Louisiana-Style Brunch served in Colts territory

Louisiana-style Super Bowl Brunch: Crab Cakes Benedict

I ventured into Colts territory at the end of January for a girlfriend's weekend; my hostess is a die-hard Colts fan with an admitted soft spot for Saints quarterback Drew Brees. I took 12 pounds of Louisiana seafood with me, and paraded up and down the 65 in Indiana with Saints flags flapping off both sides of my rental car.

I made this for 10 for Sunday brunch, and it's a very rich dish, so plan accordingly. I served one crab cake on an English muffin with one poached egg and a couple tablespoons of hollandaise sauce. Every plate came back empty, but no one asked for seconds.

I followed this reader-submitted crab cake, but used a 1/4-cup ice cream scoop to make 16 perfect crab cakes on a cookie sheet. I pressed them out a bit and sprinkled extra bread crumbs over the top, and baked for 30 minutes. It's not much more effort to work with a full pound of crab than a half-pound, and leftovers are perfect for appetizers later in the day.

This poached egg recipe is for six eggs; if you need to do more you should have two pans going, because you can't overcrowd these and you shouldn't do another batch in the same water. I did five per pan.

Links:

• Crab Cakes
• Poached Eggs
• Hollandaise Sauce

Saints Fan - Colts Fan Collaboration

My hostess Laurie is a great cook and graciously opened up her kitchen to me. Between the two of us, we created some beautiful food!

She made her spinach and artichoke dip, and I'd boiled a couple of pounds of shrimp with some shrimp boil and put them out with some cocktail sauce. Several people started dipping the shrimp in the spinach artichoke mixture, so we whipped up a canapè- a dollop of the dip on a cracker topped with a boiled shrimp. Voilà!

Laurie also had a great tip for our ubiquitous Velveeta and Rotel Tomato dip - she adds a can of condensed milk, and the dip doesn't solidify when it cools down. 1 pound of Velveeta melted with 1 15-oz can of Rotel tomatoes, and a small can of condensed milk. I think I may stir some Louisiana crawfish tails in mine this weekend.