Crab Cakes and Tartar Sauce on the Light Side

NOT MY crab cakes (Photo credit: qwrrty)

You know my hubs and I are trying to eat lighter food and he is looking to lose another 15 pounds, I am committed to maintaining my weight.  Tonight, for the beginning of summer when our local crab and lobstah shacks open, I made gluten free, light crab cakes. They were great even though I had never made any type of crabcake before.

ALSO NOT MY CRAB CAKES
Baltimore - Fells Point: Obrycki's Crab House - Crabcakes (Photo credit: wallyg)

We had them with an ear of corn and a salad with a fresh buttermilk dressing.  Buttermilk ranch dressings are great because they are fat free but still creamy without all the thickeners usually needed to make light dressings thick and stable.  I use the recipe in Joy of Cooking modified to my taste and according to what I am putting in the salad. I have seen other folks use a packet of salad dressing dry mix instead.  I usually let the garlic sit in the buttermilk and strain it out before adding the other ingredients since I find raw garlic hard to digest. Buttermilk dressing Yum!

I roughly followed a recipe for Maryland Crab cakes from Martha Stewart's Website.

Mine made seven large cakes.

Maryland Crab Cakes

Everyday Food, June 2007

• Prep Time 25 minutes
• Total Time 40 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1 pound small-size fresh crabmeat, such as special or claw
• 1 pound large-size fresh crabmeat, such as jumbo lump or backfin
• 1/2 cup light fat free mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons), plus wedges, for serving
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon Old Bay Seasoning
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup fine saltine crumbs (from about 30 crackers)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

CHANGES:
I added the following to the recipe:

• Our crab comes with large lumps on top and shreddier stuff on the bottom so I ignored the whole crab meat size and mixing thing. And I only used 1 pound total and made seven crab cakes. But I used an entire egg so the need for the crumbs in that quantity stayed about the same. I also used about the same amount of mayo to keep the cakes moist.

• 2 scallions, minced
• 1/2 Reb Bell pepper in a fine dice
• 1 and 1/2 stalks of celery, minced

• Instead of cracker crumbs I used gluten free breadcrumbs which are lower in fat than the traditional crackers. I actually don't enjoy foods with the fatty unctuousness. And I probably used slightly less than 1 cup.

• Instead of light mayo I used fat-free mayo.

• And I used no butter.

• I forgot to add salt and pepper but the Old Bay has enough of both.

Mix all the wet stuff and seasoning, add the crab (pick through it to check for shell and tendon) and breadcrumbs.  Go light on the breadcrumbs, crab cakes should barely hold together for a nice indoor dinner; for a picnic or such you might want a firmer set.

Martha says to cook these only under a broiler, but I wanted the veg and egg to cook.

Instead, I used a newish non-stick pan with about 2 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil over two batches.  I let them crust on both sides and then put them under the broiler, but in the middle of the oven, for about five minutes.  Don't crowd your pan on the stove.

I used another Martha Stewart Living recipe for a yogurt based tartar sauce.  

Yogurt-Tartar Sauce

Whole Living, June 2012
http://www.marthastewart.com/178488/yogurt-tartar-sauce

• Yield Makes 3/4 cup

Ingredients

• • 1/2 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
  • 1/4 cup chopped cornichons
  • 1 Tbsp chopped capers (rinsed)
  • 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
  • Pinch cayenne
  • Coarse salt

I added in about a Tbsp of prepared horseradish and about a Tbsp of a sweet dressing available here called Moss-Ness. You could use mayo.  I also used fat-free Skyr (Icelandic Yogurt, Siggy's Brand) but fat-free Greek Yogurt would also work.   It was delicious!

Directions

Mix ingredients in a bowl and season with salt. Let sit refrigerated an hour or so and stir before serving.