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Crab and avocado salad

crab and avocado salad

Easy yet impressive…..

Serves 2                 Preparation time 10 mins No Cooking required Cost per portion £ 2.90

Method
1. Mix the soya sauce, mirin, lemon juice, crushed garlic, finely chopped chilli, salt and wasabi in a large bowl.
2. Add the crabmeat and mix it in well.
3. Add the avocado  (chopped into ½ cm cubes), mayonnaise (bottled or homemade) and finely chopped coriander leaves and mix it through again.
4. Serve on some lettuce leaves or a chicory leaf or in an avocado shell; if you feel like making the salad look special, then serve it in ‘cucumber bowls’!

Ingredients
100g fresh white crabmeat
1 small avocado
½ teaspoon soya sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice         (or 2 teaspoons yuzu juice)
1 tablespoon mirin
1 clove fresh garlic (crushed)
½ fresh green chilli – optional
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon wasabi powder
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
Few fresh coriander leaves   (finely chopped)

Additional Information:
Waitrose sell small pots of fresh white crab meat – much easier than buying a whole crab, boiling it and then picking the meat out yourself – or alternatively you might have a good fishmonger who’ll do it all for you.

This salad tastes so good that it doesn’t really matter how you serve it, but there’s no harm in making it look as spectacular as it tastes.
Serving the salad in a ‘cucumber bowl’ is a bit OTT and might make you feel a bit like a Stepford wife, (I don’t know what the equivalent would be for a man), but it’s actually quite easy. Use either a vegetable peeler or a mandoline (if you have one) to cut thin strips of cucumber lengthways, then shape the slices into rings – the moisture in the cucumber will make the ends stick together. If you are feeling a bit unsure about the whole thing you could either use 2 strips per ‘cucumber bowl’ (one inside the other) to make it a bit sturdier or just abandon the ‘cucumber bowl’ idea.

When I get round to working out how to use my video camera (i.e. when my children have had enough of my nagging and finally work it all out for me), I’ll film a demonstration on how to make a ‘cucumber bowl’, and add it to the as yet empty video section of this site.

The idea for using yuzu juice in this salad came from reading Nobu’s cookbook…
One fine day I went along to my local Japanese store (they seem to be popping up as quickly as Indian corner shops did in the 60’s) and innocently asked for ‘yuzu juice’. The sales assistant (a very young looking Japanese girl), handed me a tiny green bottle. I thanked the childlike-looking assistant (people under the age of 30 look like children to me), and being the middle aged mum that I am, fished out my reading glasses from my handbag and started looking at the list of ingredients on the side of the bottle; satisfied that they were no artificial ingredients or preservatives in this ‘yuzu juice’, I picked up the Lilliputian bottle (a mini-me version of a jif lemon juice bottle)  and made my way over to the till to pay for my exotic shopping of a single small bottle of yuzu juice, which was rattling around desolately in my shopping basket. Unfortunately I’d put my reading glasses away too soon and failed to look at the price tag, so when the cashier rang up £10.18 on the register I assumed that there must be a mistake.  And then I was too embarrassed to hand the yuzu juice back, so for the next couple of weeks I was busy making dressings with yuzu juice while trying to make sure that I didn’t acquire a taste for it!

Anyway, if you do happen to have a bit of yuzu juice lying around (as one does), then by all means substitute the lemon juice for this expensive and unusual ingredient…
Yuzu juice tastes like a mixture between lemon, grapefruit and mandarin – a strong and concentrated citrus taste, without being too sour.

The inspiration for this salad came from a combination of a Nigella and a Nobu recipe with a few extra ingredients from me and my cousin.

In case you’re interested, click here for the health benefits of avocados.

Nutrition Information for crab and avocado salad:

Nutrition per 100g per portion RDA women RDA men RDA child
Energy 177 kcal 220 kcal 11% 9% 12%
Protein 8.9 g 11 g 24% 20% 46%
Carbohydrate* 4.6 g 5.6 g 2% 2% 3%
Total Sugars* 2.6 g 3.2 g 4% 3% 4%
Fat* 13 g 16 g 23% 17% 23%
Polyunsaturates* 3.2 g 4.0 g
Mono Unsaturates* 6.2 g 7.7 g
Saturated Fat* 2.4 g 3.0 g 15% 10% 15%
Fibre* 1.4 g 1.7 g 7% 7% 12%
Salt 0.7 g 0.9 g 14% 14% 21%

* Percentage Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet for an average adult.
Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Allergens: Mustard, Shellfish, Soya, Egg

Cost per recipe: £ 5.90
Cost per portion: £2.90

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