The Best Crab Cakes you may ever eat!

Happy New Year everyone ~ I'm wishing you all the best in 2013!

Did you celebrate away, or at home?
We never go out on New Year's Eve, preferring insteadto celebrate at home, cozily in front of the fireplace... with a lightdinner and a glass of bubbly.  :)


 From the images, I bet you can almost guess what celebratory dinner wasserved at my house on the last day of 2012.
Correct!! 
CRAB CAKES...

 Chef Robert Irvine's fabulous Crab Cakes.His simple recipe is my favorite.  No veggies to stretch the crab or mask the flavor of the good, pure crab chunks, and very little binder. Andthey are a fabulous party food when formed intobite-sized portions.
Besides the crab, the list of ingredients is short:
Old Bay Seasoning,a little mayonnaise,Some Panko crumbs (only a quarter of a cup)white pepperfresh ginger juice (or ground ginger)tabasco1 eggflour for dusting the cakesgrape seed oil for shallow frying
Optional: Juice of 1 lemon to squeeze over thefinished crab cakes.
Beware if you do a search on the Food Network sitefor his crab cake recipe, there are two listed andone of them is incorrect. (It instructs to mix thegrape seed oil into the mix of crab and seasonings.)
no, no, no!
This is the correct recipe.

You can use any crab that you prefer, but my favorite is...


Dungeness, our meaty, local & fresh Pacific Crab.

Time I served them with lemon wedges and the following simple sauce:(It's not heavy at all so it doesn't compete with the richnessof the crab meat.) 


You can serve them plain without a sauce, but I love to contrastthe delicately crisp crust of the cakes with something saucy. So I made up this accompaniment on the fly:
It's simply roasted sweet red peppers from the jar pulsed in the food processor with a touch of vinegar (I used Sherry vinegar,but any favorite vinegar will do), a splash of grape seed oil or olive oil,some sea salt, a pinch of sugar, and a coupleof shakes of hot sauce (Tabasco® is what I used.) All whirled in my small food processor until completely smooth;adjust seasonings to your taste, if the sauce is too thickadd a few drops of water and continue processing. 
I also had some homemade fish taco sauce* left over in a squeeze bottle, so I gave the cakes a finishing touch ofthat, yum!
*Fish taco sauce: Whisk equal parts mayonnaise (Best Foods/Hellmann's) and plain, unflavored yogurt (Greek-style worksreally well in this sauce.)


And finally a sparse shower of sliced scallion tops.

The next time you make crab cakes, I hope you'llgive Chef Irvine's recipe a try.  I don't think you'll bedisappointed.
Thanks for stopping by today, friends!

Blessings ~ Mari xo

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