`I Love Crab Cakes' is by Seattle restauranteur / chef Tom Douglas who, with four restaurants, three books, and an appearance as a challanger on `Iron Chef America' is a near-celebrity chef, nationally better known than Philadelphia's `Le Bec-Fin' owner, Georges Perrier, but not as well known as the Food Network standard bearers, Bobby Flay and Mario Batali.
I am a firm admirer of little books on useful single subjects such as sauces, muffins, pork, or salmon. One could easily choose to create a complete cookbook library by collecting only such specialized books. The only trouble is that this style of book is a constant candidate for cheap books of only mediocre quality from trade paperback publishers who grind them out like commodities.
With Tom Douglas as the author, we are guaranteed at the very least a thoughtful presentation of the subject. And, this is what we have. It is not a great book, but if you like crab and if you like entertaining, it is a very good book indeed.
The principle lesson we get from Douglas' book is the fact that crab cakes are really easy to make, or, at least they require very little time to prepare and cook, with relatively simple ingredients. He also makes it clear that there is a certain amount of technique involved in manipulating crab cakes which are made with only the minimum amount of filler and binder, in order that one gets a result worthy enough to present to guests.
The second lesson is that there are at least three basicly different ways to prepare practically all crab cake recipes. One can pan fry them, deep fry them, or broil them. All methods are approximately equally effective for all recipes, although deep frying may be a poor choice if the patties are delicate.
One thing I especially like about Douglas' recipes is his insistance on checking that the internal temperature of the cooked crab cakes is at least 155 degrees Fahrenheit. I also like his distinguishing techniques for using the three most common sources of crab meet, the Atlantic blue crab, the Pacific Dungeness crab, and the Alaskan King Crab.
Even in this small book of but 150 pages, there is lots of room for a nice chapter on supplementary recipes of relishes, sauces, and condiments for gracing these crab cake recipes. The book also does a very nice job of showing how to bring out the best of crab cakes as part of a sandwich.
While it may not seem unusual for a Pacific coast chef to be writing a book on crab cakes, it turns out that this son of the Chesapeake bay region arrived in Seattle to discover no one made crab cakes there! Well, Chef Tom set about to change all that, and this book is part of his great plan to get crab cakes together with the Pacific rim.
If I were to find anything wrong with this very useful book, it may be that the author relies primarily on contemporary sources such as Emeril Lagasse and Mark Bittman. I'm surprised to not find any references at least to one or two recipes from James Beard, who was from the Pacific northwest and who wrote much on fish.
Otherwise, a highly useful book for entertaining and providing ideas for quick cooked yet impressive dishes.
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