Fishing Monthly Magazines : Chilli and corn crab cakes with crème fraiche and fried capers

Fresh blue swimmer crabs are usually quite easy to find around the country either cooked or uncooked and reasonably priced.

I prefer to buy them whole cooked and strip the meat from them myself, that way I know exactly what I’m using, sometimes the pre done crab meat can be a little suspicious, especially if it is on the cheap side.

Having said that though, there are a number of Australian crab meats on the market of very high quality either cooked or raw which you could source if you don’t want the mucking around and mess. If you go down that path buy the cooked meat for this recipe.

Facts

Ingredients

450g blue swimmer crab meat

2 eggs

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 cloves garlic crushed

1 corn cob stripped of kernels

½ bunch chives chopped

5 birds eye chillies chopped

1 lemon zest and juice of

2 tablespoons Lancashire relish

Salt and pepper to taste

Panko bread crumbs to coat cakes

Vegetable oil for frying

Baby capers fried

Crème fraiche to serve

Once you have stripped the cooked crab meat from the shell, place it into a bowl.

Place the remaining crab cake ingredients into a bowl and combine well, now lightly fold the crab meat in and try to avoid breaking up too much leaving some chunks in if possible.

Roll the mixture into ball shapes and coat in panko bread crumbs.

Heat vegetable oil to 170°C and fry in small batches until golden, drain on paper towel and cool slightly.

Place a small dollop of crème fraiche on top of the crab cakes, garnish with some crisp fried baby capers and start handing them around before they cool down too much.