Easy Cooking: Crab Cakes

One of the most expensive seafood dishes in restaurants is crab cakes. In appetizer or main-course size, you're lucky to find two crab cakes for under $10. They can easily be much higher and yet they are so simple to make at home. The recipe that follows is the one I've been using for years.

Lump crabmeat is expensive, but a cup and a half can make many crab cakes. Sweet Dungeness crab is what I like to use, but any kind will work. Best place I've found crabmeat is Phil's Fish Market in Moss Landing, Calif. Otherwise, look for it at your favorite fish counter. Always smell it before buying. If it's in a vacuum-packed container, ask the person behind the fish counter to open it for you and let you smell. No aroma at all is the best.

For the breadcrumbs, I use Panko, also referred to as Japanese breadcrumbs. However, any unseasoned breadcrumbs will do. I recommend using only real mayonnaise. Because the amount of fat and eggs is different in any jars except the real stuff, the crab cakes could fall apart as they're handled and the flavor won't be as wonderful as it can be.

1 1/2 cups dried breadcrumbs

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 pounds lump crabmeat, picked over for cartilage

1 bunch cilantro (leaves only), finely chopped

4 green onions, finely chopped (green tops too)

1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and finely diced

1 cup mayonnaise

Salt and pepper

Gently mix together all ingredients. Form the crabmeat mixture into patties, much the same size as hamburger patties. Heat your favorite oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until hot, but not smoking. Cook the crab cakes on each side until they're browned. Turn them with a spatula and be careful that they don't fall apart. They will be very delicate. Drain crab cakes on a plate lined with a paper towel. Serve them immediately.

Makes about 15 crab cakes.

Note: The same recipe can be used to make salmon cakes, substituting canned wild salmon for the crabmeat. Reader John commented that he cooks up fresh salmon for his patties. Great suggestion, John.

Easy Cooking: Pumpkin Nut Bread

Canned "pumpkin," one of the best convenience foods in grocery stores, languishes on shelves 10 months of the year. While it can be used anytime, cooks simply don't think about using it except around Halloween and Thanksgiving. Too bad. Pureed and ready to use in recipes calling for cooked pumpkin, it can be used to make pie, cake, muffins, cookies, pudding, and bread.

About the quote marks around the word pumpkin: Canned pumpkin is really canned squash in most brands. For many years, pureed winter squash (hubbard, banana and the like) has been pawned off as pumpkin in cans labeled solid-pack pumpkin. It makes good breads, etc., but be aware that it's not pumpkin, which is actually a gourd.

To be sure you're using pumpkin in your pumpkin nut bread, you can cook up your own pumpkin puree from a fresh one. It takes a bit of effort, but not a lot. Cut a small (not baby) or medium pumpkin in half vertically, and scoop out the seeds. (Save seeds to roast for snacks, if you want.) Place the two pumpkin halves, cut-side down, on a Pam-sprayed baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees until you can easily pierce the pumpkin or until it collapses, usually 45 minutes to an hour. Scoop out the pumpkin flesh and place in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth and use as you would canned pumpkin. Note: Don't use the mammoth cow pumpkins. The pulp is stringy and doesn't make good puree. And don't use the carved Halloween pumpkins. Once they're cut and allowed to sit around, they acquire bacteria on the cut surfaces.

To learn how to roast pumpkin seeds, go to allrecipes.com and type in roasted pumpkin seeds. Other cooks give their hints for getting the pulp off the seeds before roasting, a necessary preliminary step.

Now for the bread recipe. Back when I made food gifts for Christmas presents -- and when I drank coffee made with drip grind from a can -- I used the coffee cans for baking the bread. Now I use regular loaf pans, the nonstick kind. If you want to give the breads as gifts, consider too the mini-loaf pans.

2/3 cup canola oil

2 2/3 cups granulated sugar (honey or brown sugar may be used, but the bread will be a different texture)

4 eggs

1 can (about 1 pound) pumpkin (Libby's is most familiar brand and size may be 14 or 15 ounces)

2/3 cup water

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

2/3 cup chopped walnuts

2/3 cup golden raisins (dark kind OK)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Have ready two Pam-sprayed 9x5-inch bread loaf pans.

Using a large wooden spoon, beat the oil with the sugar until mixture is creamy. Beat in the eggs, pumpkin and water. (If you use an electric mixer, keep it at low speed so the eggs won't be overbeaten.)

Stir the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir into the pumpkin mixture. Stir in the nuts and raisins. Spoon the batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let the breads cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes, then turn out on racks to cool completely.

Each loaf makes 10 to 12 slices. Serve the bread plain, with cream cheese, or with lemon or lime curd. Watch this blog for a lime curd recipe soon. It's a great way to use more of Nellie & Joe's Key Lime Juice that you might have left from making the Key Lime Pie I included earlier on the blog.