Crab salad with avocado and grapefruit

When life gives you lemons, you make a lemonade; and when friends give you a Harry and David grapefruit basket, you … keep making dishes that involve grapefruit: Braised endive and citrus salad, Caramelized fennel and grapefruit salad, and now crab salad with grapefruit.


serves: 4        difficulty: easy      prep time: 20 min


Ingredients

for the salad

  • 1 lbs cooked and picked Dungeness crab meat
  • 3 grapefruits, supremed
  • 2 avocados
  • 2 tbs tarragon, chopped
  • 2 tbs parsley, chopped

for the dressing

  • 2 tbs champagne vinegar
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 tbs honey
  • 1 tbs whole grain mustard

Preparation

First make the dressing. As I have mentioned previously, I use glass jars leftover from jams to mix salad dressings. Place all salad dressing ingredients in a glass jar, tighten the lid and shake vigorously for 10 sec. And the dressing is ready. Set it aside.

In the meantime, supreme the grapefruit. First cut off the top and the bottom of the grapefruit.

 

Then stand up the grapefruit with the cut sides facing up and down. Starting from the top, slice the rind while curving the knife such that it follows the curvature of the grapefruit.

 

Continue making your way around the grapefruit until you have removed the entire rind.

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Then turn the grapefruit on its side, and start making incisions on the inside of the white pulp in order to remove every wedge. Some of the wedges will look near perfect, while others will break no matter how careful you are – but that’s OK. Reserve any grapefruit juice that’s runs out in the process of supreming the fruit.

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Peel and pit the avocados. Chop the avocado flesh roughly.

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To assemble the salad, place the crab meat in a bowl and season with 1 tbs salt and black pepper to taste. Add the dressing, and any reserved grapefruit juice, and mix well. Chop the herbs, and add to the crab mixture.

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To plate, use a cylindrical form. Plate it in the middle of the plate, and first put 2-3 segments of avocado. Press them down with a spoon. Next fill the cylinder to the brim with crab salad and press lightly down. Take the cylinder off, and you should have a food tower with the avocado at the bottom, and crab salad on top. Arrange a few grapefruit segments around the tower. You can also garnish the tower with some avocado and grapefruit.

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And you are ready for the first course in the dinner party!

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