Millet Crab Cakes
Crab cakes, I think, are one of America’s great culinary inventions. ( I once had a coworker whose father hopped in the car one day and drove from Detroit to Baltimore to satisfy his urge for crab cakes. A few months after that, he called his son to let him know that he was slurping gumbo at a café in Louisiana. Talk about letting your taste buds lead the way!)
The only problem with crab cakes, though, is that they’re often more cake than crab — that is, the main ingredients sometimes are mayo and breadcrumbs, and their blandness tends to leach flavor away from the crab rather than complimenting it. In this incarnation, I’ve done away with the mayo entirely (if you handle the cakes gently, they’ll hold their shape just fine without the mayo) and have used cooked millet rather than breadcrumbs. Not only does the millet have more complimentary flavor — a nutty sweetness — since it’s a whole grain, it’s also a lot more nutrient-dense. It’s gluten-free, too, so these crab cakes are suitable for gluten-eaters and celiacs alike.
Millet Crab Cakes (with alioli)
2 T. butter or ghee, preferably from grass-fed cows
1/2 cup green onions, minced*
1 lb. crabmeat (you can usually find 1 lb. cans of crabmeat at meat and fish markets)
1 egg, slightly beaten with fork
1 T. Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp. ground mustard
1/4 cup parsley, minced
1/4 cup cooked millet**
Pinch sea salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)
Extra-virgin olive oil (if necessary)
Additional butter or ghee for sautéeing
Sautée green onions in butter for about 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring often to prevent onions from browning. In a large bowl, combine cooked onions with remaining ingredients. Shape crab mixture into patties about the size of a standard hamburger patty. (Or at least the size standard hamburger patties used to be before the advent of Super-Sizing.) Drizzle in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil if they seem too dry. At the end, you should have about 8 cakes. (It’s better to make them small — they’re easier to handle. Big cakes will fall apart when you try to flip them.)
Sautée the cakes in batches over medium heat, being sure that the pan is hot and the butter is melted before you add the first patty. Gently flip after about 4-5 minutes or when cake is nicely browned. Cook the second side for another 4 minutes and then remove from pan. You might want to keep the first cakes stacked in a warm toaster oven while you’re cooking the remaining batches.
Serve hot or cold — these cakes will also be delicious straight out of the fridge on the following day. You might want to serve them with a mustard sauce or an alioli (pictured above). To make the latter, place about 2 large cloves of garlic and 1 T. lemon juice in a blender. Gradually trickle in about 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil while blender/food processor is running and blend until you have a thick, smooth sauce.
Enjoy!
* Note that you could also include minced and sautéed red bell pepper and/or carrots if you’d like. Mushrooms, too, could be pre-sautéed and then added to the crab mixture, and if you have some favorite spices that pair well with crab, don’t be shy to add a teaspoon of those!
** The package directions for cooking millet say to cook it for 30 minutes, but usually I find that’s a bit too long — I wind up with rather mushy millet. For this recipe, however, you want the grains to be a bit sticky, so go ahead and cook the millet until it’s almost mashable with a fork.
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Tags: alioli, crab cakes, gluten-free, millet, parsley
