Crab-tivating Crab Cakes

June 29, 2020
Crab Cakes with Garlic Aioli
Pg. 17
Jack, Season 1
14 down…85 to go!

As I mentioned in my last post, seafood, specifically crab, has a special place in my heart and my tummy. My birthday falls in July (tomorrow, the 13th!), which is coincidentally the peak of crab season. Therefore, it is usually something I treat myself too, sometimes more than once, during my birthday month.

For the next few months, I will be doing a lot of the seafood dishes since many of them are in peak season during the summer. And I started with these scrumptious crab cakes. We decided to serve them with sautéed mushrooms and asparagus and small bacon-wrapped filets, making it the perfect surf ‘n’ turf dish! YUM.

What did I do differently?

The recipe said to mold the cakes and put them in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. Because we were having family over, I got everything prepped about two hours ahead of time. I noticed while shaping the patties that they were very delicate. I thought to myself, “I get why they call to refrigerate them to help them solidify and not fall apart, but I don’t think it’s going to be enough.” I checked in on them after about 30 minutes, and they were still incredibly delicate. I knew that once I tried to put them into a pan they would certainly fall apart. So, I decided to put them into the freezer for about 30 minutes. This helped a lot. They didn’t fall apart (much) when I started to cook them, thankfully.
I used low-fat sour cream and romaine lettuce (instead of butter lettuce) because that’s what we had on hand. Gotta trim waste, both in food and in money, where you can!
I doubled the amount of garlic in the aioli, because I rarely stick to the required amount of garlic in any recipe, let alone one that is supposed to have a blunt garlic flavor. I almost always double whatever the recipe calls for. I can’t help it.
I added some red pepper flakes and onion powder to the aioli, as well. I felt it could use just a bit more flavor.

All my love,
Dani, a big tid

P.S. What’s your ideal surf ‘n’ turf combination? Mine would be a ribeye steak (medium rare) with crab legs and LOTS of butter. But I could name plenty of combinations that get my mouth watering, like a filet served more on the rare side with grilled shrimp or a New York strip with a lobster tail. Gimme all of them, please and thank you.