Anne Morgan Here is the Delia Smith crab cakes recipe, her Rösti Crab Cakes for 2 as a main course or 4 as a starter. You mix the crab with grated potato, capers and lime, then fry the little cakes for 3 minutes a side. Allow about 2¾ hours in all, because the cakes need 2 hours in the fridge.
The recipe comes from her Summer Collection (1993), in the chapter on summer fish and shellfish. Delia always loved American crab cakes, but small English crabs seemed too rich for them. So she uses potato instead of the usual breadcrumbs.
This recipe won top marks when she and her husband tasted and scored their crab cakes out of ten. The same recipe is on her website too. Serve the cakes with her Pickled Limes, a Toasted Sweetcorn Salsa or an Avocado Salsa, all from the same book.
On the page before, she makes Salmon Rösti Fish Cakes with grated potato too. You’ll find them in the FAQs of our salmon fish cakes page.
Delia Smith’s Crab Cakes
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Medium2
servings2
hours25
minutes20
minutes280
kcalLittle cakes of crabmeat and coarsely grated potato with capers, lime zest, spring onions and cayenne, fried until crisp and golden.
Ingredients
- For the crab cakes:
225g (8oz) mixed prepared crabmeat
150g (5oz) firm waxy potatoes
1 slightly rounded tablespoon capers, drained and chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
2 spring onions, finely chopped, including the green parts
2 pinches of cayenne pepper
1 heaped tablespoon chopped fresh coriander or parsley
salt and freshly milled black pepper
1½ tablespoons groundnut oil, for frying
- To garnish:
sprigs of coriander or flat-leaf parsley
lime quarters
Directions
- Potatoes: Put the unpeeled potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water. Simmer them for exactly 10 minutes, then drain them.
- Mix: Meanwhile, put the crabmeat, capers, lime juice and zest, spring onions, cayenne and coriander in a mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper, then mix well.
- Grate: When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel off the skins. Grate them on the coarse side of the grater, pushing them all the way down, so the strips are as long as possible.
- Combine: Gently stir the potato into the crab mixture, trying not to break up the strips.
- Shape: Take rough tablespoons of the mixture and squeeze them firmly into 8 little cakes on a flat tray. Ragged edges are fine, and Delia says they give the cakes their charm.
- Chill: Cover the cakes with clingfilm and leave them in the fridge for at least 2 hours, until firm.
- Fry: Heat the oil in a frying pan until it is very hot. Slide in the cakes with a spatula, turn the heat down to medium and cook them for 3 minutes. Don’t turn them before then, or they won’t be firm enough. Turn them and cook the other side for 3 minutes.
- Serve: Drain them on kitchen paper. Then serve them on a warm plate with the lime quarters and the coriander or parsley.
Notes
- Delia chops the capers, but she leaves very small ones whole.
FAQs
What holds crab cakes together without egg?
The grated potato does the job, so her Rösti Crab Cakes need no egg and no breadcrumbs. The potato cooks for only 10 minutes, so it stays firm enough to grate into long strips.
A reader once asked her website why the cakes broke apart. The answer was to use both brown and white crabmeat and to press each cake firmly. Chill them well before you fry them in a very hot pan, and wait 3 minutes before turning.
Which crabmeat should I buy?
Mixed prepared crabmeat, which means the brown and the white meat together. You need 225g for 8 little cakes, while her crab tart takes two 170g tins of white crab meat.
Frozen crabmeat works too, once it has thawed. Her Hot Crab Soufflé in the Complete Cookery Course uses 225g of frozen mixed brown and white crabmeat instead of a freshly cooked crab. I’d drain it well before you mix it, my own tip.
Which potatoes work best?
Firm waxy potatoes, Delia says. You simmer them in their skins for exactly 10 minutes, so they are only half cooked.
Then they grate into long strips without turning to mash. Charlotte or Anya are waxy kinds that are easy to find in UK supermarkets, my own suggestion.
How far ahead can I make crab cakes?
Start at least 2 hours before you eat, because the cakes must chill until firm. Delia covers them with clingfilm and chills them on a flat tray.
For an evening meal, I’d shape them in the morning, my own call. Fry them just before you sit down, since they take only 6 minutes.
Is it better to bake or fry crab cakes?
Delia fries both of her crab cakes, in a very hot frying pan. The Rösti ones take 3 minutes on each side, with the heat turned down to medium.
Her Louisiana crab cakes are quicker still and need only 4 minutes in all. Both are made for the frying pan, so I’d stay with it, my own view.
How do I make Louisiana crab cakes?
Her Louisiana crab cakes with red pepper mayonnaise are in How to Cheat at Cooking, for 2. You need a 43g tin of dressed crab, 170g white crabmeat, 2 spring onions and a 25g pack of coriander. Add 1 piece of jalapeño from a jar, the zest of ½ lemon, 1 beaten medium egg and 3 rounded tablespoons dried breadcrumbs.
Chop the spring onions, half the coriander and the jalapeño in a mini-chopper. Mix them with the rest, plus a good pinch of cayenne, and season. Squeeze the mixture firmly into 6 round patties, then coat them in 1 heaped tablespoon semolina.
For the mayonnaise, whiz ½ a roasted red pepper from a jar with 1 garlic clove, 2 rounded tablespoons mayonnaise and a pinch of cayenne. Fry the cakes in 1 tablespoon very hot groundnut oil for about 2 minutes on each side. Serve them with the rest of the coriander.
