Here’s a good one with the ingredients readily and cheaply available here. They were always a big hit back home and will always be one of my personal favorites. I did these tonight with a yellow bell pepper coulis, chive oil and classic cocktail sauce. It works wonderfully with an aioli (fancy mayo) also and I’ve done it with a Grand Marinier reduction with shallots and orange zest. Here’s the shopping list for the recipe pictured:
Yield 15 pc
For the crab cake
1.5 kg blue crab steamed and picked
1 yellow bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
Chives (about 20pc)
Lemon zest (grated peel of 1 lemon)
4 cups flour
6 cups panko (Japanese bread crumb)
2 eggs
For the Coulis
1 yellow bell pepper
3 cloves garlic
2 oz butter
2 oz heavy cream
2 oz white wine
Salt and pepper to taste
For the cocktail sauce (everything to taste)
Ketchup (pretty generic I know)
Worcestershire
Horseradish
Lemon juice
Salt and Pepper
For the chive oil
500 ml olive oil
Chives (about 20 pc)
Garnish
Deep fried tomato
Mixed Greens (radish or alfalfa sprouts are great in this)
Salt and Pepper
I like to start by squeezing the excess water from the crab through cheesecloth, this isn’t 100% necessary but I’ve made these a few times and I find that when you leave that much moisture in they don’t cook as thoroughly and they have a funky taste from the excessive crab juice. When you’ve juiced the crab add about ½ cup flour and ½ cup panko to the crab along with 2 eggs. Add in about the same proportions of finely diced (those in the know call it bruniose) bell peppers and chives. Add salt and pepper, maybe a teaspoon of each depending on the strength; remember not all ingredients are created equal. The goal is enough to enhance the flavor but not overpower the highlighted ingredient. Then use a grater to add the skin from one lemon (lemon zest.) Mix this up until it’s thoroughly combined. Then form it into croquettes or patties of your desired shape and size. I like to use 100g and shape it like a hockey puck, I find it looks nice and has a little bit of height on the plate. At this point feel up your crab and see if it’s bonding well, roll it around and play with it a little to get it to hold form. It shouldn’t be rock solid but will not easily crumble to bits.
When you’ve got some crab croquettes finished you should move on to the sauces. These are pretty simple but you can use whatever floats your boat. A coulis is a term for something cooked then pulverized into a sauce, typically by taking a trip through a foodmill or blender or whatever you’ve got laying around. I start by sautéing the garlic with the peppers in butter until they’re soft. You don’t want any coloring or caramelizations to occur so do it over low heat. We call this sweating; the objective is to release the flavor of your main ingredients into the fat without
affecting the color. After you’ve got the goodness into your butter add some white wine and let it simmer for a bit. Toss this into the blender after about 5 minutes, and then back into the pan. Bring it to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Finish it with a lump of butter and about an ounce of heavy cream, and then salt and pepper to taste (monte au buerre, also the purists will use white pepper to not affect the color.)
Cocktail sauce is an easy one; everyone has their personal preference on this sauce. The basic ingredients are tomato base, horseradish, Worcestershire, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Combine in a bowl and mix with a spoon. Pretty simple, but is a classic in a lot of American seafood places.
The chive oil is even easier. Put EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) in a blender, add chives, then blend. You can do it the old fashioned way and let it infuse for a few days in larger chunks but I find it almost as effective to just do it like this, let it sit overnight then strain out the solids.
Now your sauces are ready, time to move on to the cooking.
Set up a standard breading procedure. This is usually flour, followed by egg, then whatever it is your final coating will be, in three separate bowls. I like to use panko because it finishes with a good crunchy texture and nice color and doesn’t have a lot of taste other than breading, which can sometimes interfere with whatever it is you’re trying to taste. Run your croquettes through the flour first, the moisture of the crab will pick up the flour. Then go into the egg, the egg binds to the flour and will pick up the panko. After your egging run it through the panko then straight into the deep fryer.
I like to do it at about 130 degrees Celsius; this gives it time to heat thoroughly without overcooking the breading, too hot you’ve got burnt breading or cold interior crab. Too cold you’ve got oil saturated crap that falls apart. I know most people don’t have a deep fryer at home, so if you’ve got to do this in a pan it is perfectly acceptable to put about ½ inch of oil down then do it one side at a time, just preheat your oil well and give it about 3 minutes per side.
The plating and presentation is the fun part. I ran some slice tomato through my breading and fried it then mounted it on top of the croquette. I’ve served this with radish greens but I didn’t have them tonight so I just put it on some mixed greens. Spread your sauce in a manner that is aesthetically pleasing. I like to sprinkle large grain sea salt and fresh roasted cracked pepper on the plate as well. Serve it up and enjoy with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of pinot gris or singha. Enjoy.