Recipe • Crab Cakes and Sauce!

When I was in Florida in January, I tried my first-ever crab cake. I've never been very interested in seafood. I ate fish sticks and tuna sandwiches as a kid, lobster whenever I visited Maine for the Fourth of July, and the occasional (cooked) sushi roll. Something about seeing "Crab Cakes" on the menu that fateful night called out to me. I loved them so much that I wish I never had tried them, because I'm now mad that I spent my whole life not knowing the glory of a crab cake.

Crab cakes can be quite expensive at restaurants, so I decided to learn to make my own. After Google searching a bunch of different recipes, I took bits and pieces from each and designed my own. Frank helped with the preparations, and we made a few different dipping sauces, too.

CRAB CAKE RECIPE
3 ounces bread crumbs (you may need more; see below)
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
2 whole eggs
1 pound lump crab meat
some oil

This recipe usually takes about 20 minutes and makes about 4-6 crab cakes.

Mix eggs, bread crumbs, and Old Bay seasoning in a large bowl. Fold in crab meat carefully, because you don't want to break up the pieces. If it looks too "wet," add more bread crumb. Heat up some oil in a pan. Shape the crab meat into small patties and fry both sides in the pan. Voilà!

DIP RECIPES
1/2 cup mayonnaise
any other ingredients you want, but we used:
hot sauce
horseradish
horseradish mustard
cayenne
relish
creole seasoning
Old Bay seasoning
black pepper
barbeque sauce
Cool Ranch Doritos (crushed)

Dip 1: mayo, hot sauce, horseradish, horseradish mustard, relish, cayenne
Dip 2: mayo, hot sauce, horseradish mustard, relish, cayenne, creole seasoning, Old Bay seasoning, black pepper
Dip 3: mayo, horseradish mustard, barbeque sauce, Cool Ranch Doritos (crushed)

Combine all of your selected ingredients in a bowl with a spoon. Chill before serving. The amount of each ingredient is up to you. Whenever I make the dips, I just eyeball each amount, taste it, and adjust from there. Also, don't judge me re: the BBQ sauce/chips. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision and I do not regret it. ;)