Ben's Day Wednesday

These Crab Cakes are Poptacular!

Posted on by Liz

This week, after careful perusal of all deep fried items pictured in his cookbooks, Ben settled on crab cakes. While they looked awfully good, I told him we would bake them instead of frying. He repeatedly expressed his skepticism about this approach, but in the end he declared them “poptacular.” Though he refuses to be nailed down on the exact meaning of the word, we take it to be a combination of popular and spectacular. We all loved these, so we have to agree with his assessment. We mostly used ingredients from Hope Helmuth’s recipe (Hope’s Table), but our preparation method was different.

Crab Cakes

3/4 cup crushed crackers (we used Saltines)

3/4 cup soft bread crumbs

1/4 cup onion, finely diced

1/4 cup bell pepper, finely diced

1 small garlic clove, minced

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 teaspoon salt

Dash cayenne or sriracha

2 (6-ounce) cans lump crab meat

  1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Drain crab meat well with a strainer. Mix all other ingredients in order listed. Gently stir in crab meat.
  2. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray. Using large cookie scoop, form mixture into 9 balls and place on pan. Smash slightly with hand to form patties.
  3. Bake for 12-16 minutes or until slightly golden on top. Serve with tartar sauce.

Tartar Sauce 

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon sweet pickle relish

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon dried dill leaves

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Chef Ben gets the ranch potato seasoning ready.
For awhile we cut the potatoes using teamwork, but in an effort to boost his confidence and save my digits, I let him go solo. He wore a cutting glove, and I’m still typing, so all’s well that ends well.
Crushing crackers is very satisfying.
He kept calling it “tater” sauce, which is fitting, I guess, since he put it on his crab cakes as well as his “taters.”
This morning, I asked Ben to do some vacuuming. Standing’s for suckers.

Truthfully, once he hit his groove, I couldn’t keep up with his cleaning regimen. He actually (somewhat shoddily) vacuumed every room in the house, and attempted some bathroom work, too. I made him touch up a few areas, but was actually astonished at how satisfactory his work was, overall. I don’t know exactly what he did with the toilet brush, but it ended up in a startling location that made me double clean the whole bathroom all over again. His heart was in the right place, but the toilet brush definitely was not. That’s a lesson for another day. He enthusiastically worked hard all morning long, and didn’t even avail himself of the bonus ice cream sandwich I told him he could have as an afternoon treat. Obviously, he’s keeping that one in the chamber, perhaps to leverage into dinner with the queen or something. Well played, Ben. Well played.

Poptacular!

2 thoughts on “These Crab Cakes are Poptacular!”

  1. Looks very tasty, as always. So fun to read about Ben’s activities and, Liz, your creative ways of dealing with the surprises. Will next week feature an update on Ben’s school plans for ’20-21 (and yours)?

    1. Thanks, Mary! Ben is heading back at half capacity September 1. My start has been delayed so that I begin training August 31st, and the kids come September 9th.

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