Would you beleive me if I said Maryland Crab Cakes made it onto my ‘must-make’ recipe list for our SkinnyAmerica Cookbook because of the Real Housewives?
My guilty pleasure is watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta in my downtime, so I knew I had to start working on a recipe for them in the Thermomix when we started writing SkinnyAmerica.
The only problem was… I’m not the biggest fan of the taste of crab. As you know I’ve never been the biggest lover of seafood, but I’ve been gradually starting to appreciate and love some seafood. But it is definitely not my favourite thing to cook!
When we shared the recipe with the testing team, there were a number of very excited Skinnies who absolutely LOVE crab cakes BUT don’t have access to the best crab meat.
Types of Crab Meat Tested
We tested fresh crab, packets of frozen crab, the tubs of brined crab & tins of crab.
They were all delicious – although we found the tins of crab had shell all through them and weren’t our favourite.
So why isn’t the recipe in the SkinnyAmerica Cookbook?
We’ve made a really big effort to put together a collection of recipes that will be cooked over and over again by families all around the world.
Unfortunately, unless you live in an area where you can go crabbing and catch your own or fortunate to live in an area with access to buying good quality, fresh or frozen seafood – the cost of crab meat is too expensive for most people and the quality isn’t great.
The good news is, you don’t have to wait for the presale of SkinnyAmerica on September 27th, 2024 to cook the recipe – you can cook it now!
Hendersons Seafood
Recently we had the pleasure of visiting Port Lincoln, where we were gifted some beautiful sand crab meat by Henderson Seafoods and knew we had to try it out with this recipe.
You can find crab from Henderson Seafoods products at the following local stockists – The Fresh Fish Place (Port Lincoln), Myers Seafood (Port Lincoln), The Prawn Store (Port Lincoln), The Fish Factory Adelaide, Seafood Works Newton, Manettas Seafood Markets (East Coast of Australia Delivery), Preston Fresh Seafood Cairns, Poulos Bros Seafoods (Sydney), The Afishonado (Sydney), Festival Fish (Perth), Clamms Seafood (Melbourne).
Dietary Variations
We’ve included all the usual dietary variations to cater for gluten-free, dairy-free, low fodmap, Paleo, low carb and vegetarian. Plus instructions for cooking them without a Thermomix. I hope you enjoy these tasty Maryland Crab Cakes x
Ingredients
Remoulade
- 20 g cornichons or dill pickle
- 1 handful fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
- 1 clove garlic - peeled
- 150 g whole egg mayonnaise - or Creamy Mayonnaise
- 30 g Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp Tabasco sauce
- 10 g fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp horseradish cream
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp dried oregano leaves
- ½ tsp ground white pepper
- ½ tsp sugar
Maryland Crab Cakes
- 50 - 150 g bread - (gluten-free if required) depending on crab, see notes
- 50 g celery - roughly chopped
- 1 handful fresh flat leaf parsley
- 50 g remoulade - or whole egg mayo if not making sauce
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp celery salt
- ½ tsp sweet paprika
- ½ tsp ground white pepper
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- 250 g crab meat - see notes
Instructions
Thermo cooker
- Add bread to mixer bowl. Chop for 3-4 sec/speed 5/MC on. Set aside in a large bowl.
- Without washing bowl, add cornichons, parsley and garlic from remoulade to mixer bowl. Chop for 3 sec/speed 9/MC on. Scrape bowl down and repeat once.
- Add remaining remoulade ingredients to mixer bowl. Blend for 10 sec/speed 5/MC on. Scrape bowl down and repeat once. Set aside in fridge.
- Without washing bowl, add celery and parsley and chop for 3 sec/speed 7/MC on.
- Add 50 g of the reserved remoulade and except for the crab meat add all remaining ingredients. Combine for 10 sec/speed 4/MC on.
- Remove mixture to the large bowl with the bread crumbs and add your crab meat. Fold it to combine.
- Put mixture in the fridge for at least 1 hour then shape into 6 large, 8 medium or 12 small cakes.
- When ready to cook, add a little bit of olive oil in a fry pan set to medium heat. Cook for 5-8 minutes each side or until golden brown. Serve with Remoulade.
Conventional
- Depending on your crab meat, you may need 50-150 g bread crumb. If using fresh crab meat thats dry and chunky opt for 50 g. If using defrosted or drained pickled crab meat thats quite wet or paste like use 150 g.
- Add bread to food processor and process to bread crumbs OR use half the amount of panko breadcrumbs. Set aside in a large bowl.
- Finely chop cornichons, parsley and mince garlic from remoulade. Add to a bowl for sauce.
- Add remaining remoulade ingredients to sauce bowl and combine well. Set aside in fridge.
- Finely chop celery and parsley.
- Add 50 g of the reserved remoulade and add all remaining ingredients except for the crab meat to the breadcrumbs and mix well.
- Fold through crab meat gently.
- Put mixture in the fridge for at least 1 hr then shape into 6 large, 8 medium or 12 small cakes.
- When ready to cook, add a little bit of olive oil in a fry pan set to medium heat.
- Cook for 5-8 min each side or until golden brown. Serve with Remoulade.