Centuries ago, milk baths were considered a luxurious recipe for youthfulness and beauty.
Give Your Crabmeat a Milk Bath
While fresh seafood is best for these cakes, it’s not always available. Fortunately, packaged or canned crabmeat can be a perfectly good option. Check out our preferred meat here.
But sometimes, such processed seafood (which comes fully cooked) can be accompanied by an off-putting odor.
If that happens, don’t fret.
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Why Does My Crab Smell Fishy?
Unless your seafood is literally catch of the day, chances are it will taste and smell a bit fishy, thanks to a compound found in nearly all seafood called trimethylamine oxide, or TMAO.
This compound is odorless when the crabs are alive, but once they’re killed, TMAO slowly transforms into TMA (trimethylamine), which has an unfortunately distinct smell.
But that doesn’t mean the seafood has gone bad or is unusable. And there’s an easy way to restore a fresh smell: Give it a simple milk soak.
During this bath, the casein protein in milk binds to the TMA and takes that undesirable odor with it when the crabmeat is drained. The result is clean-tasting, better-smelling meat.
How to Remove the Fishy Smell From Packaged Crab Meat
- Fully submerge crab in milk. In a bowl, one cup of milk per 1 pound of crab meat should suffice.
- Refrigerate crab for a minimum of 20 minutes. (Cover the bowl first.)
- Strain the meat through a fine-mesh strainer. Press firmly to remove the milk—a crucial step since moisture is the enemy of a well-bound crab cake— but be careful not to break up lumps.
And finally, don’t throw out that crab milk! Just kidding. Please do.
See Lan demonstrate this method and make the full Best Crab Cakes recipe below.
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Start Free TrialAbsolutely the best chicken ever, even the breast meat was moist! It's the only way I'll cook a whole chicken again. Simple, easy, quick, no mess - perfect every time. I've used both stainless steel and cast iron pans. great and easy technique for “roasted” chicken. I will say there were no pan juices, just fat in the skillet. Will add to the recipe rotation. Good for family and company dinners too. I've done this using a rimmed sheet pan instead of a skillet and put veggies and potatoes around the chicken for a one-pan meal. Broccoli gets nicely browned and yummy!
Absolutely the best chicken ever, even the breast meat was moist! It's the only way I'll cook a whole chicken again. Simple, easy, quick, no mess - perfect every time. I've used both stainless steel and cast iron pans. great and easy technique for “roasted” chicken. I will say there were no pan juices, just fat in the skillet. Will add to the recipe rotation. Good for family and company dinners too.
Amazed this recipe works out as well as it does. Would not have thought that the amount of time under the broiler would have produced a very juicy and favorable chicken with a very crispy crust. Used my 12" Lodge Cast Iron skillet (which can withstand 1000 degree temps to respond to those who wondered if it would work) and it turned out great. A "make again" as my family rates things. This is a great recipe, and I will definitely make it again. My butcher gladly butterflied the chicken for me, therefore I found it to be a fast and easy prep. I used my cast iron skillet- marvellous!
John, wasn't it just amazing chicken? So much better than your typical oven baked chicken and on par if not better than gas or even charcoal grilled. It gets that smokey charcoal tasted and overnight koshering definitely helps, something I do when time permits. First-time I've pierced a whole chicken minus the times I make jerk chicken on the grill. Yup, the cast iron was not an issue.