Festive Season Roundup: Gluten Free Thai Crab Cakes

Like everyone I have been busy over the festive season, so I haven't had time to blog any recipes recently. I'm going to get all caught up with one monster post about what we have been cooking and eating over the last few weeks!

For Christmas eve the husband cooked Jamie Oliver's pork and chilli pepper goulash, its a fantastic winter warmer dish but takes yonks to cook so plan ahead. He halved the recipe for just the two of us. It's naturally gluten free, and its easy with any stock or stew to replace normal flour with a GF version and serve with rice or mash instead of dumplings.

For Christmas day this year I did dinner at home with the in laws, my mother in law providing the starter and my brother in law the desserts. The yummy but unconventional menu went as follows: -

prawn cocktails (ok not an unconventional start, but keep reading)

harissa spiced turkey crown

roasted sweet potatoes and red onions

cinnamon carrots

mustard parsnips

apricot and pinenut stuffing

spicy turkey gravy

lemon couscous (for the non GF people)

creme brulee

apricot, grape and chocolate roulade

Hell of a Christmas feast eh?! All was yummy and amazing, the recipes for the Moroccan xmas dinner came from last Decembers issue of Olive magazine, I have linked to the main turkey recipe above. The stuffing was just a packet of sainsburys GF stuffing mix but with chopped dried apricots and pinenuts mixed in.

As for the roasted veg, its pretty easy, just cube the sweet potato and cut the onions in quarters, marinade in some orange zest, cumin, oilve oil, and orange juice and roast for 40 mins. The carrots are just cut into thick batons and cooked in a saucepan with lots of butter, some cinnamon, cumin, a speck of cayenne pepper and a little veg stock. Parsnips are roasted for 30 mins and then covered in a teaspoon each of honey and wholegrain mustard before getting another 10 mins.

I'm not sure where the creme brulee recipe came from but they were lovely, and the roulade was an adaption of my recipe on this site. I had both, of course, and could have eaten another creme brulee as they were so nice.

So that's Christmas eve and day over and done with. We went to my mums for a few days, and then came home and cooked chicken tacos (El'Paso taco shells are GF, as is discovery fajita spice mix) and Jamie Oliver's' tuna balls.

The husband cooked for new year, and I did the starter. We had Thai crab cakes for starters and then wild boar and chorizo stew, but made with normal pork for mains. Yum yum yum! Here is the recipe for the Thai crab cakes, these are very soft and delicate to handle so go easy on them when you are frying them in the pan, if the mix seems far too wet add some GF flour or breadcrumbs to dry the mix out a bit, just remember that the breadcrums on the outside will make them a bit easier to handle in the pan anyway and they need a bit of wet to stick to. This recipe makes 6 little cakes, so thats 3 each as a little starter for two people.

white crab meat 1 tin , (175-200gms) drained

white fish 50gms, cubed

fresh ginger 1/2 inch, chopped

garlic 1 clove, chopped

fresh coriander small handful, chopped

ground cumin 1/2 tsp

red chilli 1/4, chopped

egg 1, yolk separated

gf breadcrumbs

Put the garlic, ginger, cumin, white fish (I use haddock), fresh coriander, chill and egg yolk in a little blender and wizz up till finely chopped. Make sure your crab is well drained and squeeze any extra water out with your hands over a sieve. Stir the blended mix into the crab till the crab has broken up into little flakes. Shape into 6 little patties then breadcrumb all over. Fry in a non stick pan with a little oil for 4 minutes each side till golden brown and cooked through.

Serve with a little sweet chilli sauce on the side and a wedge of lime. Blue Dragon do a typical sweet chilli sauce, but I prefer to serve this with Wagamama sweet chilli stir fry sauce which can also be used as a dipping sauce, its much nicer and has a fresh chilli flavour.

Over the next few weeks I have a range of recipes to share with you for 2008, including a couple of pasta sauces that are great with gluten free spaghetti and a recipe for a lovely orange ice cream with chocolate sauce that I made in my new ice cream maker I got for Christmas!

Happy new year, here's to a gluten free 2008!