Recently, a coworker (thanks, Kevin!) gave jwa a cooler full of cleaned crab from a crabbing expedition in Tillamook. He then sent me an email during the day warning me of the impending crab that he would be bringing home, which gave me a little bit of notice to come up with something tasty to do with it. This is what I found and yes, it was quite tasty. I really liked the mango sauce. In fact, I have some leftover that I have to figure out what to do with. I don’t think it will be a problem.
After pulling all the crabmeat off, we ended up with a half a pound. I halved the original recipe, which gave us two crabcakes each — perfect. If you want more than 4 crab cakes, double what I have written below and that will give you the amount of the original recipe and 8 crab cakes.
I added the lime and cilantro to the sauce — I think it really brightened that up. I also swapped green onions for chives and added garlic. I used a light hand with the siracha, but that’s just me.
Spicy Crab Cakes with Mango Puree
Adapted from a recipe by Ming Tsai in Food & Wine Magazine
1/2 lb lump crabmeat, well drained and picked over
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp fresh lime juice (plus a squeeze more)
1/4 tsp honey
2 tsp + 1 tsp (or more) Sirachi or other Asian red chili sauce
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into chunks
1 Tbsp + 2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small handful cilantro, roughly chopped
All purpose flour, for dredging
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs) or other dry bread crumbs
In a large bowl, combine the crabmeat with the mayonnaise, green onion, garlic, lime juice, honey and 2 teaspoons of the chili sauce; season with salt and pepper. Stir well to break up some of the crabmeat.
Form the mixture into 4 crab cakes, packing them firmly. They will still be a little loose, but that’s okay. Put the crab cakes on a plate and refrigerate until firm, about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a food processor, puree the mango with 1 tablespoon of the oil, the cilantro, a squeeze of lime juice, and the remaining 1 teaspoon of chili sauce until smooth. Scrape the mango puree into a small bowl and season with salt and pepper.
How to easily dice up a mango — score the flesh side of each cheek and scrape out with a spoon. Easy!
Put a handful of flour into a bowl. Put the egg in another bowl and the panko in a third bowl. Take a crab cake in your hand and carefully dust it all over with flour, shaking off any excess. Dip the crab cake in the beaten egg and then coat it well with the panko. Repeat with the remaining crab cakes. If you are like me you will end up with panko mittens when you are done. That’s okay, it washes off.
In a medium, non-stick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil until shimmering. Add the crab cakes to the skillet and cook them over moderately high heat until they are browned and crisp, about 3 minutes per side.
Serve the crab cakes with a drizzle of mango sauce, with the rest of the sauce on the side. Some more chopped green onions are also a nice garnish. We made a quick meal out of this with some lemongrass rice and sauteed green beans on the side.
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I think the next post will be a bunch of photos. I have a lot from the harvest dinner at Red Ridge Farms that we went to a couple of weeks ago and some from Astoria from this weekend.