Crab Cakes

Knowing we had a can of crabmeat in the fridge, I flipped through a few cookbooks to see what I could do with it. Good old Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill cookbook had the answer for me yet again. Blue cornmeal crabcakes with mango salsa. I happened to have a ripe mango in the house as well, plus scallions, cilantro, and lime, so it seemed like a Flay-esque meal was going to be happening.

But as I read through the ingredients, I realized I would have to make a hell of a lot of substitutions. The crab cakes called for prepared horseradish, dijon mustard, creme fraiche or sour cream, and blue cornmeal. I didn't have horseradish, but I did have horseradish mustard. No sour cream, but I had a container of goat cheese yogurt. And no blue cornmeal, of course, but I had a box of polenta.

Flay suggested that in addition to the mango salsa a smoked red pepper sauce be used on the plates. There weren't any bell peppers in my house at all, but I did have some of Cajun Kate's spicy tomato glaze, which I doctored up with a chipotle en adobo, a bit of mayo to cut the sweet, and a pinch of smoked salt.

They were good, but nothing beats a crab cake made with fresh blue crab, using the recipe on the back of the Old Bay can....