Southern Coastal Living at Its Finest: Crab Cake Hush Puppies

Oh yeah, it’s a real thing. Crab cakes and hush puppies have combined to make your life complete.

Where do you find such an incredible concept? Duh, Southern Living magazine. Y’all aren’t from aroun’ here, are ya?

Here’s how to make this happen:

First, start your day on the ocean completely seasick while your husband (or boating companion) fishes for crab bait. Thank the heavens that he caught one immediately, took a look at your face and agreed to turn towards calmer waters. That could have made for a very long day.

Then, take one million pictures when he pulls up his very first crab pots of the season. Fourteen keeper crabs!

Before you steam your crabs (for about ten minutes) on your porch (because there is no way that mess is coming in the house) cover them in an insane amount of Old Bay Seasoning.

There is no such thing as too much. Top it off with a beer (we were drinking New Belgium Slow Ride IPA so that’s what went in). If your pots had more crabs than ours, think one beer per dozen crabs.

Now for the picking. Be sure to have an beer nearby for yourself during this process as it is a slow one. Be patient and try not to eat too much. You’re supposed to be saving it. If it’s evening time and the music’s on and you can smell the fresh cut grass of your neighbor’s yard, it might just feel perfect.

Time to get serious. Take a cup of your fresh picked crab and put it to the side for your hushpuppies. We took the other cup of crabmeat and used part of it for an omelet this morning with goat cheese and green peppers. The rest we’ll eat on crackers tonight. Life is hard…

Making hushpuppies is easy. The hardest part after picking the crabs is finely chopping your green onions and peppers. Southern Living calls for red peppers but all I had were green. Who cares.

You stir those up with your cornmeal mix, flour, sugar and salt.

I didn’t have cornmeal mix on hand so I made my own as a substitute:

Stir up 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup + 3 tablespoon yellow or white cornmeal. This will produce 1 cup of cornmeal mix.

Then drop in your egg, crabmeat and beer and stir until moistened.

Let stand for ten minutes.

Fry in two inches of hot oil in a skillet in batches until golden. It won’t take long so keep your eyes on them! You’ll have to turn them halfway through.

Try not to eat them all. Fail. Eat them all. Southern Living says to serve with cocktail sauce but I doubt you’ll be able to take the time to dip them. Skip the extra step and deliver them directly to your drooling mouth.

Recipe from Southern Living: Crab Cake Hushpuppies 

Ingredients:

1 cup self-rising white cornmeal mix

1/2 cup self-rising flour

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 cup finely chopped red bell pepper (or green- be flexible!)

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 ounces fresh lump crabmeat, picked

1 large egg

3/4 cup beer (Whoops, ran out of Slow Ride. Had to put in a Rogue)

Vegetable oil

Steps:

Stir together cornmeal mix, flour, green onions, bell pepper, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in crabmeat, egg, and beer until just moistened. Let stand 10 minutes. Pour oil to depth of 2 inches into a Dutch oven; heat to 360°. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls into hot oil, and fry, in batches, 2 to 3 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Serve with your favorite rémoulade or cocktail sauce.

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