Chilled Corn and Crab Salad, a delicious addition to your summer salad choices.
Sometimes it takes a village. Isn’t that how it goes? This week’s definitely spectacular summer salad has been a community effort. My prediction: you’re going to love it.
Shortly after arriving in Aspen, just barely having gotten unpacked and organized, a friend and I jumped in the car and drove to Denver to see the Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective at the Denver Art Museum. The exhibit, a sweeping march through the designer’s forty years of creativity, opened in Paris before going to Madrid, with a last stop in Denver.
The show was well worth the four-hour drive to and fro. Betty and I enjoyed, after my eight-year absence from Colorado, our two wonderful days together. As usual, much of our discussion revolved around food. My friend is no slouch when it comes to cooking and baking. In fact, Julia sat at her table a time or two, so I’m always interested in what she has to say. She inspires me.
As a amateur home cook, I always gather my ingredients together, checking to see I have everything I need. The French call it Mise en Place.
Before returning to Aspen, she suggested we detour to a little-known European bakery in Avon. What a discovery! Their coconut macaroons? I wish I’d bought more. The baguettes. Oh là là. Continuing on our culinary tour, her next stop was Gypsum where the only Costco in the High Country is located. Yes, if you live in the mountains, it’s a 135-mile round trip to a Costco. So if you’re passing by, you stop.
That’s where I bought a pound of crab meat.
The salad, ready to be folded together. The corn has cooled to room temperature, the crab and minced sweet pepper mixed together, the dressing whisked, and the cilantro ready to be chopped.
After returning to Aspen I received this e-mail from my Nevada neighbor, Michelle. “I know you are looking for good salads for the summer. I am making this tonight, it is so delicious! I substitute cilantro for the basil and serve it over Bibb lettuce leaves, sliced tomato and sliced avocado. I used a red jalapeño pepper and it was just hot enough. That and some good crusty bread makes the perfect meal! “
The nearby El Jebel grocery store had just stocked fresh ears of corn. (Don’t you love these towns’ names?) I needed fresh spices but my neighbor, Karen, had already urged me to harvest her overabundance of herbs.
So that’s my story and the reason this week’s Summer = Salads recipe is Chilled Corn and Crab Salad.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad served on thinly-sliced tomato .
For my purposes I wanted this salad to be more about the crab than the corn. However, being Iowa born and bred, I urge you to make the extra effort (and, mess) and use fresh corn. I substituted a sweet petite mini pepper for the Thai chile because I didn’t want the heat, just the color. Like Michelle, I used cilantro instead of basil.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad served with Corn Cakes garnished with homemade guacamole.
This salad seems so clean cut to me. It looks nutritious and acts healthy. Although there are many ways to serve this dish, I served one plate rather plainly, accompanied only by corn cakes garnished with guacamole. For the guacamole, I never stray from Rosa Mexicano Restaurant’s recipe. (The corn cakes are the upcoming FFwithDorie recipe which you’ll read about later this week.) For the other luncheon plate, I piled the salad onto farmers market tomato slices.
Long ago, when visiting Manhattan, I tasted Rosa’s guacamole at her restaurant. Never have I tasted better so I still stick to her recipe.
This would be a mighty tasty and luxurious addition to any buffet table, potluck dinner or picnic. It’s a salad that can be transported quite easily – thrown in a Ziploc bag, stashed in the cooler. It won’t wilt, break apart, or get its feelings hurt. Hopefully, you’ll agree this is a yummy addition to your summer salad list.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, September 2007, and Michelle Morgando.
Serves 6 Luncheon Portions/12 Potluck or Buffet Portions
Ingredients
3-4 tablespoons olive oil or grapeseed oil
3 cups fresh corn kernels (from about 5-6 ears of corn)
1 small red onion, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 sweet petite mini red pepper, diced
16 ounces lump crabmeat (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1-2 teaspoon coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
Directions
1. Heat 1 to 2 teaspoons oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add corn and cook until tender, about 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in onion. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Whisk together lemon juice and sugar. Drizzle in remaining tablespoon plus 1 teaspoons oil, whisking until combined.
3. Combine corn-onion mixture, pepper, crabmeat, and cilantro. Fold in lemon dressing. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Cover, and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes, preferably 2 hours. Serve plain or garnished with cilantro leaves or guacamole. Enjoy.
Colorado’s state flower, the white and lavender columbine (Aquilegia caerulea) is commonly known as the Rocky Mountain columbine. Its journey to become the Colorado state flower began near the end of the 19th century in 1891 when Colorado school children voted the Rocky Mountain columbine their favorite flower (The cactus came in second place!). These columbine, pictured above and discovered while hiking near the Capitol Creek trail, are uniquely white in color.
Isn’t it delightful, at times, to experience a civilized moment?
Living in the moment is good. If it’s civilized? So much the better.
Thanks to a love affair with trout, yesterday I was “ a lady who lunches” meets Walden Pond. Like that old rascal, Thoreau, I savored the solitude and silence of my own backyard. Admittedly, mine is man-made. But that was then, 1854, and this is now, 2012.
When I closed my eyes this was Walden Pond. Eyes opened? My own backyard.
For lunch, in my continuing effort to expand my salad repertoire, I made Smoked Trout & Potato Salad with Buttermilk Vinaigrette, included a baguette from local BonjourBakery and washed it down with a Strawberry Rosé Spritzer. Okay, two spritzers. After all, I was really into being civilized.
Smoked Trout & Potato Salad with Buttermilk Vinaigrette, a satisfyingly delicious lunch or light dinner.
Smoked Trout & Potato Salad with Buttermilk Vinaigrette
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons Olea Farm Lemon Blush Olive Oil
1 tablespoon freshly chopped dill
Diamond Crystal Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
The salad:
1 tablespoon Olea Farm Olive Oil
6 baby red potatoes, sliced into thin coins
1 cup chicken stock (enough to cover)
6 ounces smoked trout, skin removed Diamond Crystal Kosher salt
Directions:
For the dressing, mix together the buttermilk, vinegar, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Slowly whisk in the olive oil (or drip, drip, drip in the food processor) before adding the chopped dill. Season liberally with salt. Pepper, to taste.
For the salad, heat olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the potatoes and another generous pinch of salt. Sauté for a minute or two before adding chicken stock. Bring to a gentle boil. Cook the potatoes until tender, not mushy, about 6-8 minutes. Drain and pour into a glass bowl.
After removing the skin, flake the trout into small pieces over the potatoes. Pour about half the dressing over the trout/potato mixture and kindly fold until combined. Add additional dressing to taste. Garnish the salad with dill sprigs and serve at room temperature.
Note: Let the trout be the star of the show. This nutritious and tasty plate asks for only two primary ingredients. Two is the magic number here. While I believe this salad is best served at room temperature, I also enjoyed a “refrigerated version” for breakfast this morning. Yes, for breakfast. Still yummy.
In The Spirit of Full Discloser: Realizing that Thumper, Peter and other pesky wabbits had enjoyed my dill, I substituted dried dill for fresh in the dressing and found the last sprig standing for the salad. Long Live Elmer Fudd.
3-4 tablespoons sugar, according to the sweetness of berries
Stir together the strawberries and sugar in a bowl. After an hour or two, they will be sugar-soaked. Put 1/2 of the berries in a plastic bag and throw in the freezer to make ice cubes. Puree the remaining berries in a blender, and then pass the puree through a fine mesh sieve. Set aside.
Spritzer:
3 tablespoons strained strawberry puree
3 ounces Rosé (choose your favorite)
Soda Water
Directions:
For One drink, throw 3 or 4 frozen strawberries, depending on their size, into a red wine glass. Add the strawberry puree and rosé and stir together. Top off the pour with soda water. Stir once, gently. Delicious.
Note: Most of the time I total and this summertime drink lends itself well to teetotalers like me. To make the non-alcoholic version, just increase the puree and add soda water or ginger ale. It’s good and lets you feel like “one of the crowd.”
Lentil, Lemon, & Tuna Salad with a Garnish Bonus of Tomato & Pepper Salad. It’s French Friday with Dorie X Two.
My repertoire of salad recipes, those I mix together often, totals three: Tossed, Caprese and Marshall Field’s Wedge. I’m not particularly proud of this and don’t usually admit to it. So glad I’m among friends.
This year I’d already decided to turn over a new lettuce leaf (Just had to do that.)and make this my Summer of Salads. Each week I am going to create a delicious and nutritious melange, using ingredients outside my comfort zone. By the end of August I will have added fourteen salads to my repertoire of three bringing me to a more respectable seventeen. Blast Off!!!
That’s why I was especially pleased to kick off my Salad Summer with this week’s FFWD choice, Lentil, Lemon, and Tuna Salad. To be honest, I made two salads this week because I also made Dorie’sTomato and Pepper Salad. Little credit, please. She suggested we use this as a garnish for flavor and color. A good idea.
Mise en Place. All my ingredients are set out on my table.
The Snob of the Legume Family, Green Lentils from LePuy A.O.P.
The salad gives birth as lentils du Puy (from the Auvergne region of France) which I found at my local Whole Foods. After putting the lentils in a strainer and rinsing them under cold water, I brought them to a boil and let simmer for forty minutes. The lentils cooked quite happily in a chicken broth filled with onion, carrot, celery, garlic, clove and bay leaf. At the last moment, I even sweetened the pot with a tablespoon of Cognac. After draining the liquid and removing the softened vegetables (my choice), I added a minced shallot and salt/pepper.
The veggies and herbs are ready to be added to the chicken broth.
After the lentils were cooked, I drained the liquid off and removed the mushy vegetables.
It was simple to add a tasty dressing of mustard, tapenade, red wine vinegar and Lemon Blush olive oil to the warm lentils. Instead of using a preserved lemon (which I didn’t have), I substituted lemon zest, capers and scallions. Once everything was blended, I used a fork to flake drained tuna over the salad. Salt. Pepper. Toss. Done.
While the salad was chilling, I put together halved grape tomatoes, diced raw red pepper as well as roasted red pepper with some olive oil and a dash of cumin. I think it was a colorful garnish, perfect for the rather dowdy-looking lentils. What this dish lacks in color, it makes up in flavor. It is delicious and can be served on a bed of greens or plain, chilled or at room temperature. LLT can be a starter course, a luncheon dish or spread over crackers for nibbles with cocktails. Versatile. Delicious.
If this Lentil, Lemon and Tuna Salad appeals to you, go here. The Tomato and Pepper Salad, a colorful garnish or accompaniment, is great to have in your arsenal for its many uses. To see what others mixed together this week, stop by our FFWD Site.
Rillettes de Thom, tuna paté, an elegant spread that can be served for any special occasion.
“At the avant-garde Parisian bistro Itinéraires,” Dorie Greenspan writes in her recent cookbook, “ sardine rillettes is served in a martini glass topped with a baby scoop of cornichon sorbet.”
Pronounced ree-ett (the ‘s’ is not pronounced), and called the poor man’s paté, Sardine Rillettesis our FFWD recipe choice for the week. Unfortunately, this Iowa farm girl, admittedly unsophisticated, cannot sit at that bistro table.
Not that I didn’t try to find some willing “tasters”. In desperation, my last stop was at our housing community’s security gate to see if any guards liked sardines. They weren’t pleasant in their replies. I didn’t even mention the cornichon sorbet. Admittedly, the last goody I dropped off at the gate was a sheet of warm cinnamon rolls. They’re spoiled rotten.
Instead, I turned to Dorie’s other two rillettes recipes, salmon and tuna, and decided to go with the tuna. Clearly, this is one delicious ree-ett: soft, spreadable, a tad rich and quickly made.
All the ingredients, dumped into my mini-chopper.
Here a pulse, there a pulse, everywhere a pulse, pulse. Voilà. Rillet
I threw two cans of chunk light tuna, a shallot, curry powder, crème fraîche, salt and pepper, into my Ninja Food Chopper and pulsed the ingredients together. After adding a squeeze of lemon joined by one last pulse, the paté needed to be refrigerated. After its flavors intensify (chill at least an hour), Rillettes de Thon is a delightful spread with crackers, bread or toast.
I will use the leftover rillettes, if there is any, as the centerpiece of the Salade Niçoise I plan to make for lunch tomorrow.
Cover the mixture and refrigerate it for at least an hour. For me, overnight.
Salade Niçoise with Tuna Rillettes Tastespotting.com
It’s important to remember that albacore tuna is too firm and dry for this recipe. Otherwise, there’s not much to dislike about this tasty treat.
Spring had sprung but the picnic’s indoors. Crab & Grapefruit Salad with mini-muffins.
Quick, no thinking, come up with five different food pairings:
fried chicken and mashed potatoes&gravy;
hamburger and french fries;
apple pie and vanilla ice cream;
corned beef and cabbage;
pork chops and applesauce.
Now, try to throw grapefruit and lump crabmeat into the mix. Yes, that would be a stretch.
Stretching is what Dorie Greenspan and these French Fridays cooking adventures are about. This week she raised the bar again and asked us to prepare a Crab & Grapefruit Salad (p.134). She even provided a full-page photograph (p.135). Love it when she does that. Whether it was her creative recipe combo, the inspiration of the picture or my being back in the familiar surroundings of my own kitchen, this was one delicious salad.
Shortly after returning from California this week, Colorado friends called to say they were in town, suggesting a Thursday lunch date. I explained I was on Dorie duty that day and invited them here without elaborating on the menu. Early Thursday morning, I got to work.
Red Bell Peppers, Cucumbers & Scallions, Lump Crabmeat, and Grapefruit, ready to be tossed together.
Early springtime mint, fresh from my herb garden, provides the top hats for my salad servings.
With Dorie, it’s always imperative to read through the entire recipe well in advance before beginning the preparation. Case in point. After the grapefruit is sectioned and removed to a paper towel, the fruit must be dried. For hours. Six, for me.
Other ingredients including a seedless cucumber, red bell pepper and scallions, simply need a dice or slice. Use your fingers to toss everything together with the crab before adding small amounts of olive oil and grapefruit juice. Salt and pepper, to taste. Lemon juice and minced fresh mint give this salad extra punch.
The fun of this salad is in its presentation. I tried four different glasses (clockwise: Martini Glass; Parfait Dish; Antique Etched Water Glass; and Brandy Snifter) each with its own “look”. I still don’t have a favorite.
Each glass container shows off beautifully.
To complement the salad, I passed mini-bran muffins. Another strange food pairing, perhaps, but it worked well against the richness of the main dish. My guests enjoyed the lunch. I enjoyed my guests. This story, therefore, has a happy ending.
To see what other French Fridays’ cooks did with this salad, go to http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/. Although Dorie’s recipe for this salad is available on line, we suggest you buy her book, Around My French Table. The cost of her book is less than the cost of the pound of lump crabmeat I used in this salad.
When you think “salmon”, I’m pretty sure “with Lentils” doesn’t come to mind. Despite my rush to judgment, it still doesn’t seem to be an “entre deux” combination. But after my initial, “Saywhat?”, followed by my thinking, “Has Dorie gone off the deep-end?”, I settled in to prepare Roasted Salmon & Lentils, this week’s FFwD recipe choice, for a week-end dinner.
A fresh, fleshy cut of salmon, salt-and-peppered, ready to roast.
I purchased a 1 1/4 pound salmon fillet, thickly cut from the center, from our resident fishmonger. Since the French du Puy lentils, suggested by Dorie, weren’t available to me, I settled for generic green lentils which were delicious. Although lentils, like all dry beans, require a sort, soak and simmer, preparing them is quite simple.
Sea Salt from Slovenia, a flavorful addition to the Salmon.
Dorie’s method for roasting salmon was also neither difficult nor time-consuming. Twelve minutes in the oven, at high heat, produced a perfect pink-in-the-middle result. Here is when I want to give a little credit to sea salt! Ardyth Sohn, a friend who recently spent six months in Latvia as a Fulbright Scholar, gifted me with a canister of Piran Salt from Slovenia. (I love when friends bring me food souvenirs from foreign travels.) The salmon filet pretty much was left on its own. Salt, pepper and a dash of olive oil were the only additives. This salt definitely formed a friendship with the salmon to enhance its flavor during the roast.
Since receiving this treasure, I’ve become interested, make that, obsessed, with choosing the right salts for cooking purposes. Currently I’m also experimenting with a Smoked Salt from the North coast of Denmark. My wish list includes Maldon, an English sea salt which is arguably considered “the ultimate finishing salt for salads and fresh vegetables”. Penzeys, a Wisconsin-based spice company, sells an interesting Grey Sea Salt from France and a domestically-produced Pacific Sea Salt http://www.penzeys.com/. Culinary specialty stores, like The Meadow in Manhattan and Portland, http://www.atthemeadow.com/shop/ offer many choices.
Smoked Sea Salt from the North coast of Denmark
To serve this dish, per Dorie’s directions and against my better judgment, I put the lentils in a warmed shallow soup plate and plunked a piece of salmon, on top. After a light olive oil drip-and-drizzle, I sprinkled parsley on the salmon. This week’s recipe is a complete meal. And, to my delight, a delicious one.
Saturday night at the dinner table…….
For our First Friday with Dorie Postings, we do not provide the complete recipe because we encourage you to purchase Dorie’s wonderfully-written book,”Around my French Table”. The book, which costs less than the 1 1/4 pounds of the salmon I purchased this week, is loaded with 300 culinary gem-ipes, providing bonus tips, bonnes idées, and variation why-nots (italicized bonus sidebars, scattered up and down each page).You might try http://iarethefoodsnob.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/dorie-greenspan’s-roasted-salmon-and-lentils/ to view this recipe. To see the valuable critiques of other French Friday with Dorie cooks, go to http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/.
