Recipe – Crab and Shrimps Latkes

Some weeks ago, when we had Normita’s friends over, I made a nice seafood salad. There was some fresh cooked crab and shrimps leftover from that meal, and I had frozen them that afternoon. Since that day I had a craving for some nice crab and shrimps cakes. I never got around to making them and when I decided to take a day off from work last Saturday the craving came back. Since the idea had been hovering around the back of my mind for some weeks, and I was feeling like having something a tad more adventurous than my regular crab cakes I started looking around what I had in hand to prepare a nice meal. I did not feel like going out shopping so my primary goal was to spruce up the crab cakes with whatever I could find in the refrigerator.

What I came up with was some crab and shrimps latkes (potato pancakes). I assembled what I had leftover from the past week cooking and came up with a very tasty, if rich, treat. The potatoes had some texture to the crab cakes and the variety of spices bring out the flavor, contrasting the sweetness of the leftover sweetened coconut cream from the other week. It will definitely be a recipe that I will repeat, and if cooking for a crowd I would prepare them just before they arrive, and either refrigerate them, or keep them warm in a low oven, depending on how much time there is before we eat. A nice tangy salad would be an ideal side dish, to cut through the exotic taste of those rich crab and potato cakes.

Ingredients

1/2 pound cooked crab meat
1/2 pound cooked small cold water shrimps
1 large baking potato, shredded with a box grinder
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
1/2 cup sweetened coconut cream
3 large eggs
12 fresh shiitake mushrooms cut into small pieces
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 limes, juiced
3 large green onions, finely chopped
1 inch of fresh ginger, pealed and finely chopped
3 tbs fresh parmesan, grated
2 tbs curry powder
1 tbs cumin
2 tsp chile piquin powder
1 tsp sweet and sour paprika
2 tbs butter
2 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. In a large bowl place the flour, the panko, and a pinch of salt, and mix well
2. Add the cream, the sweetened coconut cream, and the eggs and mix until you get a very thick batter
3. Add the chile piquin, the curry powder, the cumin, and paprika and mix again
4. Add the shiitakes, the ginger, the grated parmesan, and mix again
5. Fold in the grated potatoes
6. Fold in the crab meat and the shrimps
7. Add the lime juice, salt and pepper to taste and mix into a heavy batter
8. In a large frying pan melt the butter and add the olive oil
9. Pour large soup spoons of the batter in the pan and cook until browned on one side, then carefully flip over with a wide spatula and brown the other side
10. Place the cooked latkes on a cookie sheet and keep warm in a low oven until they are all cooked

Lucito