Ultimate Crab Cakes

Hubby and I love a good crab cake.  Rigby loves crab, but is unsure if she likes crab cakes.  So for small bite night, I made a crab cake.  And they were good.  To me a good crab cake is more crab than filler and these are definitely more crab than cake.  Hubby and I both enjoyed them, immensely. 

To make these crab cakes, I used mainly lump crab meat and a small amount of meat from the shells.  The cakes were amazing.  Nicely browned and packed full of crab.  Much like making meatloaf, it is important to not overwork the crab cake.  And to allow the cakes to sit in the refrigerator until they get firm, this will make them less likely to fall apart when cooking.  Since this was the last course at small bite night, there were left over crab cakes.  But on the positive side, the left over cakes made a killer Alfredo-Crab baked shells. 

Ultimate Crab Cakes

Source: Tyler Florence

• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, finely minced
• 4 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1 1/2 pounds jumbo lump crab meat
• 1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise, plus more if needed
• 1 large egg white
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Heat a 2-count of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until the onion gets kind of caramelized. Dump that into a bowl and fold in the crab meat, bread crumbs, mayonnaise, egg white, lime juice, and cilantro, mixing just until well blended. Season with salt and pepper. Shape the mixture into 6 fat crab cakes. Put them on a plate, cover, and stick them in the refrigerator to chill.

To serve, heat a 3-count of olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the crab cakes and cook for about 4 minutes each side until nice and crisp.