Crab Salad with Shallot Dressing

By stancec44

— From Emily Crumpacker, featured in Sara Perry’s
This recipe is from a 1991 Taste Makers profile of Emily Crumpacker, an advocate of Northwest ingredients whose background includes stints assisting food icons Julia Child and Simone Beck. The secret to the recipe is its simplicity: You aren’t doing too much to some pretty terrific ingredients. It’s hearty enough to be served as a lunch or dinner entree, and can easily be cut in half to reduce the number of servings.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh, cooked crabmeat
• 12 cups mixed salad greens (see note)
• 1 cup fresh, whole tarragon leaves
• 10 tender celery ribs
• 3 firm, medium-size shallots
• 1 firm, small clove garlic, pressed
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• Note: Use a combination of butter or red leaf lettuce, curly endive, watercress or small leaf exotic greens.

Details

Servings 10
Preparation time 20mins

Preparation

Step 1

Flake crabmeat and mound in the middle of a large salad bowl.

Wash the salad greens and spin dry. Set aside. Remove the leaves of the tarragon from the stems, wash, pat dry and set aside. Wash, trim and cut the celery ribs in half lengthwise. Cut crosswise into thin slices. Place the greens, tarragon and celery around the crab in the salad bowl.

To make the dressing, peel and mince the shallots, add pressed garlic. Place them in a small bowl and mix in the lemon juice, sugar and poppy seeds. Drizzle this mixture over the salad greens and lightly toss the greens and crab together. Then drizzle on the olive oil and toss again. Serve salad on individual plates; accompany with warm sourdough bread.