Celebrating St. Julia With Faux Crab Cakes

It’s not that the French never eat crab cakes – we daresay that French omnivores do – it’s just that Julia Child never got around to putting them in a cookbook. Never mind; we celebrated what would have been that grand dame’s 100th birthday on the 15th of August by taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy. (And, if that sounds more like Miss Frizzle than Julia Child, well. They have that same adventurous, crazy lady spirit in common.) We made faux crab cakes, as they’ve been called around the blogosphere, but what we’ve always referred to as veggie latkes.

It’s the perfect time of year for it — there are just tons of zucchini – or courgettes – overrunning the Farmer’s Market on the weekends and perhaps your own home gardens. It’s a summer staple we can count on, dry season or wet, and they’re especially fat and good-looking this year. The recipe is simple, and once you’ve done the first steps, it’s quick – but it’s only, as all recipes are, a guideline. Use up the dry seasonings and possibly less fresh crackers around your house for some tasty variations.

Summer Celebration Veggie Latkes

Allow yourself an hour for this.

• 2 cups coarsely grated zucchini, pattypan, or crookneck squash



• Salt
• 1 cup bread crumbs (we used panko, but you can use crackers or old baguette)
• 1 Egg, beaten
• 2 Green Onions, thinly sliced – use entire scallion
• ¼ cup finely diced sweet red pepper (optional)
• 1 ½ teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
• 1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
• 1 Tablespoon Mayonnaise (or plain yogurt)
• Juice of ½ Lemon
• a pinch or two of cayenne flakes – or a dash or two of Tabasco
• vegetable oil, for shallow frying – no olive oil, as its smoke-point is low. Try canola, peanut, or sunflower.

(You might notice with aggravation those skosh, smidge, and pinch measurements in our recipes. If, unlike us, you don’t have measuring spoons which use those words ☺ just substitute about an eighth of a teaspoon for these words.)

1. IMPORTANT: After grating the zucchini, place it in a colander; sprinkle lightly with salt (NOTE: DO NOT use koshering salt – its fine flakes stick to the veg, and you’ll end up with squash that is WAY TOO SALTY. Can you extrapolate that we know this from experience?), allow to stand for 30 minutes then drain it by dumping it into a towel and twisting it. Squeeze to remove additional liquid – zucchini should be fairly dry – pat it dry, dump it in a bowl, and …
2. Heat your oil in your skillet,
3. Dump onions, peppers, seasonings, egg, and finally, breadcrumbs into your bowl, and stir to combine. We add the bread crumbs absolutely last, in order to keep them as crisped as possible. Using your hands or an ice cream scoop, form the zucchini into golf-ball sized rounds, and then flatten them.
4. Fry both sides until brown. Or, we put them from two-to-five minutes into an oiled waffle iron. We think shallow frying them produced a crispier finish, which was tastier.

There are all manner of sauces people serve with crab cakes – citrus based remoulades (which is just a heavily citrus mayonnaise), lemon-dill sauces, or ranch-style mustardy dressings, but what we enjoyed the most was tzatziki. It’s a light, bright, yogurt-based sauce which refreshes the palette from the sometimes rich and oily latkes (some people use cheese in their latkes, which makes them heavier) and is a quite tasty contrast.

To make a tzatziki, place a container of plain yogurt in a cheesecloth lined colander overnight. This thickens it to a Greek-yogurt style consistency (Or, you can just start with Greek yogurt – but none of that garbage inferior nonfat stuff, please). Peel and finely chop two cucumbers – and then use the same towel-wringing trick to remove some of their excess water – it can make a runny sauce, otherwise. Four cloves of roasted garlic, 1/2 red pepper, finely chopped, 1 small shallot, chopped, four Tbsp. of lemon juice, one Tbsp. of canola oil, 1 Tbsp. finely chopped mint, AND cilantro, 1 Tbsp. sugar, salt to taste — and you’re nearly there. Tzatziki varies from different areas of Greece, no doubt, and this version is hardly authentic. But it was tasty on our inauthentic crab cakes, and you can fiddle with it until it works for you.

Enjoy these last few mouthfuls of summer, and cheers to St. Julia, who reminded us of the joy of cooking.