Instead of following some boring old wedding gift registry, Julie, her special man, and Kathleen bought us a wine dinner kit from the Torii Mor winery here in Oregon.
The kit included three bottles of wine, a 2005 Pinot Blanc, a 2005 Pinot Noir, and a 2005 Gewürztraminer. Also included was menu, recipe cards, instructions for preparing, a grocery list, and even little menu cards if you wanted to be all fancy.
The menu featured crab cakes with a salad, braised lamb shanks with polenta and broccoli, a pound cake covered in berries (soaked in the Gewürztraminer).
I loved the idea, and fair’s fair so the Blue Plate Misses and I had the three over for dinner and I prepared the meal.
Of course I deviated from the menu. Because that’s how I roll. Yo.
I braised two whole chickens in cheap red wine with vegetables, and altered the recipe for the polenta a bit.
The Blue Plate Misses is the best cake baker a man could hope to marry, so when the recipe called for a store bought pound cake we scoffed and substituted my darling wife’s pound cake instead.
However, I did follow the crab cake recipe to a “T” because I had never made them before. Well maybe followed to a lowercase “t”. The recipe called for 12 oz of crab meat, I used a full pound. The recipe called for panko bread crumbs, I used the plain old western variety, but less.
The crab cakes were served over a simple salad dressed with a simple citrus and mustard salad dressing — which was a nice combo. The lemon complemented the crab nicely.
Needless to say, the dinner was a huge success, we drank all the wine and proceeded to sip espresso and talk until the cows came home. damn cows.
Here is the slightly altered recipe for crab cakes:
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp. Mayonnaise
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
- 1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon zest
- 1/4 cup minced green onion
- 1 Tbsp. fresh, minced dill
- 1 Tbsp. fresh, minced cilantro
- 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
- 16oz crab meat
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
- Unsalted butter and olive oil for frying
Instructions
Start by mincing up your herbs and green onion, set these aside in a little bowl. Get your butter out of the fridge and let it soften. Open your crab meat (can, pouch, crate, or whatever it came in) and dump into a bowl. Have another bowl standing by, then using your hands, go through all of the crab, breaking up the large pieces and feeling for bits of shell. Discard any shell you find and place the ‘processed’ crab into the second bowl.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the mayo, egg yolks, lemon juice, and mustard. Then stir in the onion, salt, pepper, and herbs.
Gently stir in the crab meat and about 3/4 cup of bread crumbs. Let this stand for about 10 minutes or so. This will let moisture soak into the bread crumbs. The mixture should hold together when gently pressed, but it should still feel moist.
Form the mixture into cakes by gently pressing a small handful into a 1/3 cup measuring cup (or something similarly sized…about an inch deep and 2 inches in diameter). Tap the measuring cup in your hand to release the cake. This should make about 10 or 12 cakes Place all cakes onto a plate and chill for about an hour before frying. Chilling helps the crab cakes set up and bind together so they don’t fall apart in the frying pan. Icky.
Heat a large skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium heat. Add a tablespoon or two of butter. The pan should be hot enough that the butter foams as it melts. When the foaming has stopped (there will still be bubbles in the …just no new bubbles are forming) then all the water has evaporated from the butter and you are left with buttery goodness ready for frying. Add a small amount of olive oil to the pan.
Gently place a batch of cakes into the hot pan and fry until golden brown on each side (a couple of minutes).
Move the finished cakes to a clean plate and serve immediately, or keep warm in an oven at 200ºF or so.
