The Most Delicious Crab Cakes

Could be the best crab cakes I’ve ever tasted. I’ve heard about Back Bay Seafood in Stone Harbor, NJ for years. People have told me they have the best crab cakes and crab chowder on the island. Last night I had the opportunity to taste their crab cakes and they are right.

I was surprised when I entered their store by how small it is. There were three other customers in the shop and when I opened the screen door, they all had to move over so I could get in. In front of me was the back of a big refrigerator and behind that was a small kitchen where I could see three or four people moving around.

Just to the left of the door was the cash register and a nice woman who took my order and checked me out. I was told there could be a long wait but I think that is when you order prepared foods like their Seafood Combination Dinner - Fried or Broiled. When you are there just for their U-Cook-Em Crab Cakes, there is little or no wait unless there is a line out the door I guess. This night there was no line.

The nice lady at the counter asked me if I need cooking instructions and of course I reluctantly said yes. I thought she said bake them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes but when I read a review on their web site, I found articles saying to broil them at 400 degrees but I’m not sure how you do that. When I set my oven to broil, I stick it on broil and am not sure what the temperature it. We baked them and they came out delicious.

How Are They Made

I’m not sure if either co-owner Tom Hegyvari or Keith Meloni are going to share their crab cake recipe with me, but I’ll try to contact them and give it a try. I do know from eating them that there is little or no filler in these 5 ounces of crab delight and they may have a subtle coating of breadcrumbs or corn meal on the surface.

I also know from reading the articles on their web site that they use a combination of jumbo lump and blue crab claw meat, herbs and use mayo to bind the crab meat together.  I don’t know if they are getting their crab meat locally, but I’m guessing if not it is from Maryland or somewhere on the East Coast. I hope so.

We always purchase fresh crab claws from the Avalon Seafood Market, a great source for local seafood but when we stopped there after picking up the crab cakes we were disappointed when they didn’t have any. Now they are selling a canned - pasteurized product with crab meat that comes from the “Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean – locations known the world over for producing the best Blue Crab.”

They were ok if you put enough cocktail sauce on them but nowhere near as good as the fresh crab claws from Maryland. There was an off taste that I’m guessing comes from the processing and the meat is not as tender or delicate as the fresh local claws.

Back to Back Bay Crab Cakes

The crab cakes are not cheap, $8.50 each but when you compare that with what they charge for crab cakes at one of the nicer local seafood restaurants ($30 to $40 for a pair and I can’t image they could be better than these), the price is reasonable.  And eating them at home gives you yet another opportunity to enjoy fresh local Jersey corn and tomatoes.

If you are in the Stone Harbor - Avalon area, I encourage you to go to Back Bay Seafood and give their crab cakes a try. And while you are there, you might want to taste their crab chowder and lobster bisque. I know I will next time I’m over there. I think I read they will even ship crab cakes to you overnight.

And of course, if you have a great crab cake recipe you would like to share, I would like to hear about it.

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Crab Cake Recipe

Red Pepper Coulis to serve with Crab Cakes

New Online Cooking Classes

I want to introduce you to a new culinary friend of mine, Ann Marie Michaels. Ann Marie is a cookbook author, cooking instructor, advertising guru and now online cooking instructor. She is also involved with teaching families how to eat healthier meals by eating at home with more nutritious ingredients. I was thrilled to find out she is a fan of grass-fed meat, an area I’ve been researching since interviewing Mark Schatzker and Carrie Oliver.

I found Ann Marie while browsing around the Internet looking for a ceviche recipe and found her very creative video on how to prepare ceviche at home. (You can see the video at the end of this post). I liked her easy going approach as well as her presentation. For homemade online cooking videos, I found her’s to be very professional looking with great production value and easy to watch. (I’m sure you have all seen some homemade videos that are tough to sit through.)

Online Cooking Classes

I noticed she is hosting her first online cooking class called Surf & Turf starting Wednesday, August 18th with 13 classes over 13 weeks. I immediately called Ann Marie to find out more about the classes and find out more about her. After an hour long conversation, I can tell you Ann Marie is very engaging, extremely knowledgable and fun to speak with. I’ve invited her to be a contributing writer on my blog and hope she takes me up on the invite.

I’ve also asked her to write an introductory piece about herself and her upcoming online cooking program. As her web site explains, if you want to “learn how to cook the perfect steak? Shuck an oyster? Make a delicious liver pâté?”  take the time to read Ann Marie’s introduction and sign up for her classes. She says if you are “low-carb, paleo, gluten-free, grain-free, on SCD or GAPS, or eating grains & starches but want to learn how to cook grass-fed meats, organ meats, and seafood…This class is for you.”

Surf & Turf Cooking Program

Here are her 13 episodes, and a Sneak Preview from Lesson 4 on How to Make Cerviche so you can see how Ann Marie presents her cooking classes. If you like what you see, be sure to visit her at Surf & Turf Online Cooking Classes.

LESSON 1: PROTEIN, FAT & NUTRITION
LESSON 2: SHOPPING & STOCKING UP
LESSON 3: GRILLING
LESSON 4: SEAFOOD I (RAW)
LESSON 5: SEAFOOD II (COOKED)
LESSON 6: BONE BROTH
LESSON 7: SOUPS & STEWS
LESSON 8: ROASTING & BRAISING PLUS REDUCTION SAUCES & GRAVIES
LESSON 9: PAN-FRYING & DEEP-FRYING
LESSON 10: SALADS & SANDWICHES
LESSON 11: ORGAN MEATS I
LESSON 12: ORGAN MEATS II
BONUS CLASS: STARTERS, SIDE DISHES & SNACKS

Sign up now

The enrollment ends this Saturday, August 14th so if you are interested, be sure to sign up now. She offers a full 30 days to get a refund, starting from the first day of class but be sure to read her entire refund policy.

Here’s Ann Marie -

I’ve been teaching cooking classes since I was seven years old.  I was one of those “latch-key” kids who wore a string around my neck with a key on it.  The bus would drop me off after school, and I’d saunter into the kitchen to produce another cooking show.

This was in the seventies, decades before the Food Network was born. I’d seen my share of Julia Child, and I knew this was my calling.  My concept: teaching other latch-key kids how to cook after school.  Remember, microwavable meals didn’t exist yet.  I showed them how to make tasty snacks like cinnamon toast and popcorn that they could eat while watching Brady Bunch reruns.

I got to cook on TV for real when my first cookbook was published in 2004. I did a lot of TV interviews, from Good Morning, Texas to Good Day Arizona. I schlepped pots and pans and knives in my suitcase from coast to coast.

In 2007, I had a baby, and schlepping all over the country just isn’t what I want to do anymore. Thanks to modern technology, I found a way to do this from my own kitchen — just like when I was a kid.

Surf & Turf: An Online Cooking Class

This month, I’m launching my first online cooking class, Surf & Turf: cooking Wild Seafood and Grass-fed Meats.

Most of us don’t make the time to cook homemade meals for our families very often, which is a shame.  Is there anything more important that nourishing our families in an effort to prevent disease? We’re spending 30% less on food today than we did in the sixties, and we spend 30% more on health care. Personally, I’d rather pay now than later.

If you read Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” or saw the movie, “Food Inc.” you know that factory farm food is not only unsafe, but also vastly less nutritious than farm-fresh foods. It’s not sustainable, as it is trucked for thousands of miles to your table.  And of course, there’s the issue of taste.

Cooking grass-fed meat requires completely different techniques than cooking meat from cows raised on corn. The cooking methods used for conventional meat will destroy a grass-fed steak. And if you’ve given up on the barbecue grill due to fear of getting cancer, I’ll teach you why grilling meat is completely safe — when done the right way.

An advocate of nose-to-tail cooking, I’ll cover a variety of cuts, from briskets to short ribs to organ meats like liver and even bone marrow. I’ll also be teaching how to make homemade beef, chicken and fish stock, and how to use the stock in homemade reduction sauces and soups.

We all know we should be eating more seafood to reduce our chance of heart disease. Yet most of us have no idea where to find safe, sustainable seafood — and no clue how to prepare it.  I’ll walk you through everything from how to shuck oysters to fancy-sounding but extremely easy Sole en Papillote.  Click here to see the complete class schedule.

Sneak Peak: How to Make Ceviche

Ceviche, a dish of seafood marinated in citrus (lemon or lime), is a traditional dish that dates back thousands of years.  While many people believe that ceviche originated in Peru, the fact that every former Spanish colony has its own version of ceviche makes many think that the dish was perhaps introduced by the Spanish.  It is also a traditional dish in polynesia ith variations in Tahiti and Fiji.  Today, it is popular all over the world, from Spain and Peru to Mexico, Panama, the Phillipines, the Bahamas and south Florida, and Hawaii.

Why Take a Cooking Class Online?

If you’re like me, you love to take cooking classes. I enjoy cooking as a recreational activity and I’m always eager to learn new recipes.  But trying to learn recipes from a cookbook is not always so easy.  Having a teacher show you step by step how to cook is the best way to cut to the chase.

Let’s face it, so many of us are busy these days.  Who has time to drive to a community college or cooking school once a week to take a class?  And who wants to fight traffic and spend money on a babysitter?  The internet has given us the opportunity to take cooking classes from home.  You can watch the videos on your computer, then pop into the kitchen and practice what you’ve learned.

Cooking classes are also expensive — upwards of $50 per class. My online course costs less than $10 per class. I also offer a full 30-day refund, no questions asked.

Sign Up for Surf & Turf

Click here to sign up for the Surf & Turf online cooking class.  Hurry! Enrollment ends Saturday, August 14th.

We planned to have burgers the other night but my 12 year old daughter decided she wanted to prepare them and use a recipe from a collection of recipes she received from her day camp. The booklet is called Gourmet Camper Caribbean Flair and is made up of recipes the kids could prepare at camp and at home.

You know I am a big proponent of Kids Can Cook because of the many benefits associated with teaching your kids how to cook including:

• following a recipe
• measuring and math skills
• understanding various food groups
• safety and lots more

The recipe she found in the camp recipe booklet was for Bifteki Burgers. What are Bifteki burgers?  I didn’t know so I looked them up on the Internet to find out they are Greek burgers and there are lots of variations for making them.

Here’s my daughter’s version of Bifteki Burgers. The original recipe is for twelve servings so we cut it in half.

Ingredients

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon olive oil
freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 small red onion, chopped
1 1/4 pounds of ground beef
6 burger buns
(cheese for cheeseburgers - optional)
Fixings to serve with the burgers: fresh lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard

How to Prepare Bifteki Burgers

It’s the same as preparing any hamburger. You get the ingredients prepped and combine them in a large mixing bowl.

Start by peeling and carefully chopping the onion to small pieces. If you are letting your kids do this, you may want to watch closely or do this with them. My 12 year old is very good with sharp knives, but I’m less inclined with my 10 year old daughter.

Combine the ingredients together in the mixing bowl being careful not to over work the meat. The less you handle the meat, the better the burger turn out. Shape the burgers into 6 patties and here’s where your kids can have some fun. Let them make their own favorite shapes like stars, hearts, squares.

Grill the burgers for 3 to 4 minutes on each side. If you like them more rare, cook them for less time or if you like them more well done, let them cook longer. Please do not overcook them or they will taste like hockey pucks.

If you are going to add cheese, wait until the last minute of cooking, top with cheese and cover your grill so the cheese melts quickly. While the burgers are resting, toast the buns on a cooler part of the grill. It takes less than a minute to toast them. Do not let them burn.

Put the burgers on the buns and serve with your favorite toppings. We served ours with fresh farm corn on the cob and tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella.

Although my oldest daughter made the patties, my 10 year old helped me grill them. More great learning experiences when teaching your kids how to work around hot grills. She learned that when there is smoke there is fire as the fat from the burgers dripped onto the hot flames. The lesson learned was don’t walk away from the grill when cooking.

The burgers were delicious and having my kids prepare most of the meal made it even better.

Have a great weekend!