Mexican Crab Cakes
What happens when a crab cake gets all jacked up on cilantro and serranos? Good things.
What happens when a crab cake gets all jacked up on cilantro and serranos? Good things.
Welcome to Fucking Delicious Friday! Today, I have some lovely crab cakes for you - come on in! I will make you a nice margarita (on the rocks, you guys, don’t let me see you ever sucking on one of those too-sweet margarita-mix-Slushees) and tell you all about it.
My favorite place to shop for groceries during the month of Pandemuary (and it’s been Pandemuary a long time) is a small Latin grocery store near my home. If you want to avoid crowds, don’t go at noon, when all the pickup trucks pull in for the house-made empanadas and tamales. Otherwise, you’ll be in great shape, and you won’t find fresher produce anywhere.
Inspired by the produce there, I decided to make crab cakes with typical Mexican flavorings. I perused some recipes online, but didn’t find much to inspire me, except for one. Chef Alfredo Solis’s crab cakes via Pati Jinich. All the freshness I was looking for - nothing much beyond crab, onion, peppers, and cilantro. I took inspiration and went from there, using what I had on hand and what sounded good.
That is gorgeous, amiright?
The result: Big lumps of crab held together by the tiniest bit of egg and breadcrumbs (and sheer fucking will), flavored with cilantro, onion, and serrano peppers. Plus a serrano-cilantro aioli on top because I am not screwing around, my friends. Give it a go and let me know what you think below!
Shit You Need
Crab Cakes:
1 pound of lump crab meat
1/4 cup minced red onion
2 green onions - white parts, minced
1 serrano pepper, minced. If you like spicy, do two, or take a page from Alfredo Solis’s playbook and use a habañero instead. If you need to tone it down from serrano, go with a jalapeño.
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro leaves
juice of 1/2 lime, freshly squeezed
1 scant tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup serrano-cilantro aioli
1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbs butter (for the pan)
Serrano-Cilantro Aioli:
1 cup homemade aioli or quality mayonnaise
1/2 bunch cilantro, with stems, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic
2 green onions - green parts, roughly chopped
1-2 serrano peppers (depending on how how they are and how spice tolerant you are), seeded and roughly chopped
juice of 1 lime, freshly squeezed
1 tsp kosher salt
Are you eyeing my pan? You can’t have it. Go get your own at Smithey Ironware because they are awesome.
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
Crab Cakes
In a medium bowl, add the crab, onions, pepper, cilantro, lime juice, mayo, bread crumbs, egg, salt and pepper. Toss lightly to combine.
Form into 6 roughly equal-sized patties, place on a plate or small sheet pan, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least an hour, and up to 48 hours. This chill time helps keep these little bastards together when you transfer them to the pan for browning. Plus, hey! Make-ahead potential!
Have a margarita.
Heat butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Using a spatula, carefully transfer crab cakes to the skillet, tucking any loosened crab bits back into place. Don’t crowd the crab cakes - they like their space. Fry in batches if you need to. Cook 3 minutes or so per side, or until golden brown. Flip carefully to keep crab cakes intact.
Serve while hot, accompanied by serrano-cilantro aioli. Serve with lightly dressed greens, with some kickin’ rice, or by themselves as an app.
Serrano-cilantro Aioli
You will notice this is very similar to the aioli recipe that accompanied Life-affirming Grilled Shrimp Tacos. While that one essentially had you making aioli in your blender, albeit with a little creme fraíche in there, this starts with a base of mayo. It’s another way to get a very similar result.
Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and blend
Adjust seasoning if necessary
Boom. Drop mike. Have another margarita.
If this is not the definition of drool-worthy then there is no pleasing you. Give me back my margarita and go home.
Second-best Corn Tortillas in the World
Have you ever lamented the horrible mistakes you’ve made in your life? Drowned in a whiskey-addled funk of self-loathing because if only you knew then what you know now, things would have been different?
A recipe worthy of my inaugural “Fucking Delicious Friday” series.
Have you ever lamented the horrible mistakes you’ve made in your life? Drowned in a whiskey-addled funk of self-loathing because if only you knew then what you know now, things would have been different?
You have? Me, too.
For instance: when I realized how easy it was to make corn tortillas and how much MUCH MUCH better they were than anything you can buy outside of a tortilleria. Like, not even the same ballpark. Not even the same sport.
We must allow ourselves the mistakes of youth, for however else would we learn? We simply must never allow ourselves to repeat those terrible mistakes of the past. Pinky promise with me, will you?
A bag of masa and two minutes, and you will begin to forgive yourself. You may even begin to forget those mistakes. The store bought tortillas, the horrible way you broke up with that one person, the sticky and fumbled way you lost your virginity.
It can all be made right once more. (Cue lighters, raise them in the air and sway as the music swells.)
Masa = hope!
One masa, two masa. Yellow masa, blue masa.
Shit You Need
2 cups masa harina. Not corn meal. The label will read “Instant corn masa flour” or “masa instantánea de maíz”.
1 1/2 cups hot water
one generous pinch of kosher salt
Two minutes of your precious time
This is the consistency you’re going for. Insert winky emoji here.
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
Stir all the ingredients together. Yup, it’s that easy. Ashamed of yourself yet? If it makes you feel better, get your hand in there and really mush it around. Scoop and punch it down…scoop and punch it down, See, this is hard work! No wonder you waited so long!
You are aiming for the consistency of Play-dough. It will hold together without cracking but not really stick to your hand.
With wet hands, take a portion the size of a golf ball and roll it into a, well… ball. If you want to get technical, I use about 1 1/2 ounces for a 6 inch tortilla.
Smush that fucker flat. Plastic on top, plastic on the bottom - a cut zip-top bag works great. Don’t have a tortilla press? I’m not going to make you buy one. Use your skillet. But if you want extra credit, go to your local Latin grocer and buy a tortilla press for $12. It makes it much easier. I press, turn 90 degrees, press, turn 90 degrees, etc. This gives me an even thickness.
How thick should it be? Ever seen a corn tortilla? That thick.
The hardest part of the whole endeavor is peeling the tortilla away from the plastic. So - a.) peel the top plastic away, b.) flip plastic + tortilla onto to your hand, tortilla side down, one edge well supported and the other hanging down (see the handy photo below - aren’t I thoughtful?), c.) gently tease the plastic away, starting on the supported side.
Cooking happens in two parts - the first is on the griddle or in a pan. Sweep the tortilla onto the griddle as if you are finishing a magic trick with a flourish. (Again, see below.) You will be tempted to take a bow. Go ahead. You deserve it.
You will cook this lovely fellow on medium high, about a 30 seconds on each side, but hitting that first side twice (ie 90 second total). Press it a bit with your spatula. If the tortilla fairy smiles on you, it will puff up in the middle and you can claim tortilla genius status.
Wrap the tortilla in a kitchen towel while you work on its comrades. This towel-time steams the tortilla and completes the cooking.
Invite your friends over for your HOMEMADE FUCKING CORN TORTILLAS and let them ooh and aah all over you. You will get all the love. Until they find out these are only the second best corn tortillas in the world…it was nice while it lasted, though, right?
masa flour and salt, 2. peel gently! 3. draping on to the griddle, and 4. note the lovely bubbles!
Serving suggestion of the day: I had some left-over stuffed-poblano stuffing: chicken, grilled corn, green chile, goat cheese, scallions and cilantro, which I sandwiched between corn tortillas and a layer of grated Oaxacan cheese. Fucking delicious.
Calabrian Chile Garlic Nirvana
If crack were a pantry staple, it would be Calabrain chiles. The End.
If crack were a pantry staple, it would be Calabrain chiles. The End.
Smoky and spicy, these chiles have a depth of flavor that is both unique and strangely addictive. Their heat doesn’t accumulate, so there is nothing to stop you from shoving this pasta into your mouth so fast you embarrass yourself.
Consider yourself warned.
My favorite way to use them is simply with garlic, salt, and black pepper as a sauce for pasta, which I then top with fresh chives or scallions. Add to the recipe or mix it up based on what sounds good, what’s in season, or what you have. Roasted red pepper from your pantry shelf, chopped sweet cherry tomatoes, a little fresh mozzarella or…burrata.
Have we discussed burrata? No? Well, if sex were a cheese…no, wait. If GREAT sex were a cheese, it would be burrata. The End.
What follows is the my basic staple sauce. You can follow it exactly as written, or you can do you. Right now, I’ma go get me some burrata.
Shit You Need
Crushed Calabrian chiles in olive oil. I used a heaping tablespoon for a prominent but totally doable heat. Your mileage may vary.
2-3 Tbs olive oil
1 clove of minced garlic
3 Tbs chopped scallions, green parts only
1/2 pound pasta. Whatever you have - that’s the point of a pantry recipe. But if you want something really special, grab fresh filled pasta made locally. Pictured above is a leek and sweet corn-filled ravioli I got at my farmer’s market. It blew my fucking mind.
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
I admit it, this is a pretty shitty mince job. Still tasted good.
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
In a skillet or sauté pan big enough to hold your pasta, add the oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Let this hang out on low heat while you get your water boiling and cook your pasta.
Bring about 6 quarts of salted water to a boil on high heat. Note that the salt is so important I italicized it. We should all be so lucky to be italicized one day.
They say your pasta water should taste like the ocean, which honestly always seemed a little non-specific to me. I mean, Atlantic or Pacific? What about Indian? Anyway, yours should taste obviously salty, otherwise your pasta will taste like cardboard.
Once boiling, add your pasta and cook for 1-2 minutes less than the recommended time. Trust me.
Don’t drain your pasta. Instead, use tongs or a slotted spoon (depending on the variety) to transfer the pasta to your sauté pan. You will transfer a little starchy pasta water, which will emulsify with the oils and help build the sauce. Toss the pasta with the sauce for 1-2 minutes to finish cooking. (See? I told you you could trust me!)
Plate, top with green onion, and serve!
Amazing Fucking Sheet Pan Chicken
The skin on this chicken is literally. The. Best. Thing. Ever.
“Damn, that’s a lot of shallots!”
Let’s start at the beginning.
And by the beginning, I mean all the way at the beginning. Like, at the grocery store. Because no one in her right mind actually has enough shallots at home for this. Could you use regular onions? Not if we’re going to be friends.
Quit whining and get your ass to the store.
That is literally the hardest thing about this recipe. It is ridiculously easy. So easy it inspired the category “Ridiculously Easy”. So easy it has no business being this good.
It was inspired by Jenny Tschiesche’s Sheet Pan Coq au Van which sounded like a great idea (Wine and bacon? Sign me up!) except I had no mushrooms, have a daughter that doesn’t like beans, and happened to have a fuck-ton of shallots because I had stocked up in case shallots were the next toilet paper of the pandemic.
One last thing. The skin on this chicken is literally. The. Best. Thing. Ever.
You don’t eat chicken skin? Neither did my husband before this. Now he eats it. And tries to steal mine, too. Wait a sec… Get your grubby paws off my GODDAMM CHECKEN!!! Okay, I’m back.
Go make this now. You’re welcome.
Shit You Need
Shallots. A fuck-ton. In case you need help with the conversion, that is 2.5 shit-loads.
Garlic, 5 whole cloves
Bacon, 12 oz. Thick sliced, serious gourmet shit, cut into 1/4 inch pieces. That’s right, get your ruler out, fuckers.
Herbs, ideally in sprig form. See below.
Chicken thighs. Family pack action works great here, well- sized for a sheet pan. Can you scale down? Sure, but know that I am judging you.
White wine. Something you’d want to drink. If you use trash, guess what your chicken will taste like? That’s right, the bottom of a dumpster. And you will be drinking it if you follow the directions, so to your future you I say, “See? Never question me again.”
Salt and pepper. Kosher and fresh-ground, respectively. If you cheat on the pepper I will know.
Shallots. A fuck-ton (I counted).
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
Grocery store. Shallots. You know how many. Enough that you can cover a whole sheet pan with a generous layer of those bad boys. Enough that they look at you funny at checkout. Yes, I know they’re three times as expensive as regular onions. Ever bought a cup of coffee at Starbucks? I thought so. So shut up, already.
Now go home and preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Peel the shallots. Many are paired and will separate into little cloven hooves of deliciousness. Spread them across a sheet pan along with the garlic cloves. Don’t want to clean your pan? I got you. A little foil first. You’re welcome.
Scatter the pieces of bacon on top of the shallots like you’re a 2 year old on a sugar high. Throw that shit all over.
Herb time. Whatever you have on hand: rosemary, thyme, anything else from a Simon and Garfunkel song just so long as it holds up to 45 min at 400 degrees. Chives? Naw. Dill? Hell no. Tarragon? Stop wasting my time. Got your herbs? Grab an armful of boughs and scatter.
Apply the chicken thighs across your thoughtfully arranged sprigs. Just like tiling your foyer. Hold the grout.
Season: salt and pepper like you mean it. It only goes on the top of the chicken, but somehow it goes everywhere. It’s fucking magic.
Pop that sheet pan in the oven and walk away for for 20 minutes. Do some other stuff. Open that wine and have a good long drink to make sure it’s good enough.
Pour a cup or so of that wine on the bottom of the sheet pan - not over the chicken. That would fuck up the glorious crispy skin you’re about to get. Roast for 25 min.
Magic has happened. Transfer the shallots to a fancy serving dish or a horse trough, it doesn’t matter. Here’s the important bit: Pour off the sauce into the same dish, top with chicken, throw away the herbs, and toss the bacon back on the sheet pan to roast until it crisps.
Scatter bacon over your head-smacking masterpiece and enjoy!
