October is one of my favorite food months in Louisiana. You get a magical intersection of summer and fall produce—a second round of summer favorites meets the first round of cool crops. Most Saturdays this month, you can walk out of the Red Stick Farmers Market with fresh corn and summer squash in one hand, and persimmons and turnips in the other. Thank you, global warming!
I never felt like I got my fill of good summer tomatoes this year, so I was really excited to bring home fall tomatoes last weekend that were, thankfully, bursting with true tomato flavor. (It can go either way, right?) I decided to use them as a perch for crab salad. Local jumbo lump crab should be priced around $27 a pound at the moment, which, I know, isn’t cheap. But it only takes one container, a few pantry staples and some of these bright, yummy tomatoes to make an elegant dish for four. Think about what you’d pay for it in a restaurant, and it seems like a steal.
Fresh jumbo lump crab salad is part of our regional DNA, and there are endless ways to prepare its creamy dressing. But I didn’t want to go too heavy. I wanted the taste of the fresh tomatoes and the plump crabmeat to shine through. Using a little mayonnaise combined with Greek yogurt, lemon and lime juice and a few umami-rich ingredients like grainy mustard, soy sauce and sriracha turned out to be exactly right. The pop of fresh corn added another layer of flavor and gave the resulting salad the exact balance I was looking for.
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Crab Salad with Fresh Tomatoes
Servings: 4
1 16-ounce container fresh jumbo lump crabmeat (substitute fresh lump)
½ cup finely chopped celery
¼ cup chopped scallions
1 cup fresh cooked corn, shaved from ears
4 ripe tomatoes, cut into thick slices
Microgreens or fresh herbs for garnish
Dressing
¼ cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup Greek yogurt
Juice of one lemon
Juice of one lime
1 ½ teaspoons whole grain or Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon soy sauce
½ teaspoon Sriracha, more to taste
½ teaspoon Kosher salt
Several turns fresh cracked black pepper
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Inspect the crabmeat and remove any remaining shells. Place in a medium bowl with the celery, scallions and corn. In another medium bowl, mix the dressing. Add all the ingredients, whisk well and taste. Adjust the salt, if necessary. Pour the dressing over the crabmeat mixture and toss carefully.
Arrange the tomato slices on each of four plates, and spoon the crab salad on top. Garnish with microgreens or fresh herbs.
Maggie Heyn Richardson is a regular 225 contributor and the author of Hungry for Louisiana, An Omnivore’s Journey. Reach her at hungryforlouisiana.com.