Food My Husband Made For Me: Crab Cakes

The view from here

I had been craving some good seafood for a while, but Tom kept complaining about the price...and he's right, it can be very expensive. As with most of the meals we make, we want quality, fresh ingredients to cook a memorable dinner -- not that there aren't times when kd and wieners will suffice -- but seafood, well, it's gotta be good.

We are lucky (some would say spoiled) to have an excellent fishmonger around the corner from our home, Caudle's Catch, so he stopped in the other morning to see what was on tap (hah, what was on sale), and came back with a small plastic tub of fresh wild crab flakes. Really, I thought? Peeling back the lid, however, removed any doubts as the scent was incredibly delish; you could almost smell the sea!

Funny thing, though, as he was chatting with our neighbour Ruprick later in the day, they realized that they'd just missed each other at the store. It turned out that Ruprick bought halibut and some prepackaged batter stuff and was planning a nice supper for his lovely Newfie wife. This detail is important later in this post.

Anyways, Tom kept griping about the price -- $13.00 for about one pound of crab flakes -- and I kept telling him to knock it off and make me the best crab cakes ever!

He began with about half a pound of the crab dressed in an old bay spice that he'd concocted (including coriander seeds, all spice, paprika, dry mustard, cloves, mace, bay leaves of course: using an old electric coffee grinder to grind 'em up), lemon juice and zest, and worcestershire sauce. After letting that stand for a few minutes, he added just enough mayonnaise and Panko breadcrumbs to develop a soft pattie consistency, and then pressed the patties in fresh breadcrumbs to coat them for a crust base.

By the way, did you know that the best way to clean an electric coffee grinder (that is, when it's been used for grinding things other than coffee) is to whiz bread and/or bread crumbs through it? It works.

Back to the cooking...I was assigned to salad duty, as I am, as he says, "the salad queen" (I know, I know, but somebody's gotta do it), so I created a dazzling baby spinach and arugula greek-style frisee to offset the sweetness of the crabcakes. Tossed with an olive oil vinaigrette, a few cherry tomatoes, slices of black olives, red onion and some feta cheese -- yum!

Next, he made the dip by whisking together mayonnaise and roasted garlic (yeah, we're crazy, and we often have that handy in the fridge), adding horseradish and some hot pepper sauce. A little salt and pepper and voilá, good eats!

Tom gently fried the crabcakes in a little bit of oil, I poured the chardonnay and set the table, and we enjoyed another lovely April evening.