Hey family, it's Chef Rick and welcome back to Technique Monday on Unseen Cuisine. And welcome to week two of Restaurant Week. Last week we traveled from our Mongolian trio to miso glazed black cod and we finished that with dairy-free bread pudding with warm whiskey sauce. Today we're going seafood. We're making jumbo lump crab cakes with a dairy-free Cajun white wine caper sauce. Now, when I order crab cakes, I want crab. I don't want to go searching for it underneath a bunch of fillers. So today, Techniques Monday lesson is about texture and restraint. How much binder is enough? How do you keep those jumbo pieces of crab intact? And how do you know your crab cake is ready when you're not depending on color? We're going to use aroma, touch, sound, resistance, temperature, and organization to tell us what's happening. That's the culinary cockpit. So let's get cooking. Here's what you need. This recipe approximately makes four generous crab cakes using a number eight scoop or a large ice cream scoop. Now for the crab cakes, you're gonna need one pound of jumbled up crab meat, a half a cup of mayonnaise, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, one fresh lemon juice to taste, one dash of Tabasco sauce, one large egg yolk, two teaspoons of au Bay seasoning, one tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley, three slices of fresh bread, crushed removed, and cut into small cubes. Country croc plant-based butter melted for finishing, and pepperica for finishing. Now for the Cajun white wine caper sauce, you're gonna need a tablespoon of country croc plant-based butter, one small shallot minced finely, one clove of garlic minced, a half a cup of dry white wine, one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, one tablespoon of capers drained, half a teaspoon of Cajun seasoning, a half a cup of country croc plant-based cream, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, one tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley, and one tablespoon of country croc plant-based butter for finishing and culture salt only if needed. Now, with all of that said, let's set up our culinary cockpit. First, you want to preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Before we start, you want to orientate yourself in your culinary cockpit. You want to keep your crab in one location, your wet ingredients together, your bread in another area, and your seasonings together. You have mixing bowls, spoons, flexible spatula, number eight scoop or your large ice cream scoop, sheet pan, pastry brush, spoon, saucepan, and other mix. Also, your accessible instant read thermometer where you can reach them. Establish your landing zone for that hot sheet pan before it goes into the oven. Because once we start cooking, we're not searching, everything has a home. And with that, that is safety through systems. So, what we're gonna do is we're going to check our crab. Before we cover that crab with seasoning, let's find out what we have. First, you want to start with the aroma. Fresh crabs smell clean, mild, slightly sweet, and a little briny or ocean-like. What we don't want is sour, ammonia-like, or a strong, unpleasant odor. If you smell that, you need to stop and get rid of it and start over. Once you do that, you've noticed that you have reached your aroma checkpoint. Now, with clean hands, gently fill through the crab meat. Use your fingers and move slowly. What you're checking for is anything hard or sharp that could be shell or cartilage. Remove any that you find, but don't squeeze or mash the crab. Feel those large, delicate pieces. That's what we're trying to protect. Wash and dry your hands and let's make the binder. We're going to build our binder in a medium bowl, and what you're going to combine is your mayonnaise, Dijon, Worcestershire, Squeeze of Lemon, Tabasco, and egg yolk. You're going to wix all of that together and add your obey and parsley. Before this touches the crab, I want you to taste it. Do you have enough lemon? Can you taste the obey? Do you want another small dash of Tabasco? Make those adjustments now. Once we add the crab, we want to handle this as little as possible. Now, what we're gonna do now, after you make that, we're going to mix it together. You're gonna place your bread cubes and jumbo lump into a large mixing bowl. Now, here's the important part: don't add all your binder all at once. Add some around the crab in the bread, take your spoon or flexible spatula. Inside the bowl, you're going to scrape and you're going to flip. Slide underneath the mixture, lift, fold it over, turn the bowl slowly and repeat. We're folding, we're not stirring, we're not mashing. At first, the mixture will feel loose, and some of the bread still maybe feel dry. Add a little bit more binder and fold in again. Now let's check in. With clean hands, take a small amount and gently bring it together in your palm. Don't squeeze. If it immediately falls apart, you need a little more binder. If it feels wet, heavy, and pasty, you've added too much. We want moist and cohesive enough to hold together under gentle pressure. While you still can feel the individual pieces of jumbo lump crab, that's your texture checkpoint. And remember, the recipe gives us the formula. How sensors give us the final answer. Formula crab cakes. Grab your number eight scoop or large ice cream scoop. Gently fill it in with the crab mixture. Don't pack it down. We're not making snowballs here. Let the mixture settle naturally into the scoop. Level it gently and release it onto your sheet pan. Use your fingertips to bring in any loose edges. Don't flatten it, don't keep squeezing it into shape. It should feel lightly formed, delicate, but stable enough to hold together. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Now melt a little country plant-based butter. Brush or lightly drizzle some over each crab cake with pepperica. If you're working without sight, use a consistent spaceshoe pattern. Start with crab cake closest to you on the left. Butter, pepperica. Move to the next one. Butter pepperica. Continue in the same direction until you finish them all. Now you know exactly which crab cakes you season without having to touch them again. That is spaceshoe mapping. Into the oven they go. Place the crab cakes into your 400-degree oven. Start with approximately 10 minutes. But remember, the clock supports your senses, it does not replace them. While they bake, let's make the sauce. Once it melts, add your shallots. Listen, you want a gentle sizzle, not aggressive frying. Now smell that sharp raw onion aroma will begin to become softer, sweeter, more aromatic. Add your garlic. Garlic moves quickly, so stay with it. When that sharp, raw garlic aroma becomes warm, fragrant, I want you to add the white wine. Listen to the pan. That gentoo saute becomes a wetter, more active simmer. That changes the sound, and sound is information. Now, let the wine reduce by roughly half. As it cooks, move your spoon through the pan. At first, you'll feel plenty of loose liquid. As the wine reduces, there will be less liquid moving around your spoon. You may also notice that the sharper alcohol aroma begins to soften. Add your lemon juice, capers, Cajun seasoning, Dijon, and Worcestershire, and stir. Add your country croc plant-based cream and lower the heat. I want you to listen again. The sauce will begin sounding a little quieter and heavier as body develops. Now pay attention to your spoon. At first, it moves through the sauce easily. As the sauce reduces, you'll begin to feel a little bit more resistance. We want it smooth and thick enough to lightly coat the back of your spoon while still being able to easily drizzle. You don't want a gravy, not a paste. And you reach your texture checkpoint. Now, let's use C. Stop, engage, evaluate. Smell the garlic, shallot, white wine, lemon juice, occasion spice, briny capers. Move your spoon through the sauce. Does it still have a little body? I want you to taste it. The capers, the Witchershire, already contains salt, so you don't automatically have to add more salt. If needed, add the salt just a little bit. If it doesn't, leave it alone. Turn off the heat. Stir in your cold tablespoon of country croc plant-based butter and parsley. Now let the sauce rest. You have now reached the quiet point of the sauce. Check your crab cakes. Around 10 minute mark, start the gathering information. First, you want to smell. The aroma should have changed from cool crab and raw ingredients to sweet cooked crab, obey, toasted bread, paparica, and plant-based butter. Now use your utensils instead of reaching towards the hot food with your fingers. Take the back of a spoon or thin spatula and gently press the side of one crab cake. Remember how delicate it felt before baking? No, it should feel a little bit more structured. It should resist gentle pressure without feeling hard. The center still should feel tender. That is your texture checkpoint for your crab. But we're not guessing about food safety. I want you to grab your accessible instant read thermometer and insert it into the center of the thickest crab cake you have. We're looking for that crab cake to be 165 degrees. Temperature plus structure tells us it's ready. So put on your oven mitts, remove the sheet pan, and take it directly to your safe landing zone you established earlier. You may hear a little residual sizzling from the plant-paste butter, then things begin to settle, and that's when you hit the quiet point. Give the crab cakes a few more minutes before moving them. They're delicate and they're extremely hot. That short rest helps hold them together. Now let's play. Carefully transfer one crab cake to your plate. You can spoon a little bit of that Cajun white wine caper sauce underneath it, drizzle some around it, or spoon a little over the top. But don't drown it. The crab is the star here. Take a moment, smell the finished plate. Sweet crab, obey, lemon, garlic, white wine, capers, Cajun spice. Now take that first bite. You should feel a little structure on the outside before reaching the tender center. And those jumbo pieces of crab still should be recognizable. The sauce gives you a little acidity, brininess, creaminess, and a little heat. That's a crab cake. Here's today's lesson. Sometimes great cooking is about knowing when not to do too much. We don't pack the crab cakes, we don't automatically use every drop of binder. We don't stir the crab until those jumbo pieces disappear. We didn't bury the finished crab underneath sauce. We let the ingredient tell us what it needed. That's texture, that's restraint, and that's restaurant quality cooking. Before we leave our restaurant week table, here's today's accessible hospitality tip. If a guest is blind or have low vision, don't automatically assume somebody sitting with them is going to read the menu for them. An accessible digital menu that works with screen readers gives that guest the opportunity to explore the menu independently. If an accessible menu isn't available, ask, would you like me to go over the menu with you? And when you describe the dish, give useful information. Like what's in it, how's prepared, what comes with it. Is there a source? Give the guests the information that they need to make their own decision. Because accessibility isn't about taking control for somebody, it's about giving people access to the information they need to have control. Accessibility is hospitality. Today, we didn't depend on site to make crab cake. We use aroma to check out crab cake, touch to find shell and protect those jumbo lumps, resistance to determine how much binder we needed, spatial mapping to keep track of our crab cakes, sound and aroma to follow our sauce, utensu to safely check the structure, and an accessible thermometer to confirm temperature. Now that's the culinary cockpit. We're not telling somebody to bake until golden brown. We're giving you information you can actually use aroma, sound, texture, resistance, temperature, timing, organization. That's how we cook without depending on site. Well, if you enjoyed today's episode, head on over to unseencuisine.com for more sensory cooking resources, recipes, my books, and information about the Culinary Cockpit Foundation course, and share this episode with somebody who's ready to build more confidence in the kitchen. Restaurant Week is rolling through week two. Today, Jumbo Crab Cakes. Wednesday, we are firing up Pollo Asado. I'm Chef Rick. This is Unseen Cuisine. Trust your senses, trust your system, become the pilot.