Name: Tremendous Crab Cakes
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 23 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 lb jumbo lump crab meat; 1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs; 3 tbsp mayonnaise; 1 tbsp Dijon mustard; 1 large egg; 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice; 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce; 1 tsp Old Bay seasoning; 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped; 1/2 tsp kosher salt; 1/4 tsp black pepper; 2 tbsp unsalted butter; 2 tbsp neutral oil; as needed lemon wedges (for serving)

Tremendous Crab Cakes

Prep

15m

Cook

Total

23m

Bigly says

Sit. Pour yourself a coffee. We're doing this right. Crab cakes. TREMENDOUS crab cakes. The greatest crab cakes ever assembled by a creature with hands, and I have hands, I have tremendous hands, the hands are not the issue here. The issue is that 95% of crab cakes in this country — and I've eaten in every state, twice, I had people count — 95% of them are BREAD. Bread cakes. A sandwich without the sandwich. Sad. Total fraud. It's a crime against crab, and most chefs are afraid to say it out loud. Cowards.

A crab cake should be CRAB. The crab should be the star. The crab should walk out on stage and the audience should gasp. Instead these other so-called chefs — the ones who got their training from a 90-second video, the ones who think 'jumbo lump' is a mood — they're putting in a CUP of breadcrumbs for a pound of crab. A CUP. That's not a crab cake, that's a stuffing patty with a rumor of seafood. It's an embarrassment. The crabs are watching. The crabs are not happy. The crabs are FILING COMPLAINTS.

Mine? Mine has just enough binder to hold together and not one crumb more. You can see the crab. You can see CHUNKS of crab. Big lumps. Beautiful lumps. The kind of lumps that, when you bite in, you get an actual piece of crab in your mouth, and you remember what crab is for, and you forgive the world for whatever it did to you that morning. A guy named Ramón — fishmonger, knew his crab the way most men know their own children — handed me a single lump once, raw, just to prove a point. He said, 'This is the food. Don't bury it.' I never forgot. Hands down the best advice a stranger ever gave me. Plain and simple.

Ingredients

1 lbjumbo lump crab meat(fresh, picked over for shells. Canned is a CRIME.)
1/3 cuppanko breadcrumbs(that's it. A third of a cup. Do not exceed.)
3 tbspmayonnaise
1 tbspDijon mustard
1large egg
1 tbspfresh lemon juice
1 tspWorcestershire sauce
1 tspOld Bay seasoning
2 tbspfresh parsley, chopped
1/2 tspkosher salt
1/4 tspblack pepper
2 tbspunsalted butter
2 tbspneutral oil
as neededlemon wedges (for serving)

Steps

1
Pick through the crab meat one more time to catch any shell fragments. Be patient — nobody enjoys a shell.
2
In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayo, mustard, egg, lemon juice, Worcestershire, Old Bay, parsley, salt, and pepper.
3
Add the crab and panko to the bowl. Fold gently with a rubber spatula — do not mash. You want to keep the lumps intact.
4
Divide the mixture into 8 portions and form into loose patties about 3/4-inch thick. Place on a parchment-lined plate and refrigerate 15 minutes to firm up.
5
Heat the butter and oil in a large nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until the butter is foaming.
6
Add the crab cakes (work in batches if needed — don't crowd the pan) and cook 3-4 minutes per side, until deeply golden and crisp.
7
Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate for 30 seconds, then to a serving platter. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.

One more thing

Squeeze of lemon. Cold beer. A little remoulade if you're feeling generous, no remoulade if you're confident — and I'm always confident, the recipe doesn't need it, the crab does the talking. The crab ALWAYS does the talking. That's the lesson. Let the main ingredient be the main ingredient. Most chefs bury the star under a pile of filler and call it 'texture.' That's not texture, that's hiding. We don't hide here. We let the crab stand there in the spotlight and take a bow. And there you have it.