Bobby Flay Crab Cakes are made with blue crab, a plantain crust and mango avocado relish, ready in 3 hours. The batch makes eight cakes and serves four, with one hour of active work. A sour orange sauce goes underneath rather than over the top.
Flay served these on Beat Bobby Flay in an episode called Up In Smoke, and the crust is what sets them apart. A green plantain gets sliced paper thin and laid in overlapping layers across the mayonnaise brushed tops. The cakes then fry plantain side down, so the slices crisp into a shell.
The panko range runs from a quarter cup to three quarters, and you stop the moment the mixture just holds. More breadcrumb means less crab in every bite, which defeats the point of buying a pound and a quarter. An hour in the fridge afterwards is what lets the cakes survive the pan.
4
servings30
minutes40
minutes300
kcalThree cups of fresh orange juice reduce down to about a cup and a half, which is where the sauce gets its concentration. A whole head of garlic goes in halved crosswise, then gets strained out before the honey and zest are stirred through.
Ingredients
- For the Crab Cakes:
1/4 cup mayonnaise, plus more for brushing
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/4 pounds blue crab meat, picked over
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 to 3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 green plantain, peeled and sliced paper thin, submerged in cold water
Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and chile de arbol powder
Canola oil, for frying
- For the Sour Orange Sauce:
3 cups fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
Pinch of pure chile powder
Pinch of ground cumin
1 head garlic, sliced in half crosswise
1 tablespoon clover honey
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
- For the Mango-Avocado Relish:
1 Hass avocado, diced
1 small mango, diced
1/2 roasted red pepper, diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus leaves to garnish
2 tablespoons canola oil
Juice of 1 lime
Directions
- Mix and chill the crab: Combine the mayonnaise, Dijon, stone-ground mustard and paprika in a large bowl. Add the crab, parsley and green onions and gently mix. Begin adding the panko 1/4 cup at a time until the mixture just holds together, then cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.
- Reduce the sour orange sauce: Combine the orange juice, lime juice, vinegar, chile powder, cumin and garlic in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over high heat and cook until reduced by half, then season, strain into a bowl, add the honey, oregano and zest and cool to room temperature.
- Make the relish: Combine the avocado, mango and roasted red pepper in a medium bowl. Toss with the cilantro, canola oil, lime juice, salt and pepper, then let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Shape and crust the cakes: Divide the crab mixture into 8 cakes and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush the tops with mayonnaise and lay overlapping slices of plantain across them, then season the tops with salt, pepper and chile de arbol.
- Fry and plate: Heat 3 tablespoons canola oil in a large nonstick saute pan over medium heat until shimmering. In batches, add the cakes plantain-side down and cook until golden, about 5 minutes, then flip and cook 5 minutes more. Spoon the sour orange sauce into 4 shallow bowls, top with 2 cakes each, then the relish and cilantro leaves.
This page publishes no nutrition information at all, so the calorie figure is estimated from the ingredients at four servings. The 3 hour total covers chilling, cooling and resting across all three components.
Three components, and only one of them can be rushed.
FAQs
What is a green plantain and where do I find one?
Unripe plantains are firm, starchy and sold alongside bananas in most Latin and Caribbean groceries. Green is the whole point here, since a yellow or black one is sweet and will go soft rather than crisp. Keep the slices in cold water until the moment they go on, so they do not brown.
Why blue crab rather than lump?
Blue crab meat is sweeter and comes in smaller flakes than the jumbo lump most crab cake recipes call for. That matters because the cakes here are bound with almost no breadcrumb, so smaller pieces knit together better. Lump works if that is what your store has, though expect a looser cake.
Three hours for crab cakes?
Only one of those hours is active, and most of the rest is the mixture chilling. The crab can sit covered in the fridge up to twenty-four hours, which makes this a dish you start the day before. The sauce and relish both need to cool or rest as well.
My cakes fell apart in the pan.
Picture the mix before shaping: if it slumped rather than held, it needed more panko and you stopped too early. Skipping the hour in the fridge does the same thing, since cold fat is what keeps them together. Flip once and only once, with a wide spatula.
Can I skip the plantain?
Leave it off and brush the tops with mayonnaise alone, then press on panko for a more conventional crust. The cakes will be good, though you lose the thing that makes this version worth the trip. A traditional route is these Old Bay crab cakes with egg and Worcestershire.
Can I use bottled orange juice for the sauce?
Reducing three cups of bottled juice gives you something flat and candied, because the acid that balances it is gone. Fresh squeezed is roughly six oranges and it is the one ingredient not worth cutting. If you want a quicker sauce entirely, this creamy steakhouse remoulade takes five minutes.
