Failed Rock and Jonah Crab Cakes Turned Crab Melts ? The Summer Seafood Kick Continued

What is it about the summer time that make seafood so appealing?  I suppose it’s the obvious hot weather and the light nature of seafood that combine to make a great harmony.  So I guess the recent seafood kick we’ve been on lately in the kitchen is justified with the newly welcomed sunny weather here in New England.  This rendition features perhaps my favorite New England seafood (behind lobster of course) – the crab.

Crabs in New England don’t have the proverbial girth of their west coast cousins like the Dungeness and King crabs you find in the pacific northwest and in Alaska (queue ‘Deadliest Catch’ music).  However, because they are cousins to those beauties, they do still come with that certain delicate crab texture and of course the extraordinary sweet flavor that I crave. 

Here in New England the local crabs are abundant off of the coast and in the Gulf of Maine.  They are called Peekytoe or Rock crabs and Jonah crabs, the former is a bit smaller (though a closer cousin to the Dungeness) and therefore harder to pick.  The Jonah crabs tend to live in deeper waters, can be bigger and meatier too.

When seeing out to make this dish, I think the perfect combination is a mixture of the two types of crab.  Of course, if you’re in Maryland or the south, use the excellent local Blue crabs – or the Dungeness variety if you’re on the west coast and it’s crab season.  As a wiser man than me once said: ‘Use the crabs that are caught closest to your house.”

I set out to do crab cakes (who doesn’t love crab cakes?) with a salad for a perfectly simple summer dish.  I made a critical mistake in my recipe thinking for this and forgot to add an egg (or too few filler cracker crumbs).  So the cakes didn’t stay together in the pan.  No worries though, as the recipe quickly turned into crab melts on sprouted sourdough bread.  Here’s how they ended up:

8 oz. (1/2 lb.) crab meat – use local crab!
1/3 cup ground saltine crackers
3 Tbsp.  good mayonnaise (homemade or Hellman’s does the trick)
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. ground yellow mustard
1/4 cup parsley (more if you like)
1-2 scallions – finely diced
1 tsp. old bay seasoning (substitute this with 1/2 tsp. each cayenne pepper and lawrie salt)
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp. fresh Thyme (lemon thyme is best here if you can find it) – chopped
Salt and Freshly ground black pepper to taste
A good splash of olive oil and a pad of butter

For the Sandwich melts, you’ll need:

2 slices of sourdough bread
2 thin slices of cheese – Havarti, Jack or Muenster
Parsley for garnish (optional)

Basically to make the crab salad, you want to mix together all of the first listed ingredients.  Start by grinding up the crackers in a food processor or in a big bowl by hand.  Add them last to the mixture.  Start with the crab, herbs, spices and condiments and mix them all together gently.  Add in the crackers and put the mixture in the fridge to chill out for 30-60 minutes.  This is an important step, as it will let the flavors come together and develop.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Once the mixture has had a chance to rest in the fridge, you can make the cakes that will make your melts.  Start with a large non-stick pan over medium heat and add in the olive oil and the butter.  Once the butter starts to froth, form the crab mixture into 2 medium cakes and add them to the pan.  Once they’ve browned a bit on one side, flip them (if they fall apart a bit, put them back together with your spatula).  Once they’re browned on both sides (but not burned!) place each on a piece of bread and onto an oven safe sheet.

Top the melts with a slice of the cheese, some salt and freshly ground pepper and place them in the oven.  Bake until the cheese has melted, but hasn’t browned or burned – about 8 minutes.  The bottoms of the bread should be lightly toasted.  Top with some parsley and serve.