Day 24: Crab Cakes with Lime Mayo
inspired by Pitch
It’s Friday and more importantly it’s Masterchef finals day!
To be fair most years this is not really an event in our house. However when I’m not writing this blog most of my time seems to be spent stripping wallpaper in my house whilst watching cooking programmes. Including this years Masterchef series.
So I thought I would look up a restaurant set up by a previous Masterchef contestant and pick something off their menu. Back to my favourite pastime – looking at restaurant menus online!
This will not be the first restaurant I have written about to have Masterchef connections. In fact my very first post was about the Chicken Skin Butter made by Tony Rodd who has opened Copper & Ink in Blackheath.
But I can’t use the same restaurant twice! Well not yet anyway. We may be in for at least three more weeks of lockdown but I reckon there’s still plenty of restaurants out there to keep me going.
A short (honestly only about half an hour this time) google later and I discover Pitch. This restaurant was opened by Kenny Tutt who won Masterchef in 2018.
It’s in Worthing, which I’ve never been to, so a quick look at that. Oooh it’s a seaside town in West Sussex. I feel a weekend away coming on when this is all over…
But back to food
Pitch’s menu is one of those where I just want to eat everything! This is what’s so good about looking at menus in advance. You can spend hours thinking about the pros and cons of each dish and finally make a decision. Only to get to the restaurant and pick something else instead!
Is that just me?
I love the sound of “Cornish crab, avocado and wasabi”. There’s crab in the fridge…
I seem to buy a pot of crab every week in the supermarket now. It’s one of my lockdown luxuries. Normally I wouldn’t dream of spending £4 on a tiny pot of crab meat every week. But now theres no pubs, eating out or holidays I feel like this is justified.
I’m also amazed that I can get crab every week. That’s usually one of those ingredients that the supermarket doesn’t always have. Not only do they have plenty now but last week it was even on offer (a saving of 50p no less!).
This is because the export market for our seafood has almost completely dried up. Did you know that at least 70% of the seafood that UK fisherman catch is exported to other countries? And up to 80% of the fish we eat (salmon, cod, tuna, haddock, prawns being the top 5) come from overseas? Have a read of this article to see what I mean.
Isn’t that mad? So from now on I’m going to make more of an effort to eat British caught seafood. All of a sudden my crab doesn’t feel like a treat, but an essential. Next week I’m getting two pots.
A quick look on Pitch’s Instagram and…. hang on. There’s another crab dish on here.
Chilli & Ginger Crab Cakes with Burnt Lime Mayo
I’m going to make this instead! To be honest I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to wasabi so this dish sounds even better!
I decide to use this crab cake recipe by Cathy Roma of What Should I Make For…
The recipe is really simple to follow and the tip of putting the cakes in the freezer for a little while to firm up is great. It makes them much easier to coat in breadcrumbs and definitely stopped them falling apart in the pan! Plus this recipe is all about the crab. So many crab cakes bulk out the filling with potato or breadcrumbs. Not this one!
I contemplate making mayo from scratch. But we’re low on eggs. And we are even lower on limes. Not sure how Aidan would feel if there’s no lime left for G&Ts this weekend because I’ve attempted to burn them. How do you even burn a lime anyway? But it under the grill?
Don’t think I can risk it….
In the end I find half a lime in the fridge. It’s OK to use this surely…. there’s another one in the fruit bowl. So I zest and juice my meagre half lime and add it to some (Hellmann’s) mayo. A decent crack of black pepper and a bit of chopped coriander. That tastes pretty good to me.
This dish ends up looking nothing like Kenny’s. Our crab cakes are definitely what you would call rustic! That’s designer speak for rough around the edges. But they taste amazing!
Thank you Pitch for reminding me how much I love crab cakes. I’ll be down to Worthing for a visit sometime in the (hopefully not too distant) future.