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Chef critique

Dungeness Crab Cakes with Brown Butter

A highly accurate and well-structured recipe that demonstrates a great understanding of timing, formatting, and ingredient yield. However, it uses an awkward fractional cup measurement and mildly under-seasons the blanching water.

Score: 8/10

Suggested fixes

  • Replace '1/6 cup' in step 4 with 'the remaining oyster crackers (about 3 tablespoons)' or '2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons'.
  • Increase the kosher salt used for the blanching water in the ingredient list and step 5 to 2 tablespoons to approach the 2% salinity benchmark.
  • Update the description to highlight a 'West Coast-inspired' dinner, or swap the protein to Jonah or Rock crab if keeping the New England theme.

Issues

  • medium / clarity: Step 4 calls for '1/6 cup' of oyster crackers. This is a non-standard measuring cup size and confusing for a home cook to portion out.
  • medium / flavor: Step 5 uses 1 tablespoon of kosher salt for 6 cups of water (about 1420g). Depending on the brand of kosher salt, this results in less than 1% salinity. The blanching water should be closer to 2% salinity to properly season the beans.
  • low / presentation: The description refers to the dish as 'New England-inspired,' but Dungeness crab is an iconic West Coast / Pacific ingredient.

Strengths

  • Perfect calculation of crab meat yield (25% yield gives 8 oz from a 2 lb whole crab).
  • Excellent timing instructions, appropriately placing the green bean blanching while the crab cakes chill.
  • Smart practical steps, such as patting the crab dry to ensure the cakes bind and wiping the skillet before making brown butter.
  • Properly structured and formatted bulleted list for the complex mixture.
  • Sensible restraint on added salt in the crab mixture, accounting for the inherent sodium in cooked crab, mayonnaise, capers, and seafood seasoning.