Indulging in these decadent little crabcake bites immediately brings me back to my college days in New Orleans when the nights were long and the shellfish plentiful. Since then I’ve have this gnawing desire to fashion a batch of crispy, rich, restaurant-worthy crabcakes – minus any intimidating frills or overly elaborate cooking methods. The concoction I ended up with is a stripped down, no-nonsense version of a classic Baltimore-style crabcake that leans on high quality crab meat amplified by a handful of ingredients easily scrounged from the pantry.
These crowd pleasers are simply prepared on a gas grill in about the time it takes to drain a cold long neck. I suggest the gas grill for this one as the heat is easier to manage and distributes more evenly than charcoal. Most important, don’t skimp on the quality of the crabmeat. Cheap, lousy crab makes this entire exercise pointless. The best bang for your buck is with backfin lump (an 8-ounce package prepped and ready to roll set me back about $13), which contains big pieces of jumbo lump as well as smaller broken up pieces of the body meat.
Crabcake Bites
4 to 6 servings
½ cup mayonnaise, divided
½ beaten egg
1½ Tbsp. whole-grain Dijon mustard, divided
½ Tbsp. Worcestershire
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. lemon juice, divided
2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning, divided
½ tsp. hot sauce
Dash paprika
8 oz. back fin or jumbo lump crabmeat, drained and picked over for shells
10 saltines, finely crushed
1 Tbsp. butter
Special equipment: Slotted grill pan
• In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, egg mustard, Worcestershire, lemon juice, Old Bay, hot sauce and paprika. In a separate bowl, gently combine the crabmeat and cracker crumbs, then gently fold into the mayonnaise mixture. (Do not overwork the mixture.) Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.
• Prepare a gas grill for medium-high heat direct heat. Melt the butter on the grill pan and heat on the grill 5 minutes.
• Spoon out approximately 1 tablespoon crab mixture, forming each into about 12 golf ball-sized bites. Grill the crabcakes in the grill pan over direct heat 4 minutes. Flip and grill 4 minutes on the other side, until both sides are brown and crispy.
• Remove from the heat and allow them to rest 10 minutes before serving
• Meanwhile, whisk together the remaining ¼ cup mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon mustard, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 teaspoon Old Bay in a small bowl until smooth. Serve as a dipping sauce with the crabcakes.
Matt Berkley is a longtime contributor to Sauce Magazine who writes Grilled.
This article appears in September 2017.
