Crab Cakes

Roasted crab one day usually means crab cakes are sure to follow -- that is if we have any left over. I picked (as we say back home) the rest of the crab and came up with a nice little pile of meat ready to be folded into crispy crab cakes. Being a Maryland girl I have a good bit of experience with this hometown favorite and didn't alter the recipe too much to make up for the Dungeness instead of blue crab. I mixed up a tsp of mustard and good shake of old bay seasoning, a dash of tabasco, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, an egg (I don't use eggs with Blue Crab -- not sure why), chopped parsley, and a couple TB of mayonnaise (don't tell James -- he loves crab cakes but thinks he hates mayo). The crab meat along with some bread crumbs (I usually use cracker crumbs and just the bare minimum possible) was folded into the waiting sauce and I formed the mixture into neat little cakes. For blue crab cakes I pan fry them just as is but for these Dungeness cakes I padded the outside with Panko bread crumbs for extra crunch. From what I read online it seems to be the usual method for West Coast crab.

After I fried the cakes in a mixture of peanut oil and butter I laid them on a bed of lettuce, next to fried potatoes and topped them with a spoonful of homemade tangy cocktail sauce.

"Honey," James said while still swallowing his first few bites. "You're going to have to make these again."