16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
He loves crab cakes and so do we., January 19, 2007
This review is from: I Love Crab Cakes! 50 Recipes for an American Classic (Hardcover)
A crab cake is a crab cake; but not to Tom Douglas. And to his credit he proves his point. This is not a man with to much time on his hands, he loves Crab Cakes and gives you the recipes to prove it. This book is great for the home cook or Chef that is looking to put something special together for their next dinner party. The Avacado and Crab salad, awsome. The Artichoke stuffed soft shell crab, fantastic and in the last few pages he reinvents how we look at the average fried crab cake by wrapping and steaming in banana leaves or making it into Crab Louis Cheesecakes, SOOOOOO good. It is a great one for your collection and the recipes will impress your guests.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I Love Crab Cakes: The definitive source on everyhting that is The Crab Cake, June 26, 2006
This review is from: I Love Crab Cakes! 50 Recipes for an American Classic (Hardcover)
Tom Douglas does a terrific job with this book. It is laid out perfectly, starting with tips and methods on how to make this delicious dish. With 50 different recipes he leaves nothing out, the reader is bound to find one that matches their personality along with their taste. As someone who grew up in the land of the crab cake, Douglas is the expert on the subject. He includes the Gulf Coast method, the new Pacific Northwest Dungeness crab cakes, and of course the Chesapeake Bay recipes with Old Bay Seasoning and the staple, Blue Crab. This small recipe book is a perfect gift to anyone that has at one time eaten a crab cake and has wanted to find the perfect one. As he proves in the book, "the most delicious crab cakes of all come straight from your own kitchen." We covered his book recently on our website and he was nice enough to let us use one of his amazing recipes on the site. Check this book out, it will not dissapoint!
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Source for quick and impressive dish. Buy It!, May 28, 2006
This review is from: I Love Crab Cakes! 50 Recipes for an American Classic (Hardcover)
`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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