From: Chef Lisa Aronson, Braxton’s Restaurant & Bar, St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. Yield: 8 servings, 3 sliders per person.
1 lb. cooked lobster meat, small diced
¼ lb. sweet potatoes, small dice
1/3 lb. yellow onions, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. grainy mustard
1-2 lemons, juiced and zested
1 tsp. chili flakes
3 sprigs parsley, chopped
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 eggs, cracked and fork-whisked
to taste, salt and pepper
Breading:
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs, whisked with about 1 Tbsp. milk
2 cups panko bread crumbs
to taste, salt and pepper
Chop cooked lobster and set aside in a medium mixing bowl. (Cook lobsters, chill, shell if buying live.)
Chop and steam or simmer sweet potatoes; set aside to cool. Once cooled, add to cooked lobster.
Cut and sauté onions and garlic until translucent. Remove from heat and cool. Once chilled, place in mixing bowl along with lobster and sweet potatoes.
To the mixing bowl with lobster, add juice and zest of 1 lemon, chili flakes, eggs and parsley. Mix well until all ingredients are combined. Add half the bread crumbs (½ cup) and mix. If this isn’t enough bread crumbs to hold mix together, add the extra ¼ cup. Ideally, when the mix is formed into a cake, it holds the shape. Season to taste with salt, pepper and extra lemon, if needed. Form into 1-oz. cakes
To bread lobster cakes: Set up 3 bowls, 1 for flour, 1 for whisked eggs and one for bread crumbs. Season each bowl with salt and pepper.
Roll the lobster cakes in flour, dip in the egg wash, then into the panko bread crumbs to create the breading. Deep-fry or pan-fry the lobster cakes. To pan-fry, warm a pan with a little oil over medium heat and fry the cakes until they are nicely crisped, browned on each side and hot in the middle.
Serve mini lobster cakes as is, with a choice of salsa or aioli, or serve on mini slider buns with jalapeno mayo and a crisp piece of pork belly.
