I like to serve this family-style: Guests spoon the crab onto the toasts just before eating, so the bread stays crisp. At once creamy and spicy, this starter tastes best with an aperitif like champagne, rosé champagne, or a Grüner Veltliner.

　　

Ingredients

Serves 4

　　4 slices good sourdough bread

　　3 tablespoons Sriracha Mayonnaise (page 246)

　　8 ounces picked lump crabmeat, preferably peekytoe, picked over for bits of shell

　　Crushed red chile flakes, optional

　　1 lemon, cut into wedges

　　

Step 1

Toast the bread until golden brown. Cut each slice into 2-inch pieces.

　　

Step 2

Gently fold the mayonnaise into the crabmeat until well mixed. Spoon the crab mixture into a serving bowl and set inside a larger serving bowl filled with ice to keep cold if desired. Garnish with chile flakes if desired. Serve with the lemon wedges and toasts.

　　

c’est bon

Step 3

My dear friend and seafood supplier Ingrid Bengis gets me the best crab from Maine. It’s delicate, sweet, and unbelievably fresh. Find the freshest crab available in a local seafood shop or in your market’s refrigerated fish counter; this dish doesn’t work with shelf-stable canned crabmeat.

　　Reprinted with permission from Home Cooking with Jean-Georges: My Favorite Simple Recipes by Jean-Georges Vongerichten with Genevieve Ko. Copyright © 2011 by Jean-Georges Vongerichten; photographs copyright © 2011 by John Kernick. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.Jean-Georges Vongerichten is one of the most influential chefs in the world, having single-handedly redefined haute French cuisine, lightening and refining it by adding select Asian accents. He is the chef-owner of dozens of restaurants in fourteen cities around the world. His flagship restaurant, Jean Georges, at New York's Columbus Circle, is one of six restaurants in the United States to have been awarded three coveted Michelin stars; it received four stars from the New York Times. The winner of multiple James Beard Foundation awards, he lives in New York City and Waccabuc, New York, with his family.Genevieve Ko is a cookbook author and the senior food editor at Good Housekeeping magazine. She has written for Martha Stewart Living, Gourmet, and Fine Cooking and lives in New York City with her family.