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Crab Meat with Mayonnaise
Place in a bowl one and a half pounds fresh crab meat flakes, season with three tablespoons dressing, mix well. Arrange six well-cleaned lettuce leaves around a compotier, dress crab meat on top, spread a mayonnaise sauce over. Sprinkle a light tablespoon capers on top, then arrange two cold hard-boiled eggs, cut in quarters, around mayonnaise and serve.
A plain crab salad that depends entirely on the quality of the crab and on the two separate dressings the recipe assumes you understand.
- Two dressings, not oneThe "three tablespoons dressing" mixed into the meat is almost certainly a French dressing (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper) rather than more mayonnaise, which goes over the top afterward. The step appears to be a light marinade, so it is better not skipped in favour of simply doubling the mayonnaise.
- CompotierA footed glass or china bowl with a shallow, wide profile, used for fruit and cold dishes. Any shallow serving bowl or a chilled platter works; the shape matters only in that the crab should mound rather than sink.
- Crab meat flakesFlake here means body meat rather than the large lump or claw pieces. Pasteurised refrigerated crab from a tub is the practical substitute for 1 1/2 lb of picked fresh meat, which represents a substantial quantity of whole crabs.
- Pick it overEven good tinned or tubbed crab carries fragments of shell and cartilage. Spread the meat on a tray and go through it with your fingers before dressing, and handle it gently after that so the flakes stay intact.
- Keep it coldCrab and mayonnaise both spoil quickly at room temperature. Dress the salad shortly before serving, keep the bowl refrigerated until it goes to the table, and do not leave it standing out through a long meal.
- CapersA "light tablespoon" means loosely filled, not packed. Drain and blot them, or the brine will thin the mayonnaise where it pools.
- YieldSix lettuce leaves and two eggs suggest six servings as a first course or four as a light lunch.
Cold crab under mayonnaise was a fixture of the hotel and restaurant repertoire on both sides of the Atlantic in the early twentieth century, when mayonnaise was still made to order in the kitchen and a cold dressed salad was a familiar way of serving shellfish. The construction here is entirely classical French service ivinaigrette, masked with sauce, garnished with capers and quartered hard-boiled eggs o era to lobster, salmon and chicken. The compotier called for is a reminder that a cold salad was meant to arrive at the table as a built piece, not tossed.