tutorial tuesday: pan-fried crab cakes w/garlic aioli sauce

I have a special affinity for canned seafood. We buy our tuna at Trader Joe's and our salmon at Costco, and we've now found that TJ's also carries a pretty fabulous canned crab, so naturally, this girl had to finally add crab cakes to her repertoire! These are pan-fried in butter and are incredibly simple to throw together.

This recipe feeds our family of three dinner and provides lunch for one or two of us the next day, depending on how hungry we were that first night. Here's what you'll need:

• 3 6oz cans of crab, drained well
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 stalks green onions, sliced thin
• 2 cups crushed ritz
• 2 tsp tarragon
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• a few liberal dashes of pepper
• a dash of cayenne or paprika, depending on how much of a kick you want

Mix all of the ingredients together well in a large bowl. If the mixture seems a bit too loose and floopy, add a little bit more crushed crackers or breadcrumbs. Melt a few tbsp of butter in a large pan over medium heat. Drop the mixture into the pan in globs and gently spread them with your fingers to form patties (the mixture isn't as dense as with salmon patties, so globs work better than trying to make it form into a specific shape). Fry on each side for 5-7 minutes, adding more butter whenever the pan looks like it's getting dry. Depending on the size of your pan, you'll do this in 2 or 3 batches. After they are fried up, remove them from the pan and transfer to a paper-towel covered plate to soak up the extra butter.

Now it's time to whip together some garlic aioli sauce to dip your crab cakes in! I don't measure for this and just whip and stir this assortment of ingredients until it has the taste and consistency I want:

• mayonnaise
• lemon juice
• olive oil
• pressed garlic or garlic powder
• dried parsley
• pepper
• dried dill

This is generally how I do any kind of dipping sauce, whether it be tartar sauce (mayo, lime juice, dill pickle relish, dried dill, pepper) or tzatziki sauce (mayo, lemon juice, dried dill, pepper, celery seed) or fry sauce (mayo & ketchup). As long as I have mayo in the house, I have very little need for buying pre-made sauces and dips.