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Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Delicious crab cakes

December 29, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

A traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner is comprised of numerous courses of fish. It was a sin, way back, to eat meat on Christmas Eve and many folks fasted all day too.

However, my brother David was born on Christmas Eve so things got all catawampus at our house. David is the second oldest, was born with no name in mind. The story goes that after attending midnight mass, my father went back to the hospital and said he had to be named David, as that was the most mentioned name in the entire service.

Then I moved to New York and every Jewish person I met was totally surprised that our Catholic family had a son named David! Oy vey!

Well David and his brood (7 kids and 10 grandchildren with 2 more on the way) still live in St. Louis. So all of us on the East coast could go back to a more traditional meal, rather than his birthday request.

Here is what I served for this year.

Appetizers:
Taramusalata with red pepper and celery sticks
Greek cheese & aged Gouda with Breton crackers
Beautiful bunch of grapes

Dinner:
Crab cakes on a bed of Boston lettuce with chipotle mayonnaise and 1/2 slice of warm homemade Polish bread just out of the oven.
Steamed whole striped bass with ginger and lemon
Fennel salad
Coarse bulgar with olive oil and parsley
Oven roasted plum tomatoes with oregano

Dessert:
Christmas cookies, of course!

David’s wife, Pat, requested the crab cake recipe. This is from Preston Clark at Food and Wine magazine and it is the best crab cake recipe I have found so far. Now my husband is from Baltimore, so this is a big deal. Baltimoreans know their crab and they serve up the BEST jumbo lump crab cakes. A fine restaurant there will never use a lot or maybe any breading, but then I could never figure out how they got them to hold together because every time I would try to replicate their recipes, they would taste good, but look terrible as they always fell apart.

This recipe uses another fish as a binding – it’s genius! Fresh and full of flavor with the jalapeños and scallions, and crispy on the outside, you will love these. And they hold together nicely.

Crab cake on a Boston lettuce leaf with organic watercress and chipotle mayo

Crab cake on a Boston lettuce leaf with organic watercress and chipotle mayo

Here you go!

CRISP CRAB CAKES WITH CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE – ADAPTED FROM PRESTON CLARK
-serves 8 as a first course or 4 as a main

Crab Cakes
1/4 – 1/2 lb. skinless flounder fillet, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
5 scallions, thinly sliced
3 jalapeños, seeded and minced
3 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbs. chopped parsley
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 lb. lump or jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over for shells, lay out on a paper towel and pat dry on top
1 1/4 cups panko bread crumbs
Pure olive oil, for frying (I think I might try canola or peanut next time to get it at a higher temperature.)

Chipotle Mayonnaise
This makes a lot and all is not necessary for the crab cakes, but you can use leftovers for other meat sandwiches, especially turkey would be good
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 chipotle chile in adobo, seeded and minced (or leave the seeds in if you like it spicey – I did)
1 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground pepper

To make the cakes:
In a mini food processor, puree the fish. A small fillet is about 8 oz and my fishmonger wouldn’t sell any less so I used the whole 1/2 lb. and pureed it in two batches. Transfer the pureed fish to a large bowl and add the scallions, jalapeños, lemon juice, parsley, cayenne, salt, pepper and mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the crabmeat. Form the mixture into 8 cakes. Place the panko in a pie plate and gently coat the cakes with the panko and refrigerate for 30 minutes. It is important to refrigerate them for at least 30 minutes, so you can handle them and they hold their shape when frying.

To make the mayonnaise:
In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, chipotle, lemon juice, Old Bay and mustard and season with salt and black pepper. Cover and refrigerate.

To fry the cakes:
In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1/4 inch of oil until shimmering. Add the crab cakes and cook over moderate heat until browned and heated through, about 3 minutes per side. Use 2 skillets or do 2 batches as 4 at a time is enough.

To serve:
I served the crab cakes on a bed of one Boston lettuce leaf topped with watercress with a dab of the chipotle mayonnaise. Squeeze a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice on the outside rim of the lettuce, before placing on the crab cake, then put on your dab of mayonnaise.

So pretty. So fresh. So good!!

Covered bread.

Covered bread

Homemade Polish bread on a white napkin.

Homemade Polish bread – the slight sweetness of this bread offset the spiciness of the crab cake with chipotle mayo – yummy!

Filed Under: Appetizers, Dinner, First Course, Fish, Lunch Tagged With: Baltimore, Chipotle, chipotle mayonnaise, Christmas Eve, crab, crab cakes, Dijon mustard, Dinner, entertaining, Food and Wine magazine, lemon, love, mustard, Old Bay seasoning, Polish Christmas Eve, Preston Clark

A fantastic first course!

October 28, 2011 by Mary Frances 5 Comments

This is just so good! Easy and healthy too. Now you could ask your fish monger to do the cleaning but the last time I did that at Stew Leonard’s, he just made a mangled mess out of the cute little fish. My regular fish monger, the wonderful guys at Sea Breeze on 9th Ave and 40th St., won’t clean or filet them because they are just too small. But it’s so easy to do it yourself! So toughen your stomach and get going!

GRILLED SARDINES
– serves 2 as a first courseGrilled sardines on a brown plate.

4 whole sardines
4 thin slices of lemon, each cut in half
4 – 8 fresh thyme sprigs
olive oil
salt
pepper

Light a grill or preheat your broiler on high.

Start with freshest whole sardines with clear eyes. Wash each fish and with a sharp knife (always have your knives sharp), carefully slit the underside of the fish to remove the guts. You will be cutting 2/3’s of the way down the fish from under the head and not all the way to the tail and you’ll be cutting a tiny bit more that halfway into the fish’s body. Do this under running water and grab the innards out with your fingers and get the inside thoroughly clean. Pat thoroughly dry with a paper towel, inside and out. Rub olive oil on the outside of each fish, sprinkle with salt and pepper on one side, then sprinkle salt and pepper on the plate you’re going to use and place the unseasoned side of the oiled fish on the plate and rub around to salt and pepper the bottom side. (Isn’t that a neat  trick? I learned this at a cooking class/birthday party for my friend Deb at a fancy restaurant.) Cut each lemon slice in half and place in the cavity of the fish along with a spring or two of fresh thyme.

Grill or broil for approximately 2 minutes on each side. They’re ready when the tip of a knife flakes the thickest part easily, and the outside is nicely browned and crispy.

Filet the fish as you eat and enjoy!! Fish are actually more flavorful when cooked with the bones in. These are yummy! You can serve with more fresh lemon but we think using the juices from the grilled lemon is enough.

Filed Under: Appetizers, Fish Tagged With: Dinner, first course, fish, lemon, olive oil, pepper, salt, sardines, thyme

One dish meals

October 15, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

I was just thinking how much I love one dish meals for weeknights. What could be simpler? You’ve got your carbohydrates, vegetables and proteins all in one. You can serve it in a lovely flat soup bowl and hopefully the recipe will only cause one or two pots to be dirtied, so clean up is a breeze as well. The Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Chicken Sausage recipe in my last entry is a good example but there are so many. Gnocchi with Shrimp and Snowpeas, Veal Stew with Rosemary and Lemon on Polenta, Orecchiette with Shrimp and Broccoli Rabe, all listed earlier here are other great ones. Think of the many combinations you can make – use your imagination. Combine things you love and you won’t go wrong. Remember to relax, have fun, and pour love into it!Farfalle with lamb sausage and escarole.

Farfalle with lamb sausage and escarole.

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: broccoli rabe, chicken sausage, gnocchi, lemon, love, one dish meals, pasta, polenta, rosemary, shrimp, snowpeas, veal

Correctable mistakes

September 29, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

We all make mistakes. And fortunately, some can be fixed.

I happen to love salt, And I like to only use French grey salt, which has so much more flavor than Kosher or regular sea salts. My husband and one son are not big on salt whereas my oldest is more like me.

correctable mistakes too much salt.So the other night I was fixing a pan of cauliflower, olive oil, salt and pepper to roast in the oven. In preparing it, I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been and I immediately knew I over salted. And my husband HATES that. I could already hear the coming comments.

So what to do? When the cauliflower was done, I pulled the pan out and lifted each piece of cauliflower out with tongs – no scraping of the olive oil and all that salt with a spatula to put on the platter. No no.Then I squeezed some fresh lemon juice over all.

It worked! No comments from the peanut gallery. They ate it all up!

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: cauliflower, lemon, mistakes, over-salting

Veal stew with rosemary and lemon

September 22, 2011 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

I made this last night for dinner. It should serve 4 but it was so good we cleaned it all up. You really should make this ahead of time or on the weekend to have time to simmer the veal the full hour and 15 minutes. I rushed it and only simmered it 45 minutes and it was still so tasty and good. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Veal stew in a white bowl.

VEAL STEW WITH ROSEMARY AND LEMON – serves 4
2 tbs. olive oil
1.5 lbs. boneless veal shoulder, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbs. unsalted butter
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1.5 large carrots, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup tomato sauce, preferably homemade
1 heaping tbs. coarsely chopped rosemary
1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
2 tbs. chopped fresh basil
Polenta with Parmesan, for serving

In a large enameled cast-iron casserole, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the  veal, (use a paper towel to dry the meat first.) season with salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat until browned all over, about 8 minutes. Transfer the veal to a plate.

In the same casserole, melt the butter in the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the celery, onion and carrot and cook over low heat until softened and golden, about 8 – 10 minutes. Add the wine and boil over moderately high heat until almost evaporated. Add the tomato sauce, rosemary and veal, along with any accumulated juices. Cover and simmer over low heat, stirring once or twice, until the veal is very tender, about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or you can rush this to 45 minutes. Stir in the lemon zest and season with salt and pepper, if necessary. Spoon the Polenta with Parmesan into bowls, top with the veal stew, finish with the chopped basil and serve.

Make Ahead The stew can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Filed Under: Dinner, Meat Tagged With: carrots, celery, lemon, polenta, rosemary, stew, veal, white wine

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