Palm Cakes with Caper Remoulade

On our trip to Florida, we found another vegan restaurant called Darbster in West Palm Beach. They are famous for their Palm Cakes, a sort of mock crab cake made with hearts of palm. I googled around and found a version of their recipe. I played with it a bit, added some Old Bay, and made up a caper remoulade. Voila, appetizers are served. Seriously, delicious.

Note: A friend who is not vegan exclaimed upon eating these, “they taste like the real thing. You would never know they were not crab cakes.” My question is, “who says that crab cakes are the real thing? Who says crab cakes came first?!” The point is that vegan food is just as creative and delicious as other cuisines.

makes about a dozen, using a 3 tablespoon ice cream scooper

Palm Cakes
1 14 oz. can hearts of palm
1 stalk celery
1 carrot
1/2 small red onion
1/2 red pepper
Fresh parsley, handful
1 teaspoon Old Bay
3 tablespoons Vegenaise
1 cup quinoa flakes
S and P
Sunflower oil

Drain and chop the hearts of palm.

Place the celery, carrot, onion and pepper into the food processor and pulse a few times until everything is processed.

Turn out vegetables into a big bowl and mix with the chopped hearts of palm. Chop the parsley and add to the mixture. Add the Old Bay, Vegenaise and quinoa flakes and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for a half hour or more.

Heat sunflower oil in a non-stick skillet. Using an ice cream scooper, scoop up some mixture and place it on the hot oil. Cook until the bottom side is brown and then flip over and flatten a bit and cook until the bottom is browned. Drain on a paper towel before serving.

Caper Remoulade
1/2 cup Vegenaise
1 tablespoon relish
1 tablespoon capers
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 clove of garlic
1 teaspoon chickpea miso
Paprika, a few dashes
Fresh parsley, small handful
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Mince the garlic (I like to use my microplane for this since kind of makes the garlic mushy) and place everything into a bowl. Mix together. Add fresh parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Serve the palm cakes topped with the remoulade. Enjoy!