Maryland Crab Cake

As tradition built it

Maryland Crab Cake

Serves 4. The cakes chill at least an hour, then fry about 4 minutes a side.

Ingredients

The binder

• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• ½ tsp black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 tsp Chesapeake seasoning (Old Bay)
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• a dash hot pepper sauce

The cakes

• 450g backfin crabmeat, picked over
• 80ml saltine cracker crumbs

To cook and serve

• for frying vegetable oil, or clarified butter or olive oil
• to serve tartar sauce and lemon wedges

Method

1. Whisk the egg, mayonnaise, mustard, pepper, seasoning, Worcestershire and hot sauce until frothy.
2. Put the crab in a bowl, scatter over the cracker crumbs, and pour the egg mixture on top.
3. Fold it together gently, keeping the lumps of crab whole.
4. Shape 8 cakes about 7.5cm across and 2cm thick, by hand or with an ice cream scoop. Pack them as loosely as will still hold.
5. Set them on a tray lined with waxed paper, cover, and chill at least an hour.
6. Heat oil 4cm deep in a heavy pan and fry a few at a time until golden, about 4 minutes a side. Drain on paper. Or grill them about 4 to 5 minutes a side, or sauté them in a little clarified butter or olive oil, turning, about 8 minutes in all.
7. Serve at once with tartar sauce and lemon.

Notes

Baltimore's own Gertrude's serves both styles side by side on one menu, a broiled “Gertie's” with rosemary potatoes, apple-fennel slaw and a basil-caper tartar, and a fried “Boardwalk” version with mustard sauce and Old Bay, a clean illustration of tradition and refinement coexisting rather than one replacing the other.

The recipe is John Shields's Gertie's crab cakes, from Chesapeake Bay Cooking; he is the chef of Gertrude's in Baltimore. Faidley's family recipe could not be read from its own site.

What a modern chef changes

An emulsified Old Bay binder in place of loose mayonnaise

Method

1. Make the binder itself in the high-power blender from egg yolk, a little of the crab's own cooking liquor and a spoonful of Old Bay, an emulsified sauce rather than a loose mayonnaise, so far less of it is needed to hold the cake together and even more crab is left visible and intact.
2. Cook the cake to a precise internal temperature sous vide in a lightly oiled bag before its final sear, guaranteeing the centre is never underdone while the crust still gets a hard, hot, buttery finish on the Big Green Egg's plancha.
3. Dust the Old Bay itself through the spice grinder immediately before use rather than from an opened tin, for a genuinely brighter, less musty hit of paprika and celery salt.