Crab Cakes - Delicious, Carb-Friendly and Inexpensive

When choosing the crab for your crab cakes, remember that you don't need the finest grade of crab. You can buy a perfectly acceptable lower grade of crab (but do yourself a favor and get it as fresh as possible). At my grocery store, I can buy an 8 ounce tub of crab meat for as little as $5.99 (and often it's on sale for $4.99), which makes four crab cakes. If you're feeding two people, two crab cakes are ample and that's only about $3 per person - try to get that in a restaurant! If you're feeding four people, you can get away with one crab cake each if you round out the meal with bulky, filling foods. One crab cake might be too much for one child.

I started making these crab cakes before I ever went on a low carbohydrate program. I used panko instead of the standard bread crumbs, which makes the cakes lighter inside and crunchier outside. When I started a low carb diet, I wanted to find a way to have my cakes and eat them too. I got the tip to use pork rinds from Blaine Jelus on television. My husband (who is not dieting) prefers them with the pork rinds, so it's not just for low carb diets. Crush the pork rinds however it works best for you: place about two handfuls in a plastic bag and smash them with a pan, slam them against a wall with your hip, roll them with a rolling pin. Just get them pretty fine and bread-crumb like. You need a quarter cup for inside the cakes, and about the same amount to dust the cakes with just before frying.

Ingredients:

• Onion - 1 Tbs minced
• Panko or Pork Rinds - 1 /4 Cup now, 1/ 4 Cup later
• Butter (preferred), olive oil or margarine for frying - 1 Tbs
• 1 egg - beaten
• heavy cream - 1/ 4 Cup
• Crab meat - 8 oz
• dry mustard - 1/ 4 tsp
• parsley or thyme - 1 Tbs
• salt - 1/ 4 tsp (kosher or sea salt preferred)
• white pepper - 1/ 4 tsp
• paprika - 1/ 4 tsp
• Dash of lemon juice or lime powder

In a 10 inch frying pan, melt the butter (or margarine or heat the olive oil) over medium heat. Add the minced onion and saute a few minutes until the onions are translucent but not browned. Add the pork rind crumbs or panko, reduce the heat and cook while mixing the rest of the ingredients.

Beat the egg with a fork, in a bowl large enough for all the remaining ingredients. Add the heavy cream, and continue beating a few more strokes until the egg and cream are thoroughly mixed. Add the crab meat, dry mustard, parsley (or thyme - they're both good in this), salt, white pepper, paprika and the lemon juice or lime powder. Stir ingredients together until well blended.

Add the crab mixture to the onions and crumbs mixture in the frying pan. Stir until well mixed. You're not really cooking the mixture, just mixing and slightly heating. Return the crab mixture to the bowl and cover.

Refrigerate the crab mixture for at least 2 hours.

Flatten the chilled crab mixture evenly in the bowl, and score it gently in half one way, then half the other way, marking off 4 quarters. Take each quarter and form it into a ball, then flatten it into a round cake. Dust the four crab cakes with panko or pork rind crumbs.

Melt butter (margarine or olive oil) in a frying pan (that same 10 inch pan will probably work well if you washed it after the first use). Fry the four cakes in the butter until they are brown on one side, then brown them on the other side. Reduce the heat to low and cook the cakes for 5 - 6 minutes more minutes. Serve!

-o0o-

Gravy (needs butter, flour, milk) - You don't have to make gravy - the crab cakes are delicious just like this, but mmmm gravy! It's hard to leave those lovely brown crumbs in the pan without thinking gravy. Add a little more butter if the pan is dry, melt the butter and add a handful of flour to the melting butter. Let the flour cook in the butter until it loses it's raw taste (turning brown is a good sign, but you don't have to let it brown if you prefer the gravy to be white). Add milk (honestly, I have no idea how much because it depends on the size of your pan and the amount of butter and flour, start with a splash and add more as needed) and stir. Reduce the heat (if you haven't already). If the gravy over-thickens, add milk, if it doesn't thicken at all, turn up the heat. The secret to gravy is that flour only thickens when it boils.

Sauce - If you don't want gravy, here are some other suggested sauces:

• Deglaze the pan with some whiskey. Oh yeah, what could be better than a bit of buttered whiskey over a crab cake? Add a bit of lemon juice if you like, but avoid making it taste too much like a whiskey sour.
• Remoulade type dressing - mix equal parts of mayonnaise and ketchup. You can add some Tabasco, mustard or other flavorings to give it some zip.