All along the Gulf Coast, crab is plentiful and almost cheap during the summer. It has a luxurious flavor, but it’s still light, and in this ceviche-like salad the lime and basil enhance the warm-weather flavors. The salty capers are a good foil for the sweetness of the crab and carrots. Serve this refreshing combination on lettuce leaves, as described below, or in a parfait or martini glass, garnished with a wedge of lime and some tortilla chips.

　　

Ingredients

makes 8 servings

　　1/2 cup finely diced carrots

　　Juice of 2 limes (about 4 tablespoons)

　　1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest

　　2 medium shallots, minced

　　1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

　　1/3 cup good-quality olive oil

　　Salt and pepper

　　Hot sauce

　　3 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh basil

　　2-3 tablespoons minced scallions

　　1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat (Blue or Dungeness), well picked for shells

　　2 tablespoons coarsely chopped capers

　　1 head Bibb lettuce, cleaned and dried

　　1 avocado (preferably Hass), sliced or diced

　　Basil sprigs, as garnish

　　

Step 1

Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Add the diced carrots and simmer 2–3 minutes; drain and shock in ice water. Remove the carrots from ice water and set aside.

　　

Step 2

Place the lime juice and zest, shallots, and vinegar in a small bowl and whisk in the olive oil. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. In another bowl, mix the basil, scallions, crabmeat, capers, and carrots, and then fold in the lime vinaigrette. Taste for seasonings, adding hot sauce, lime juice, or salt as needed.

　　

Step 3

To serve, arrange a few lettuce leaves on each of the salad plates. Top the lettuce with equal portions of the crab salad and avocado slices, and garnish with basil sprigs.

　　

Blanching

Step 4

Blanching preserves a vegetable’s color and enhances its flavor. It can also be used to loosen skins as with tomatoes and peaches, to make for easier peeling. To blanch a vegetable, plunge it into lightly salted boiling water for a few minutes, drain, and put it into ice water, to “shock” the vegetable (i.e., stop the cooking).

　　Cooks' Note

　　I prefer the texture of finely diced carrots in this salad. However, they need to be blanched, then shocked in ice water, before you use them, to ensure that the texture is not too dramatically different from that of the other ingredients in the salad. Raw carrots with too much crunch would take away from the elegance of this salad.

　　From Crescent City Cooking by Susan Spicer Copyright (c) 2007 by Susan Spicer Published by Knopf.Susan Spicer was born in Key West, Florida, and lived in Holland until the age of seven, when her family moved to New Orleans. She has lived there ever since, and is the owner of two restaurants, Bayona and Herbsaint. This is her first cookbook.Paula Disbrowe was the former Cowgirl Chef at Hart & Hind Fitness Ranch in Rio Frio, Texas. Prior to that, she spent ten years working as a food and travel writer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, and Saveur, among other major publications.