Crisp Seafood Cakes 3 Ways: Go crabby, smokey, or veg
it's a 3-in-1 recipe for your kitchen experimentation!
Hello everyone,
I hope you had a good week, whether or not you celebrated Valentine’s Day. Our weather has been rainy and chilly in Santa Cruz so I found the occasional warm spot in the house to settle in with Asian Dumplings (2009), a book I wrote after doing extensive field research for about two years on the little doughy delights. (I cracked two teeth in the process, but kept traveling, eating, and cooking!)
I reread the book’s introduction and key techniques to gear up for next weekend’s virtual cooking class. A bunch of people have signed up and I always want to be on my game, so as to not disappoint.
Have you signed up? There’s limited space left, if you’re curious about making dumplings from scratch.
I used to teach sold out Asian dumpling bootcamps where a bunch of us would march through an extensive menu. For the February 23 virtual class, I revamped the recipes so you can easily tweak them as you like to make meaty, seafoody, or vegan dumplings. Choose the kind of flour you want to use, too! We’ll also make a little salad so you’ll have a full menu at the end of the 2 hours. You’ll learn a lot in the privacy and comfort of your home kitchen.
Check out the DIY Dumpling Fest and register here. (PTFS paid subscribers should use the 20 percent discount!)
Now, about those crisp seafood cakes . . .
I’ve been thinking about your responses to last Sunday’s dispatch, in particular those from the folks who want “big flavors” and mostly-plant based or all plant-based eating. I also adore crab.
Because it’s Dungeness crab season in Northern California, I developed a new crab cake recipe that can be easily adjusted for vegetarians and vegans, and can also be made with smoked fish too. They’re crisp, easy, and delicious. I’ve eaten them for the last couple of days and haven’t tired of them.
Are there crab and fish cakes in the Viet repertoire? Yup, they’re called chả cua and chả cá, respectively. They’re made of a fine paste and are deep-fried to a slightly springy texture. Panfried and with a looser texture but containing fish sauce, tofu, and lots of pepper, this recipe is for chả cua Mỹ Việt — crab cakes done American Vietnamese style.
This recipe enabled me to solve a long-standing problem of mine: I adore crab cakes because they remind me of Viet deviled crab (cua farci, a Viet-Franco favorite). However 95% of the time what restaurants serve as crab cakes disappoint. They often lack enough crab and crab flavor, or worse yet, there is too much of filler ingredients like chopped bell pepper, which overwhelms the piscine nature of the crab.
On the other hand, using mostly 🦀 for crab cakes yields a mixture that doesn’t hold together. It’s mushy and hard to fry. I’ve been seeking a way to make a crab cake that has good flavor and structural integrity. Additionally, with the price of crab being pretty high and my interest in plant-forward cooking, I wanted a vegetarian approach and wondered if other seafood could be used too.
That’s why I spent Valentine’s Day frying puck-shaped crab cakes, vegetarian crab cakes, and smoked fish cakes. Rory and I tasted tested and debated about texture versus flavor:
Me: I want a crisp exterior and slightly creamy interior, like luxe tasting seafood but without having to add a ton of richness. The cakes should have a delicate flavor of the sea.
Rory: You’re too into the texture of food. It’s so Asian of you. I just want more of that sea flavor you’ve promised me. And, where’s the sauce?
😅 After going five or six rounds of recipe development, including playing around with different starches and flours, I have a terrific recipe for you to experiment with. What you’ll find below is the following:
3-in-1 Crispy Seafood Cakes recipe for crab cakes, fish cakes, and vegetarian/vegan crab-less cakes + a Sauce to go with them
A cool way to use tofu
Guidance on choosing binders, seasonings, and herbs to dial in flavor
Bonus tips for meal prep, reheating, and scaling up (the recipe serves 2 as a main)
Video pointers + the recipe in text and as a PDF