Shirley Temple's Crab Cakes


Last night I was watching a 1-hour documentary from NBC News Bay Area series "Revelations". It is an ongoing beautifully scripted series on the various histories of California's Bay Area successful industries, celebrities, geography, tragedies, and historical news events.  Sports to earthquakes to wine and much more are covered.  As a real Homer, born and raised here I have watched every episode in the series even on topics of little interest to me such as surfing and every time I watch I learn something wonderful.

The most recent airing told the story of how the Bay Area contributed to the space race and the formation of NASA Ames Research facility.  BUT- as I Iove to cook a tiny little story appeared about Shirley Temple-Black's well guarded recipe for wonderful crab cakes, and here we go with Ms. Temple-Black's recipe in her own hand:

1 pound crabmeat
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced celery
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
(tabasco)
1 large beaten egg
1 1/2 cup bread crumbs (divided)
2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

make mango sauce if you like)

Combine crab, onion, celery and pepper and toss-
Combine mayonnaise, parsley, orange zest, worchestershire, mustard, tabasco, egg-

Fold both together and add 1/2 cup bread crumbs
Make crab cakes and dredge in remaining bread crumbs
Chill patties for one hour in fridge before cooking
Melt oil and butter and cook 3 minutes on each side

Shirley Temple Black 1999


Mango Chutney recipe from Oprah.com

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 mango, pitted, peeled, cut into 1/4-inch dice
  • 1/4 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
  • Kosher salt

  • Mango Chutney: Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add sugar and cook without stirring, tilting the pan as needed to cook evenly, until it melts into an amber caramel, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in mango, then rice wine vinegar and lime juice. Return to medium heat and stir until mango is translucent and caramel is dissolved and syrupy, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and let cool. Season to taste with kosher salt.