Faidley’s Crab Cake Recipe

We live on Maryland’s Eastern Shore with the Atlantic Ocean to our East and the Chesapeake Bay to our West. Both my husband and I grew up in rowhouses in Baltimore eating steamed crabs at picnic tables covered with newspapers and the sound of wooden mallets whacking the claws and people spitting out shells. We’re crab and seafood lovers.

In my teen years, my friends and I would travel down to Lexington Market, a landmark on the West side of downtown Baltimore at Eutaw and Lexington Streets. The market was a grid of stalls filled with vegetable stands and fried or foreign food and at the South West corner of the Market was Faidley’s seafood. We would go and visit a friend who worked there and order raw oysters or steamed shrimp. And when I found this recipe for Faidley’s crab cakes in a newspaper, probably the Baltimore Sun, and then made this recipe, I knew I had my “go to” crab cake recipe. It is delicious even when you use the less expensive Backfin crabmeat, Pacific crab meat, or dare I say, claw meat.

Faidley’s Crab Cakes

Ingredients –

1 Pound Backfin or jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over

1 cup crushed saltines (crackers)

½ cup mayonnaise

1 egg

1 TB Dijon mustard

1 TB Worcestershire sauce

Dash of Tabasco Sauce

Unsalted butter or olive oil for sauteing or Vegetable oil for frying

Directions –

• Spread the crabmeat out on a flat pan/cookie sheet and sprinkle the crushed saltines over the top.
• Mix together the mayonnaise , egg, mustard, Worcestershire, and Tabasco in a small bowl.
• Pour the mayo mixture over the crabmeat/crackers and gently toss or fold the ingredients together, taking care not to break up the crabmeat lumps if using lump. Let the mixture sit for 2 or 3 minutes before forming the cakes.
• Form the crab cakes by hand or with an ice cream scoop into 8 mounds about 3 inches in diameter and ½ inch thick. Do not pack the mixture too firmly. The cakes should be loose as possible, yet still hold their shape. Place the cakes on a tray or platter lined with wax, cover, and refrigerate at least an hour before cooking.
• At this point, you can choose to saute, broil, or fry your crab cakes.I saute in unsalted butter (burning temperature is higher) over med/high heat for 4 to 5 minutes on each side. They turn a lovely shade of golden brown and have a good crunch this way. Broil about 5 minutes each side in preheated broiler. They’ll be crispy and brown too. But there’s no real calorie savings and I’d be afraid I’d burn them.

And you can deep fry the crab cakes as well in 1 ½ inches of preheated oil for 4 minutes each side, if you must.

Serve the crab cakes hot with tartar sauce, a combination of mayonnaise, lemon, and sweet pickle relish, on a roll, with crackers, or on a salad.

Here’s the downloadable version of Faidley’s Crab cake Recipe from Shalavee.com.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.