Deep Fry Crab Cakes, the Maryland Way!

Freshly packed blue crab cakes boast robust salty-sweet lump meat, and with the Maryland Recipe: mayonnaise, black pepper, Old Bay, eggs, yellow mustard, and crushed crackers make for a delicacy worth savoring. Deep frying this masterpiece requires some exact skills to arrive at a golden-brown crispy shell and moist, indulgent interior. When you pop by a Chesapeake Bay region crab house and order a Maryland Style Crab Cake, most restaurants will deep fry the cake in canola oil and place it on a kaiser roll, surrounded by cottage fries and a handy creamy coleslaw filled ramekin. You may even eyewitness the crab house worker lowering the fryer basket into the screaming hot oil, and the process may appear quite easy. This trained cook follows important steps, however, to plate the perfect cake.

First, the perfect amount of binding agents must accompany the crab meat. Too much mayonnaise or egg, however, will make for a damp cake, which will cause the cake to fall apart in the fryer. Keep to the Maryland Recipe and you should be golden! Secondly, if cooking from a freshly packed cake, take about 30 minutes and place the cake in the fridge “to set.” The binding agents will combine in the fridge, so when it’s time to fry, a shell will form quickly around the cake, and the interior will remain moist. Thirdly, make sure you don’t mix the cake ingredients together too roughly. Gentle, easy does it. If the larger lump pieces break down, the cake will have a tendency to likewise fall apart in the fryer. No cutting corners or changing recipes, treat the crab cake as a delicacy and it will rise to the occasion.

The temperature of the fryer oil likewise requires careful attention. Choose canola oil with a smoke point of 400 °F. Set the fryer to an ideal reading of 350 °F to 375 °F. This temperature will instantly create the hard shell, while not seeping into the cakes. Fry one or two cakes at a time since too many in the fryer will lower the oil’s temperature, causing the oil to seep into the cakes, creating a soggy mess. Set the timer for 3 to 5 minutes and keep out a keen eye; the cakes should boast a golden brown when done.  If you froze your cakes to fit your cooking calendar convenience, preheat the oven so when you pull the previously frozen cakes from the fryer, you can bake them for 3 to 5 minutes to finish cooking the interior. The internal temperature should read 165 °F. Once done, briefly place the cakes on a paper towel to soak up any extra oil and promptly serve as a sandwich or headliner to a farmhouse salad. “Maryland Way” crab cakes never have “fillers” upstaging the savory crab meat, and deep-frying ensures a sweet, briny, delicious experience every time!