Crab Cakes! from Lard: The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmothers Secret Ingredient

Lard
The Lost Art of Cooking 

with Your Grandmother's Secret Ingredient
by the Editors of Grit Magazine
Paperback, 7.5 x 9 inches, 272 pages

Cook like your grandmother? Mine embraced cans and boxed mixes with gusto as soon as they sold the farm, long before I was born. I am guessing it is more like cook like your great-grandmother these days - by which I mean the original classics. Before they replaced nurturing and natural ingredients like lard and butter with margarine - whatever that is.

Butter finally came back into good graces, and now it's lard's turn. Good quality lard is free of trans fats and has almost half the saturated fats of butter. The editors of Grit Magazine, the country lifestyle source for Americans and Canadians alike, want to remind this generation of "the lost art" of cooking with lard.

They start with sourcing and even rendering your own top-quality lard for cooking and baking. Then they deliver 150 recipes, both savoury and sweet, that use lard as an ingredient or cooking method- carefully selected from over 100 years of tried-and-true recipes from the magazine.

With Lard, you will rediscover what was once lost - how to make the flakiest pie-crusts, crispiest chicken and everything from Breads and Biscuits, Vegetables, Main Dishes, Cookies and Brownies, Pie, Cakes and Desserts - just like they did back on the farm.

Crab Cakes
From Lard/Andrews McMeel Publishing

Serves 4


Enjoy the taste of the Maryland seashore, even when fresh crabmeat isn’t an option. Whip up a homemade tartar sauce with mayonnaise and diced sweet pickles. Or for a lighter version, use equal parts sour cream and mayo, a pinch of minced shallots or onions, and some fresh aromatic herbs of your choice (cilantro, dill, basil, and tarragon are all delicious).

1 (6.5-ounce) can crabmeat, drained
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg beaten
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon chopped green onion (white and green parts)
Salt and black pepper
Lard, for frying

In a large bowl, place the crabmeat, bread crumbs, egg, Worcestershire sauce, and onion. Season with salt and pepper; mix well. Shape into 4 equal-sized patties. (If more moisture is needed to form patties, add a dash of melted lard.)

In a large skillet, heat the lard over medium-high heat. Fry the patties 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.