Crab Cakes, Gator Style
IFAS’s Scott Angle shares a favorite family recipe
Observed annually on March 9th, National Crabmeat Day is the perfect occasion to celebrate this crustacean’s tasty goodness – best savored in traditional crab cakes.
If you’re looking to cook up a batch of these delicacies, get valuable insider’s tips from this video from Florida Sea Grant’s “Seafood at Your Fingertips” series, featuring UF’s own Dr. Scott Angle and his family-inspired recipe.
The UF/IFAS senior vice president grew up in the Chesapeake Bay region, where crab cakes originated, and spent his summers crabbing in the local rivers and estuaries. He fondly remembers bringing his catch home on Sunday afternoons for family get-togethers, where the grown-ups would pick over steamed crabs and wash down the succulent morsels with National Bohemian beer, or “Natty Bo,” as it’s known in Baltimore. (“The kids would have root beer,” he says.)
Now that he’s older, Angle says he prefers the “lazy” route of buying fresh lump crab meat and fashioning it into crab cakes using his simple recipe, below. He says these are very similar to the award-winning crab cakes made in his brother’s restaurant in Baltimore.
Angle isn’t a purist, he says, when it comes to crab cake recipes. Spices and variations are fine if you feel the urge.
“What really matters in a good crab cake is using good crab meat,” he says. “I hope you eat lots and lots of crab, and I hope it comes from Florida because we’ve got some of the best in the world right here.”
Scott Angle’s Crab Cake Recipe for “Seafood at Your Fingertips,” by Florida Sea Grant
Scott Angle’s Crab Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
1 lb. jumbo lump blue crab meat
2/3 – 3/4 cup of mayo
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. yellow mustard
1 egg
1 tsp. seafood seasoning, or to taste
6 salted saltine crackers, crushed
2 slices soft white bread, crust removed and torn into small pieces
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425° F.
2. Drain crab meat and use bare hands to gently sift it and remove pieces of shell.
3. Whisk together mayo, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, egg, and seafood seasoning.
4. Gently fold crab meat into the mixture, using your hands to keep from breaking it up.
5. Gently fold in crackers and white bread with your hands.
6. Form cakes into 4 to 5 balls.
7. Place a dab of butter on the top of each cake.
8. Bake in a foil-lined pan for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
Print recipe card here.