Crab Cakes and Chipotle Mayonnaise on Garden Greens

Saturday November 3

It's always good to have some crabmeat on hand in case the urge for crab cakes strikes. We used to buy the little tuna-type cans, but now we get a pound can of the better-quality refrigerated crabmeat every time we go to Trader Joe's, and just stick it in the refrigerator.

The general ethos for crab cakes (and indeed, salmon cakes) is here.

To make two crabcakes each, we used about half a pound of crabmeat, and added a Tbsp. or two of finely diced red onion, celery, and a few Holt-made breadcrumbs. The binding is just enough mayonnaise to hold it together, with a dab of Dijon mustard. The patties get carefully dipped in finer Holtbreadcrumbs, then fried in oil.

The garden is now agog with tender fall lettuces, so it was easy to pick a spinnerful and make green, springy beds for the crabcakes.

We adorned them and the cakes with some mayonnaise mixed with lime juice, chipotle and its adobo sauce (which we also keep on hand in the fridge). More rummaging in the garden produced the requisite chives to cross on top of the cakes like a great la-di-da poofter.

We're also adding a picture of Holt's incredibly cute buns:
And Barbara, who's just incredibly cute.