Crab cakes are the perfect appetizers when made mini-sized, and I think i got the perfect recipe for you to try. This recipe for crab cakes with aioli sauce is heavenly!
Whisk all the ingredients for the aioli sauce. To get your garlic into a paste, mince it, sprinkle salt onto it, and then scrape it on the board with your knife into a paste. Keep the sauce in the fridge until it is ready to be used.
If you cooked your live crab, using your best crab meat-picking skills, separate the meat from the shell of the cooked crab. Just use the white meat of the crab. Make sure there are no broken shell bits in the crab meat. Combine the bread crumbs, mayonnaise, mustard, hot sauce, and egg with the crab meat in a bowl. You want a sticky enough consistency to hold together when you make a ball in your hand. If it is too dry, add mayonnaise. If it is too wet, add more breadcrumbs.
Roll small balls of batter into your hands to make 1 1/2 inch diameter circles and slightly flatten them out. This makes about 12 cakes.
Heat the olive oil under medium heat. Fry the crab cakes for 3 minutes on each side until they are golden brown.
Serve the crab cakes with a side of aioli.
The only challenging portion of this recipe is picking the meat out of the crab, even for a seasoned crab meat picker like me, so if you can, buy it already shelled.