Japanese Crab Cakes with Spicy Mayo

 

This is a great recipe that makes for some scrumptious crab cakes. They're a bit finicky, though, as several steps are required to put them together. But they're not difficult to create.

More importantly, they need to be deep fried, so this recipe is *not* for everyone!

But we're not everyone so we bravely forged ahead. The Wonder Woman has lots of experience with stovetop deep frying as she has make wonderful spring rolls for lots of years (more about them in a later post).

Our deep fryer is a pot on the stove top. It's fine if you watch carefully and don't allow it to overheat and start smoking or burning. We keep the heat relatively low, too.

These crab cakes are very nice when served fresh from the fryer with some spicy mayo. The spice level is up to you, of course. Feel free to adjust the ingredients as you see fit.



Ingredients for the spicy mayo

• 120 ml mayonnaise (1/2 cup)
• 60 ml (or to taste) your favourite hot sauce such as Sriracha or Sambal Oelek or Tabasco (1/4 cup)
• 30 ml tobiko fish roe (optional) (2 Tbsp)
• 10 ml rice wine or rice vinegar (2 tsp)
• freshly grated lemon zest

Ingredients for the crab cakes

• 65 g flour (1/2 cup)
• 120 g butter (1/2 cup)
• 750 ml milk (3 cups)
• 500 g crab meat, in small chunks or diced. (1 lb)
• 1 small onion, finely minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 125 ml rice wine (optional) (1/2 cup)
• 1 medium potato, cubed and boiled. mash it until it's no longer lumpy
• Flour for coating
• 1 egg, beaten, for coating
• Panko bread crumbs, from Japan, for coating. You can substitute regular bread crumbs but they won't have that special crunch.
• oil for deep frying

Directions for the spicy mayo

Combine all ingredients in a small blender, or stir vigorously. Refrigerate until ready to use.



Directions for the crab cakes

Start by melting the butter in a small saucepan. Mix in the flour and stir until well combined. Then gradually add the milk and stir until it's smooth.

Add mashed potato in the milk mixture. Mix well.

In a fry pan, carmelise the onion.  Add the crab meat onion and stir fry for a bit.  Add salt, pepper and wine to season.

Add the crab mixture to the potato and milk.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool enough to handle easily.

Lay out 3 medium-size bowls, one containing flour, one with the beaten egg and the last containing bread crumbs. Line a tray with wax paper to hold the finished crab cakes.

With your hands, take some crab mixture and shape into a ball, about 3 cm in diameter.

Dredge the ball in the flour. Remove it and shake off any excess flour. Then dip it in the egg until coated. Remove and shake off the excess egg. Finally, roll the crab in the bread crumbs. Flatten into a disc and place on the tray. Repeat for the rest of the crab cakes.

Heat the oil in the deep fryer or pan. The oil should be at least 5 cm deep to be effective. Otherwise the oil will cool too much when the cakes are added.

Have a plate lined with paper towels ready to drain the crab cakes as they're finished frying.

Once the oil is medium hot, add a crab cake, two at a time into the pan. They'll float to the surface. Watch them carefully and turn once when browned. Remove from the oil and onto the cooling plate. Repeat for all.  The purpose of the frying is to brown the breadcrumbs.  The crab mixture is already cooked so you don't need to deep fry for long, and not a very high temperature.

Serve while still hot along with the dipping sauce in small bowls.

Makes about 20 crab cakes.

Pork Dumplings

Dumplings and dipping sauce

Pork dumplings, or pot stickers as they're sometimes called, are one of the main staples of some Chinese restaurants. For good reason, as well-made and well-cooked dumplings are such a treat.

The Wonder Woman introduced me to her homemade dumplings early in our relationship and I've learned to wrap them from her. There's definitely a knack to it. It took me several sessions to get good at it, and at first the initial few dumplings were kind of ugly and sometimes came apart during cooking. Each time, though, I slipped into the groove faster and faster.

We've since tried two vegetarian variations on the fillings. We'll cover those in later postings. Pork is the most popular so we'll start there.

We sometimes make our own dumpling wrappers but not this time. That will be a topic for a future post. They taste better but require much more work. But today, here's how to work with store-bought wrappers.

When buying dumpling wrappers, try to get as fresh as possible. We always select ones that are manufactured in our city, as they've had shorter travel from factory to store shelf. We are lucky in that respect. You may not be as lucky, so just get the freshest you can.


The Filling

Chopping the napa cabbage

• 250 g ground pork (1/2 lb)
• 6 cloves garlic, minced finely or crushed
• 1 ginger, size of ping pong ball or to taste, finely grated
• 6 napa cabbage leaves, chopped into small strips, about 2 cm long by 1/2 cm wide. this adds some crunch to the dumplings
• 5 ml light soya sauce (1 tsp)
• 2 ml sugar (1/2 tsp)
• 1 ml salt (1/3 tsp)
• fresh-ground black pepper

Ground pork

Mix everything together in a bowl.

Ready to wrap

Prepare to assemble

Get the bowl of filling, a small bowl of cold water, a package of wrappers and a large tray like a cookie sheet lined with wax paper for the finished dumplings. Keep the wrapper package closed until the last minute, and don't take out more than a few wrappers at a time. Get a damp, clean kitchen towel or paper towels to cover the wrapped dumplings to prevent them from drying out.


Assembly

Take a wrapper. There is usually one side of the wrapper that has more flour than the other. Try to wrap it so the flour side is facing out. That way, it forms a bit of a crust when fried to makes the dumpling crunchier.

Place a spoonful of filling on to the center of the wrapper. Do not overfill or the wrapper will come open when cooking. Dip a finger in the water and rub it around the outside of the wrapper to moisten. Fold the wrapper in half to seal into a half-moon shape. To be extra fancy, pleat one edge as demonstrated in the video. It's important to seal the wrapper to prevent it from falling apart when cooking.

Place the wrapper on the tray. They can be frozen at this point or are ready for cooking.

Ready to cook or freeze

For freezing, put them on a tray lined with wax paper and pop them in the freezer. After a day, remove the dumplings from the tray and put them into an airtight plastic freezer bag.  When cooking, no need to defrost, just go straight into the frying pan. Increase the steaming phase by a few minutes.


Dipping sauce 1

• ginger, finely julienned
• red vinegar

Place some julienned ginger in a small bowl and cover with red vinegar.

Ginger and red vinegar

Dipping sauce 2

• light soya sauce
• sesame seed oil

Simply pour a small amount of light soya sauce into a small bowl and serve with the dumplings.


Fry the dumplings

Heat a fry pan over medium heat. Add about a 15 ml (1 tbsp) of peanut oil. Place the dumplings into the pan. With your fingers, move the dumplings a bit to make sure they don't stick to the pan. Periodically check the bottom to make sure it browns nicely.

Placing the dumplings in the pan

Once the dumplings are brown on the bottom, pour about 75 ml (1/4 c) of water into the pan. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium low and let steam for about 10 minutes.

Steaming

After 10 minutes, remove the cover from the frypan and cook an additional 5 minutes until the dumplings are dry once again. Move the dumplings from time to time to keep them from sticking too badly. (There's a reason they're called pot stickers!)

Nicely browned

Serve

Arrange on a plate and serve with dipping sauce. Provide your favourite hot sauce for those who like them spicy!