Crab croquettes

For a crab cake that's packed with crab meat try this easy starter or lunch dish. A mix of brown and white meat is bound in a creamy sauce, flavoured with mustard and fried to deep golden crisp croquette.

📝 Ingredients

• 25 g butter
• 1 small onion finely diced
• 40 g plain flour
• 350 ml whole milk
• 1/2 tsp tomato purée
• 1 tsp English mustard
• a good grating nutmeg
• 200 g brown crab meat
• 100 g white crab meat
• 2 eggs beaten
• 200 g very fine breadcrumbs

👨‍🍳 Instructions

1. 1Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion until golden brown.
2. 2Stir in the flour and cook for a few seconds before gradually whisking in the milk. Whisk until the sauce is glossy and thick. Cook over a low heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
3. 3Beat in the tomato purée, mustard, nutmeg, salt and plenty of pepper. Cool a little then stir in the brown crab meat then the white and adjust seasoning. Spoon the mixture into a bowl and cover with cling film to prevent a skin forming. Cool, then chill for 3-4 hours until thickened.
4. 4When ready to cook, remove the cling film and make about 15 quenelles using two dessert spoons to form the mixture into small ovals. Beat the eggs lightly in a bowl. scatter half the breadcrumbs into a bowl.
5. 5Dip each crab quenelle into the egg and then coat evenly in breadcrumbs. They are delicate so handle gently. Put on a baking tray. After 10 croquettes have been prepared, tip out the used breadcrumbs – these will have become sticky and lumpy – and replace them with the remaining breadcrumbs (at this point you can chill the croquettes until just before it is time to serve).
6. 6Fill a large pan no more than one third with sunflower oil and heat to 180c or until a cube of bread browns in 2 minutes. Using a metal slotted spoon, carefully lower five crab cakes at a time into the hot oil and cook for about 2½ minutes until the coating is golden brown and the filling melted into a soft, unctuous sauce. Keep warm while the remainder are cooked. Serve hot with salad and wedges of lemon for squeezing. Good with a glass of chilled manzanilla.