Southfacin’ Cook: How to Make Crabmeat West Indies Salad

cook-mugMy brother-in-law, Tommy Ratchford of Pensacola, isn’t much of a cook, but he knows a thing or two about seafood. Hearken to his “Southfacin’ Cook” recipe for perfect boiled shrimp on www.newinnola.com. His “West Indies Salad” is a delicious, light, crisp, tart combination of vinegar-sweetened onions, brine and juicy lump crab meat. Can’t get much tastier than that! It’s gorgeous on toasted french bread slices and even prettier in a stemmed cocktail glass as a true salad or a buffet specialty. Easy, delicious. A great change of pace with summertime fare, too. Enjoy any time of the year, so long as the crab meat is fresh.

WEST INDIES SALAD

EQUIPMENT – Medium-size mixing bowls, glass loaf pan, chopping board, chef’s knife, veggie chopper or food processor, sieve or colander, small rubber spatula, measuring equipment, plastic wrap

INGREDIENTS:

WESTINDIESSALAD.11 pound fresh jumbo lump crab meat

2 large or 3 medium yellow onions

1 bunch green onions (5-6 onions)

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon white pepper (more if you like more “kick”)

6 ounces apple cider vinegar

4 ounces extra virgin olive oil

4 ounces water

LET’S GET STARTED:

WESTINDIESSALAD.5In your sink, dump crab meat into a sieve or colander. Under a light stream of cold water, use your hands to carefully rinse crab meat and remove orange bits and any pieces of shell. Be gentle, though, not to break up lumps. Set crab meat aside and allow it to drain thoroughly.

Peel yellow onions, quarter them. In batches, chop in a box chopper or carefully pulse in a food processor until the onion bits are about the size of a black-eye pea (smaller than a dime). Be careful not to chop them too small. Empty onions into a mixing bowl.

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Finely chop green onions and blend with other onions. In glass loaf pan, add half the onion blend, top with crab. End with rest of onion blend. Lightly tamp down to even mixture top.

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Drizzle vinegar, using a side-to-side pattern to cover the top layer. In the same side-to-side pattern, drizzle the salt, then the white pepper. Finish drizzling with olive oil, then water.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or at least 6-8 hours. Salad keeps well in the refrigerator for 3 days.

SERVES 6-8. Looks pretty plated on a lettuce leaf or in a stemmed cocktail glass. Also good on crackers or toasted french bread slices.

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Editor’s Note: All photos courtesy of www.NewInNola.com

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About Patsy Brumfield

Patsy R. Brumfield is a Mississippi native, who grew up in the hometown newspaper business. After decades of plowing that field and others, she's moved herself to the capital, Jackson, where she's working on a pro-education project and plans to retire to courtroom reporting and sexy political interviews, if you can call that retirement. Her grandmother, the beautiful and willful Rosalie Dial, gave Patsy her first cooking lessons. In recent years, the TV cuisinaries have supplied new information about cooking and a new confidence to help other folks know what makes great food great. We hope you'll enjoy Patsy's foray into cooking, especially Southern cooking. While she's made great strides into the "healthier" aspects of making old recipes new, sometimes there's no avoiding the butter and cream. Just eat smaller portions and ask your favorite doctor about cholesterol meds. We all take 'em, at one time or another. Bon appetite!
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One Response to Southfacin’ Cook: How to Make Crabmeat West Indies Salad

  1. Richard Owen says:

    Where do you find your crawfish? I am too lazy to clean them fresh. Used to find them cleaned frozen by the pound bag at Whole Foods from Louisianna or Spain. But now they are not there, and all the rest are from China–and I will not do China grown foods.

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