Delmarva Crab Cakes
Submitted by valfrank
Chesapeake-style crab cakes bound with a creamy white sauce, seasoned with dry mustard and Worcestershire, then breaded and pan-fried golden. Straight from the Delmarva Peninsula.
YIELD
12 servingsPREP
10 minCOOK
20 minREADY
30 minOn the Delmarva Peninsula, where Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia meet the Chesapeake Bay, crab cakes aren’t just food. They’re a point of pride.
These cakes start with a pound of crabmeat brightened with lemon juice, bound together by a cooled white sauce made from butter, flour, and milk. Dry mustard, Worcestershire, and mayo round out the flavor without masking the sweet, briny crab.
The triple breading of flour, egg wash, and breadcrumbs with paprika gives each cake a golden, crunchy shell that shatters when you bite through to the tender filling inside.
Kitchen Tips
- Pick through the crabmeat carefully for shell fragments before mixing. Nothing ruins a crab cake faster than a surprise crunch that isn’t from the breading
- Chill the mixture until firm before shaping. Warm crab cake mixture falls apart in the pan
- Don’t press the patties too flat. A thick cake stays moister in the center
- Fry in hot shortening or oil and resist the urge to flip too early. Let a solid golden crust form first
Ingredients
Directions
Pick out shells from crabmeat and sprinkle crab with lemon juice.
Make sauce.
Heat and stir together butter and flour and stir in ½ cup milk until thick.
Cool.
Beat 2 eggs with the cooled sauce and blend in the mayo, ¼ cup breadcrumbs, salt and pepper, mustard and worchestershire.
Gently combine crabmeat with saucemixture and chill until firm.
Form into 9 to 12 patties.
Beat 1 egg with milk. Bread cakes by dipping them in flour then egg milk mixture and then in remaining breadcrumbs and paprika.
Fry in hot shortening until golden.
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