Our Home Works

Inspired by the stir fried corn recipe posted last week on Culinaria Eugenius, I decided to work on our corn stash with this salad.  To use local ingredients and what we had in our refrigerator, I adapted the recipe from Blue Ginger and substituted crab for lobster and leeks for fennel.  I am sure any combination would be delicious and will probably make our next rendition with fennel.

Our garden fennel is a long way from being ready, but I saw some two weekends ago at the Groundwork Organics stand at the Hideaway Bakery Farmer’s Market.  I suspect they had some this week, but I arrived too late to nab any.  For the crab, Matt picked up a whole one at Newman’s Fish Market and shelled it while I prepared the salad.  If you buy whole crabs, save the shells to make shellfish fumet for shrimp or crab bisque or salmon chowder.  We put them in a bag in the freezer until we have enough to fill a stock pot.

I served this alongside corn lemongrass soup, although any brothy Asian soup would work.  The salad would also make a company worthy appetizer with slightly smaller toasts.

Crab and corn salad over toasted baguette, adapted from Ming Tsai’s Blue Ginger

Serves 4 as a side

Ingredients

8 slices of baguette (1/4″ thick)

1 cup corn

1/2 lb dungeness crab (about 1 crab if you buy it whole)

1 leek, quartered lengthwise and sliced thin

1/4 cup chives, cut in 1/4″ lengths

Juice of 1 Meyer lemon (or regular lemon)

2 Tbsp canola oil

1 Tbsp olive oil

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper

Toast baguette slices in preheated 300F oven while composing the salad.

In a small saute pan over medium heat, add 1 Tbsp canola oil.  Add leeks and saute for about 1 minute.  Add corn and saute until cooked through.  Combine leeks, corn, crab, chives in a bowl.  Add lemon juice, remaining canola oil, and olive oil and toss.  Season generously with salt and pepper and toss again.  Serve salad on top of toasted baguette slice with pinch of cayenne.

Tags: dungeness crab, Salads