Crabcakes & Football!

"That's what Maryland does!"

So Matt and I had his future XO, Winston, over for dinner on Tuesday night, and to keep with the theme of our future Southern move, he suggested I do a low country boil again. I discussed it with a nurse I work with, Lulu, who told me the ways of the south, and corrected me on my ignorant northern mistakes of the last batch I made. This time I got 4 lbs of shrimp, 3 lbs of snaussy (my word for sausage), red potatoes, and corn. I didn't use all of the shrimp & sausage, that's quite a bit for just three people.

"Get you some lemons and cut 'em up, squeeze 'em into a big ol' pot, cut you an onion in half and th'ow it in there, and get you a bag of crab boil... them seasoning bags, not the powder." So I did. Except I don't have quite a big enough ol' pot for all that food, so I used two medium ol' pots. (Thanks Jamie C.!)

I decided that though all these pounds of food was going to be filling, my meal lacked the variety of several courses, so I went back to the store and got the makings for an appetizer: crabcakes. I hadn't ever made crabcakes before, and I'm not one for recipes. My dad makes them all the time, so I took what I remember from his batches, and mixed it with what I remember tasting and seeing in a batch Matt's Aunt Mimi made at her low country boil, and came up with my own blend of crabcake ingredients.

I got some crab claw meat, some yellow/orange chili peppers, some cilantro and parsley, and plennnnty of Old Bay seasoning, and blended it all with mayonnaise (Yuck! I can't believe I used mayo. Anyone have any substitutes?) and an egg. I let it sit like that in the fridge for a while and then made them into little cakes and coated them in panko.

I threw one in a frying pan to test it out, and my mayo fear came through... I can't stand it so I minimized the amount, and the crabcake came apart. (Also, I had too much oil in the pan). So, I decided to pop the other 7 in the oven for a few minutes before frying them, and that seemed to workout much better. I did eat the one that came apart. It still tastes the same when it's not stuck together! Anywhoo, they came out pretty tasty. I even ate a leftover one for breakfast yesterday!