I wanted to try something a little different from your traditional slider, and I did that by changing my main ingredient from poultry to seafood. I was craving sushi earlier today, and since I am pretty sure that homemade sushi won’t compare to my beloved Sushi Imari rolls, I decided to emulate my take of a California Roll slider… and with the help of Mr. Krabs and Spongebob, I came up with the name for today’s slider: The Bonafide Crabby Patty.
I used imitation crab meat for my patty, Kanimi crab cakes (found at Ralphs, already assembled and they saved me a bunch of refrigeration time had I made them from a lump of crab meat from a can), so the bonafide part only applies to the idea that its a “crab”-by patty, bear with me okay.
Even though I used imitation crab meat, when I started to assemble my patty I knew that it would be missing spice and zest so I pulled the cakes apart until they were just decomposed crab meat and added cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt, and freshly squeezed lemon. I added bread crumbs to solidfy the slider patty and then placed them on the skillet.
While I was waiting for the skillet to heat up, I whipped up the Spicy Mayo. Super simple recipe, and I know everyone makes it different, but I added waaaay more Sriracha than the recipe stated, sorry I like it spicy (I am not sorry, and those of you who agree don’t be either). I was surprised when the recipe called for lemon because when I eat Spicy Mayo at Sushi places I don’t really taste the lemon in the flavor profile, but safe to say it was necessary when I had my first lick from the bowl, it really added that zesty zing.
After letting the crabby patties cook for about 15 minutes, I spread the Spicy mayo on the buttered Hawaiian Rolls and then cut up some avocado pieces, sprinkled salt on top, and impatiently photographed the sliders. It was a necessary torture, but that first bite was definitely the best. As a tip, you need to really watch your crab cakes as they cook, they can easily burn and the char won’t taste the same as a char does on meat. If I had to fix one thing, I would have flattened the crab cakes, almost like a latka shape, just so that I could 1) make more patties with less meat and 2) cook the patties faster without burning them/worrying that the inside isn’t cooked.
This was also the first slider that took less than an hour for prep (and even less than that if you consider the fact that I was photographing everything), so keep this guy in mind, it could be a perfect party appetizer!
-shiv-
