Cadboro Bay Crab Cakes

The crabs are trapped in Cadboro Bay about 500 meters from home, year round. The bait is fresh fish. You only keep male Dungeness crabs bigger than 6 1/2  inches across the Chest (?). I hope that you are wearing thick rubber gloves as they are quick pinching your fingers and they don’t let go until they are dead and even then… Anyway, knock them out and pull the legs away, throw the bodies back in the ocean for their friends still down at the bottom.

I cook them 5 minutes in salted boiling water with a small bay leaf, onion, garlic, or a fish broth cube. Rinse them quickly under cold water to retract the meat from the shell. Then remove all the white meat and discard the shells.

The cakes: I use 1+ 1/4 cup of Panko, juice of one lemon, 2tbsp balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper,  1/2 cup olive oil or mayo , 2 cups of crab meat, finely chopped cilantro or parsley(optional), 2 tsp grated fresh ginger, 1 tsp seasoning salt. Add to that 1 chopped onion, 2 grated carrots, 1 finely sliced yellow or orange pepper, sauteed in olive oil. Then, make small patties, roll them in Panko or Kellog’s flake crumbs. Keep in fridge until time to pan-fry in olive oil just before serving. That will give eight  cakes.

Hint: The vegetables in the recipe can be changed.

Serve with a green salad in a vinaigrette or with salsa or aioli.

Crab has lots of Zinc. It is very rich so keep the cakes small if they are an appetizer.

PS: This can be done using less crab, or mixing crab and any fish. Do not freeze. Take the garbage away, nothing smells worse than crab.