Cooking techniques you have never attempted but would like to try.

morning glory said:
I haven't seen this episode yet as I am recording them to catch-up later - but I will likely see it tonight and watch with great interest! I've made crab cakes lots of times in the past - Thai style and not Thai style and using fresh crab and tinned crab (on separate occasions). I can't recall having any problem - you are making me want to make them again! I don't think i have any crab cakes recipes on the forum - though I have a recipe for crab roulade, I think. I'll have a look.
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It may be down to the size of the crab cakes! You will see that they are uncharacteristically quite big and deep which is the problem I think.

The crab roulade sounds interesting! Presumably crab added to the basic mixture or more involved? I wouldn't mind seeing that recipe if it is to hand....although, now I think about it, I might prefer a standard roulade with the crab - and maybe prawn - as the filling mixed into some creme fraiche or mascarpone with a little chilli maybe.
 
creative said:
It may be down to the size of the crab cakes! You will see that they are uncharacteristically quite big and deep which is the problem I think.

The crab roulade sounds interesting! Presumably crab added to the basic mixture or more involved? I wouldn't mind seeing that recipe if it is to hand....although, now I think about it, I might prefer a standard roulade with the crab - and maybe prawn - as the filling mixed into some creme fraiche or mascarpone with a little chilli maybe.
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Its a roulade wrapped in avocado (even though I don't like avocado!). Recipe here. Its much much easier to do than it looks!

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morning glory said:
I'm wondering if you mean something else by 'roulade'?
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No - I know what a roulade is e.g. have made them before - like a savoury swiss roll.

It can refer to both what you posted and how I have described it...
a dish cooked or served in the form of a roll, typically made from a flat piece of meat, fish, or sponge, spread with a soft filling and rolled up into a spiral.
 
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creative said:
No - I know what a roulade is e.g. have made them before - like a savoury swiss roll.

It can refer to both what you posted and how I have described it...
a dish cooked or served in the form of a roll, typically made from a flat piece of meat, fish, or sponge, spread with a soft filling and rolled up into a spiral.
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OK. It was because you said 'presumably crab added to the basic mixture'. As far as I know there is no basic mixture for a roulade - so i thought you meant something different.
 
morning glory said:
OK. It was because you said 'presumably crab added to the basic mixture'. As far as I know there is no basic mixture for a roulade - so i thought you meant something different.
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A roulade can be sponge based or souffle based, i.e. as in a savoury one. I have a tried recipe for a watercress roulade.
 
But do you get what is baffling me about the crab cakes? When you make meat balls, or burgers or koftas or whatever, you put breadcrumbs and egg yolk in the mince (with whatever seasoning and spice you are using) homogenise it with your hands and then leave it a while in the fridge, and you finish up with something you can form in to whatever shape you want and it’ll hold that shape. This crab cake mix (and yes it was Thai crab cakes she was making) was a bowl of essentially shredded salad vegetables with crab meat through it, and I don’t know I took it to be mayonnaise but certainly some creamy liquid through it as well. Now I also don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to me that you are using breadcrumbs and egg as the binding agent in that mix (I know there is egg in the mayonnaise but that’s not what it is there for). So how are you getting something that you can mould and get to hold its shape while you cover it in breadcrumbs? (Coating of breadcrumbs not through it as binding agent). Yes, I get it, when you make fish cakes you use mashed potato with flour to provide the binding function, but again, I am pretty sure that there was no mashed potato in the mix. Or maybe that’s what I am missing, maybe there was – but I can’t see Thai crab cakes being founded on mashed potato!


Anyway, if you watch the episode @morning glory (sorry if I have spoiled it for you) I will be very interested in what thoughts you have. As I said, she didn’t make a complete success of them but her problems are not particularly what I am talking about. What I was baffled by is how she had something she could even form to shape. And I was particularly attracted by the notion of trying to make them. Anyway. I’ll await your response to watching the episode…
 
Ken Natton said:
Anyway, if you watch the episode @morning glory (sorry if I have spoiled it for you) I will be very interested in what thoughts you have. As I said, she didn’t make a complete success of them but her problems are not particularly what I am talking about. What I was baffled by is how she had something she could even form to shape. And I was particularly attracted by the notion of trying to make them. Anyway. I’ll await your response to watching the episode…
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I watched it tonight. I will re-run it tomorrow. It didn't seem that she did anything particularly wrong - except that the crab cakes weren't cooked through. She cooked them on too high a heat to start with which meant the outside was a bit burnt and the inside undercooked, or rather 'not heated through'. She should have cooked them lower heat and a bit slower. My memory of making crab cakes is that the crabmeat is naturally rather sticky and so it easily adheres together to form a 'cake'. Have a go at making them and find out! :happy:
 
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This looks like a similar recipe to the one that Lynda did on Masterchef. Crabmeat can be quite sticky so, what with the egg to bind it altogether and only a small amount of crumbs in the cake mixture along with the chilling time...I think it would be good.

Quite a large amount of crabmeat, i.e. pricey if fresh! I'd be tempted to scale down the quantities, i.e. do half quantity as a trial run.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/crab_cakes_80855
 
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