Saucy Little Crabs

My brother in law is a fisherman so yesterday my sister brought over two lovely, very fresh crabs. They were Dungeness which taste a little crabby for me to eat all by themselves so here is what I did with them.

Petite Crab Cakes with Tarragon Aioli

The green stuff is sauteed rapini and broccoli which almost ended up being the star of the plate. Matt kept taking bites and saying "what is this?!" and eating more. He loved the rapini. Then there are the crab cakes with hardly any filler, which is key in a good crab cake. And my Tarragon Aioli! I've never made aioli before so I was pretty excited that it actually worked. It really wasn't that hard either. This recipe will make a lot of it, so we're having chicken sandwiches with it tonight. I had a whole mason jar worth left over!

Tarragon Aioli Recipe

2 egg yolks

3-4 garlic cloves (depends on how much you like garlic!)

juice from one lemon

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 C. of almost boiling water

2 C. Olive oil

1 small bunch of tarragon, chopped fine

You want to use your food processor for this, and add your egg yolks, garlic, lemon juice, and salt. Give it a whirl until the cloves are all chopped up. With your processor running on low, pour in the hot water and process for about 15 seconds. Keep the machine running and slowly drizzle in your oil, once it's all incorporated the texture should be like smooth mayonnaise. Stir or process in your chopped tarragon and you're done! If you choose to process it in, do it by pulsing and only barely mixing it in, otherwise your aioli will be very green!

Crab cakes recipe

12 ounces Dungeness crab meat

1/3 C. Panko bread crumbs

1-2 green onions

1/4-1/2 C. tarragon aioli

Oil for cooking

Combine your crab, crumbs, and green onion. Add your 1/4 cup of aioli and gently work it together. Don't overwork your ingredients. The cakes should be loose and just barely hold togther. If they don't hold, add a little more aioli until they do.

Form into cakes and gently roll in bread crumbs. I got seven petite cakes out of mine. I then set them aside on a plate and quickly heated up about two Tbsp. of oil in a large, heavy skillet. Once your oil is hot, very gently put in your cakes. Saute until lightly browned and gently turn over. This part is hard.. a spatula by itself breaks them, so does tongs, so I used a combination of  a spatula and a spoon! Once that side is browned as well, plate them up and serve with some additional aioli sauce.