'Poor Girl' Crab Cakes with Tahini Red Pepper Rémoulade

After all work and no play Labor day weekend, I decided to take it bit easy today. Went for my long run of the week. Lazily dragged my feet to yoga class. Instructor is undergoing some minor surgery and her substitute is hmm...she is okay. The drawback of yoga classes in a gym is that after a while, it's same ol' same ol' and gets very predictable. But real deal yoga studio is way $$$$$!! And I refuse to pay both gym and yoga studio membership! So, to lighten up my mood after yoga, or, for all its worth, after such relaxing session, it leaves me with all sort of energy! yupee!! ;) I thought about chili crab! Ohh..how much I would love to dig into one!! But ya know how inconvinence that is to fry a crab in tiny kitchen with not so great ventilation? I don't even want to think about it.

But I want spicy crab dish!! Vik suggested to do a take-out from this one Chinese place, but that's not exactly what I wanted. I want something with thick sauce/gravy. Hm...gumbo sounds soo good!! Bought few beautiful red peppers from farmer's market over the weekend. Couple stalk of celery in fridge. Fresh thyme. Far from original whole crab idea, but oohh..nice firm lumpy crab meat (and without the frying and all) just sound as great!

Got home and nooo..we forgot to grab some crusty French Bread!!!! Looking at time, it's a little bit too late anyway to fix a pot of gumbo, the time to make the roux. Thus, we come to the decision of crab cakes. :D But we got to use it sparingly - still want chunks of crab in my gumbo tomorrow. That said, we'll just call it 'poor girl' crabcakes, since I added tons of other stuff to it. Little crab, tons of other stuff to make up for it. Heee..And, I have a small jar of red-pepper jelly!!! Perfect for nice rémoulade.

What:
- 1/3 cup lump crab meat (picked through, make sure no shells)
- 1/4 cup red peppers, chopped
- 4 shallots, coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
- 1/4 cup celery, chopped
- 1/4 cup mushroom, chopped
- 2 tbsp fat free sour cream
- 1/2 tsp of dijon mustard
- 1 slice of whole wheat bread (tear to small pieces)
- 1 small red skin potatoes, boiled and mashed with skin intact
- few dash of tabasco sauce
Rémoulade:
- 1 1/2 tbsp tahini
- 5 tbsp yogurt
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 2 full overflowing tbsp red pepper jelly
- handful of chopped coriander

How:
- Heat a little bit olive oil in pan. Fry shallots and garlic.
- Add in celery, red pepper, mushroom. Sweat them for few minutes. Remove from heat, let cool.
- In a bowl, toss mashed potatoes, stir in dijon mustard, sour cream and torn pieces of bread.
- Toss in celery mixture. Mix thoroughly.
- Gently fold in crab meat.
- Make few patties.
- Pan fry with little oil in the pan. For not having much binding agent (eggs, breadcrumbs), these babies are softer in texture (but not at all mushy!!). So, once put in pan, just let it be for few minutes to get a nice crisp sturdier bottom, no poking or move it around. Gently flip and brown the other side.
- Whip all the dipping sauce ingredients together.

The tahini-red pepper combo whipped with fresh coriander leaves makes the dish feel less 'poor'!! With some olive oil, it can be made into fine salad dressing! Or, simply sandwich spread.