabmeat chilled during process by putting ice cubes in a large mixing bowl then placing a slightly smaller bowl inside to hold the picked meat. After the first picking, feel for missed cartilage while returning crab meat to the crab meat container. Chill crab meat until ready to mix.
02Put saltine crackers in a mini-food processor and process to a fine crumb. Alternatively, tear slices of bread into small pieces and put in mixing bowl.
03Add regular mayonnaise and yellow mustard to mixing bowl. For the Eastern Shore purists, the addition of Old Bay seasoning is controversial, but Baltimore residents won't call it a crab cake without some; one teaspoon adds a subtle taste.