This meal, however, was rather southern in nature. I made corn and crab fritters, which are more dough-y than actual crab cake would be but are a slightly similar idea. I also whipped up some fresh, buttermilk biscuits that still managed to be low in fat! Finally, I rounded out the meal with the Caramelized Onion, Green Bean, and Cherry Tomato Tian that I made a few months ago. It was just as yummy as I imagined it! Want to try something new though and stick with the southern feel? Feel free to mix it up with collard greens or squash. Post in the comments if you do!
Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: medium
Corn and Crab Fritters
Remember, if you are looking for crab cakes this is NOT the recipe you want. Crab cakes are nearly entirely crab meat whereas this has flour and corn. These are truly fritters - delicious but different.
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
4 tbsp diced chives
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
3/4 cup corn kernels
16 oz jumbo lump crabmeat
1/8 cup vegetable oil
(this recipe is based upon a similar one from Cooking Light)
Mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and chives in a bowl. Mix the eggs and buttermilk in a different bowl. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until evenly combined. It should be fairly tacky.
Drain the corn if it came from a can or thaw it out if it was frozen. Sort through the crab with your fingers to ensure all those little bits of shell are truly out of the package. Then, add the corn and crab and mix evenly.
Heat about half of your oil over medium high heat. When it's hot, form patties with your hands and add them to the pan. The mixture should be sticky and easy to form into patties. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side or until the fritters look done. Serve them with fresh guacamole or salsa.
Buttermilk Biscuits
And now for the biscuits! I have to admit, this was my first time making biscuits. But I quickly learned that all of the flakiness comes from continually folding the dough over and over, giving it many layers. Follow along to learn how!
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp butter (chilled)
3/4 cup fat free buttermilk
3 tbsp honey
(this recipe is from Cooking Light)
Get your oven preheating to 400 degrees. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Yes, there is salt in this, but in baking you often need a little for rising so best not to skip this part.
Take your chilled butter and slice it into little pieces. Drop the pieces into the mixture and use two knives to cut the butter into the flour mixture until it looks like course meal. Place the bowl in the fridge and let it cool for 10 minutes.
Mix the buttermilk and honey with a whisk until well blended. Add this to the flour and stir until the dough is moist. It will not get very moist, as this is a flaky dough, but you do want it to be holding together, more or less.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface (I typically use my countertop) and knead for a couple minutes. Make sure not to over knead - just a minute or two is enough. Roll the dough out so it's a roughly 9 inch by 5 inch rectangle. Lightly dust it with flour - just a little. Then, fold the dough into thirds as if you were trying to get a piece of paper to fit into an envelope.
Roll the dough out again into the rectangle. The dough should be about 1/2" thick. Again, lightly dust with flour. Fold it in thirds again. Then pat or gently roll the down so it is just 3/4" thick. If you have a cookie cutter, you can use it here, but I just sliced up the dough into pieces that were about 1.5" squares. Place them on a greased baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes.
Because they are so flaky you can pull them in half, put a little bit of butter in the middle, and then squish the warm dough back together. Delightful!
No comments:
Post a Comment