Food for Thought
Keep your crawfish, the best crab cakes in Houston bring the real seafooddelights
I prefer the loose kind, the kind usually found at high-end steakhouses like DelFrisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse. Now that is one fine crab cake.Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse/Facebook
I was watching an old Friends rerun the other day. OK, yeah, I know that’s lame,but it was the only thing on and I was bored. A blind date stands up Ross...andthe waiter gives him free crab cakes.NBC
I wanted to see what else was out there, crab cake-wise, so I wound up at PappasSeafood House on South Shepherd Drive.Photo by Marene Gustin
Up this week: Seafood.
I know I should really be writing about crawdad boils and how the Texas oyster season is on again, but lately I find myself obsessed with crab.
Specifically crab cakes.
See, I was watching an old Friends rerun the other day. OK, yeah, I know that’s lame but it was the only thing on and I was bored.
Anyway. It was the one where a blind date stands up Ross. Although he really isn’t stood up because . . . eh, never mind.
There are two kinds of crab cakes: Those that are loosely packed with huge, tender lumps of blue crab and only lightly coated bread crumbs and those that resemble more of a tightly packed seafood croquette.
Let’s start again. So, anyway, the waiter gives him free crab cakes.
Which of course instantly reminded me that I haven’t had a good crab cake in ages.
The way I see it, there are two kinds of crab cakes: Those that are loosely packed with huge, tender lumps of blue crab and only lightly coated bread crumbs and those that resemble more of a tightly packed seafood croquette. I prefer the loose kind, the kind usually found at high-end steakhouses like Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse.
Now that is one fine crab cake, as are the jumbo lump crab cakes with roasted red pepper and lime butter sauce at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar.
But I wanted to see what else was out there, crab cake-wise so I wound up at Pappas Seafood House on South Shepherd Drive. I like this spot, also known as Lil Pap, because of the kind of folks that hang out there. It’s intimate and a little noisy when crowded, but they make a mean bloody Mary, which always goes well with seafood. Oh, and then there’s the hot loaf of crusty bread that starts off every meal.
But how are the crab cakes there?
I’d never tried them before so I ordered one. They come as two to an order but you can get just one, which after snarfing up half a loaf of just-out-of-the-oven bread was about all I wanted.
The presentation was very nice: A big, fat crab cake sitting in a pool of white wine butter sauce with capers, cooked tomatoes and crawfish tails next to a mountain of shoe string potatoes. But I wasn’t too sure when I saw that the cake had a uniform patty shape and crunchy crust all around. But not to worry, once you cut into it, the insides are loosely packed, juicy lump crab meat.
It’s like they combined both kinds of crab cakes in one. And the tomato, capers and sauce added a wonderful fragrant taste to the crab meat.
I offered Dad a taste but he declined.
“I don’t really like crab cakes,” he said.
Hmmm. Undaunted I decided to make crab cakes the next night for dinner.
But, being under a deadline (like, when am I not?) I opted to buy the pre-made cakes at Whole Foods Market. The seafood counter there has a wonderful selection of fresh fish and seafood and they make some pretty good stuff in the kitchen there like the salmon candy and stuffed tilapia.
Turned out they had a couple of different kinds of crab cakes ready to heat. I went with the Maryland style blue crab cakes and asked about the best way to cook them. I usually bake crab cakes, or put them on the grill during good weather but the fish monger suggested I just sauté them in a little olive oil or butter. About 10 minutes on each side, he said.
I went with the oil since I still have a lot leftover from the olive oil story. Unfortunately, I haven’t been in the kitchen that much lately and forgot my stove was made by NASA engineers and that the medium setting for the burners is equal to a nuclear meltdown.
So, yes, I burnt them a little. But I thought I made up for it by whipping up a mustard tartar sauce with capers, which did turn out pretty well.
“That was really good,” he said. “Reminds me of the ones your Mom used to make.”
So I plated up dinner and headed to Dad’s apartment just down the hall.
“What’s that?”
“Crab cakes,” I chirped. And quickly added, “It’s for work.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the forks.”
Despite the slightly blackened bottom, they were pretty good, although they are more of a tightly packed cake with smaller pieces of crab meat. I didn’t eat the bottom but I licked up the sauce mentally adding the brown mustard tartar sauce to my cooking repertory.
And then I glanced over at Dad’s plate.
It was empty. Not even a trace of the blackened crust.
“That was really good,” he said. “Reminds me of the ones your Mom used to make.”
Now Mom never made crab cakes that I recall, but she did make salmon patties when I was young. And, yes, they were called patties and not croquettes. They were small, densely packed patties with too much breading and made from canned salmon that was a color of pink not found in nature. My sister remembers them as possibly edible.
But than that’s the point of dining with Dad. It’s about reconnecting with my past, remembering where I’m from and having someone to share those half-forgotten moments with.
I really want to buy some fresh lump crab meat and make some from scratch, but then I doubt Dad would like them as much.
Or, maybe I’ll just wait until there’s a new crab cake food truck because, really, how far away can that be?
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