Seattle Surf and Turf: Fresh Dungness crab cakes with an Herb Crusted Lamb and a Local Frisee salad of radishes, blackberries served with a vinegarette

Firstly, let me say…my experiences with surf and turf dishes, meals, dinners have always been lackluster aka nasty. Whether the lobster smelled or the steak was cold…every time something made me regret ordering surf and turf.

But last night, despite Ash not liking lamb I nailed it! Here is how this whole idea/ meal went down…

I headed over to Pike Place Market yesterday during a very rare lunch (normally I do not leave the office for lunch). As I walked through my usual spots of Franks Produce, BB Ranch and Jack’s Fish Spot…I thought a stacked crab cake with rack of lamb would be awesome…aka surf and turf! If you remember from last week, I made crab cakes and nailed them. But even before we created the Seattle cook I had made herb crusted rack of lamb and loved it! So the crab with the lamb with a frisee salad is what I decided to make.

Here is the funny part…Ash who planned to make chicken last night would not say when she was coming home so I literally ran (2 blocks) home to get started before she got there! Of course who is in the elevator being sneaky…ASH! 🙂 Busted! She too was going to start cooking before me…but since I had seafood and lamb…she decided to have a Corona. I begged her to help and in the end she did…as you will read.

Let’s start with the Crab cakes…

Last week’s crab cakes were great, this week they were better…basically I used the same ingredients as before but this time bought more crab meat about 3/4 a pound. And instead of using a cracker in the slurry/ mixture I used Panko. Again the key to a crab cake is less filler more crab.

Put to the side.

Moving on…Herb crusted rack of lamb…

Ask your butcher or where ever you get your rack (6 -7 chops per rack) to “french it,” this means they shave the tips of the meat off the rip to expose the bone…aka making in look fancy.

On the fat side of the rack make several slits, Cris-crossing across the back section.

Next salt and pepper all sides of the rack.

Using a blender…take 2 cups of Panko, rosemary, a drizzle of EVOO, cilantro, salt and pepper and blitz. This will turn the bread crumbs green…and its just impressive.

Put to the side.

The Frisee salad…

In a bowl I mixed about 5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablepoon of white wine vinegar, pinch of salt and pinch of pepper. You definitely do not want to mix the dressing and the salad together up until a couple minutes before serving.

I sliced off the end of the frisee, sliced some radishes, chopped a little cilantro, and added some blackberries.

Put to the side.

The aioli…Ash recommended something to combine all the flavors (after she had a beer and wine 8-)…made sense to me 😎 …here it is…

• 4 tsp of pesto
• 1-2 tbsp mayo
• 1/2 lemon, squeezed
• Fresh pepper, to taste
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp horseradish, to taste

Get a small bowl and combine…mayonnaise, pesto cubes from Trader joes (melt on stove), a dash of Dijon mustard (she did not see me do this…till now8-), creamy horseradish, ground pepper and a dash of olive oil.

Put to the side.

Timing is everything as I found out…

Both the crab cakes and the rack were now ready to be cooked…but I figured both would take 10 minutes…unfortunately the rack took closer to 20 minutes…none the less…

Follow the directions from the crab cakes post…but here’s the basic summary…heat the pan up on high, put in a healthy pat of butter and put the crab cakes in…they basically take about 5 minutes per side.

Now the rack of lamb…As one of my favorite chef’s says, “No color no flavor,” Gordon Ramsay🙂 Heat the pan up on high…once the pan is hot, sear all sides of the rack roughly 4 minutes for the already slit side, 1 minute per end and 3 minutes for rib side down.

Pop the rack into the oven for about 4 minutes at 375 – 400 degrees.

Using a towel 🙂 take the extremely hot pan out of the oven and place on the stove. Using tongs pull out the rack and put onto a cutting board. Quicky, but evenly spread Dijon mustard on all sides of the rack.

Next cover all sides of the rack with the herb crust, that you prepared earlier.

Pop back in the oven for about 6 minutes.

***Timing on all this really depends on your rack and your heat. So…just a note 🙂

PLATING…

Take the aioli and put a tablespoon glob onto the plate and make a swirl…if you have seen anything on the Food Network ever you know what I am talking about. Next Put the crab cake slightly to the side but still on the aioli.

Once the rack is done…cut into individual pieces and put one of those pieces on to the crab cake.

Next combine the frisee salad with the dressing and put on top of the lamb.

The whole soup to nuts recipe probably takes 1 to 1.5 hours…but with a good music playlist…time flys.

Seattle Surf and Turf: Fresh Dungness crab cakes with an Herb Crusted Lamb and a Local Frisee salad of radishes, blackberries served with a vinegarette….DONE!!!!