Crab salad: Put the citrus squeeze on shellfish - food guide - Recipe

Sunset, Jan, 2002 by Jerry Anne Di Vecchio

From late fall into very early spring-- peaking about now, in fact--the flavor of certain kinds of citrus is at its best, and the fruits' membrane walls are packed to bursting with juice. It's prime time for grapefruit and tangy, vibrant blood oranges.

Dungeness crab has a shorter period of plenty, but the Dungeness harvests along the Pacific Coast are cresting right now, bringing the best-quality, best-priced, meatiest crabs to market.

This serendipitous overlap makes possible a marvelous main-dish salad. You can cook and shell your own crab (my favorite option) for the best value and taste. Or you can purchase shelled cooked crab-in which case you'll appreciate how the rice extends the crab, and therefore the satisfaction factor of the salad, while keeping the cost of ingredients under control.

Dungeness Grab and Winter Citrus Salad

PREP AND COOK TIME: About 1 hour

NOTES: You can cook and season the rice (steps 1 and 2) up to 1 day ahead; when cool, cover and chill. Sliced pickled ginger (the pale pink kind served with sushi) is available canned in many supermarkets and refrigerated in Asian food markets; daikon sprouts are also available in Asian markets, but as an alternative you can use 2 cups rinsed and drained watercress leaves. To economize on the crab, you can replace part with chilled shelled cooked tiny shrimp.

MAKES: 4 to 6 servings

1 cup long-grain white rice

2 cups fat-skimmed chicken broth

6 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar About 1/3 cup sliced pickled ginger

1 red bell pepper (8 oz.), rinsed, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped

2 or 3 ruby grapefruit (2 to 3 lb. total) or 4 to 6 blood oranges (11/2 to 21/4 lb. total)

1 pound shelled cooked Dungeness crab (about 21/4 cups; see notes)

Sesame Cream Dressing (recipe follows)

About 8 ounces daikon sprouts, root ends trimmed, rinsed and drained (see notes)

1. In a 11/2- to 2-quart pan, combine rice and broth. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to very low, cover pan, and cook until liquid is absorbed and rice is just tender to bite, about 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a wide bowl, mix rice vinegar with sugar. When rice is cooked, spoon it at once into bowl; mix with a fork. Let stand until lukewarm or cooler, about 30 minutes. Sliver cup 1/3 pickled ginger and add, along with bell pepper, to rice mixture. Stir with a fork to loosen rice grains and mix.

3. As rice mixture cools, with a sharp knife, cut peel and outer membrane from grapefruit, then cut between segments and inner membranes to release fruit; drop into a bowl. Discard peel and membranes. Sort through crab and remove and discard any bits of shell.

4. Mound rice mixture equally on dinner plates; top with crab and grapefruit segments. Spoon juice from grapefruit segments and the Sesame Cream Dressing evenly over salads; garnish with daikon sprouts and pickled ginger slices.

Per serving: 415 cal., 30% (126 cal.) from fat; 23 g protein; 14 g fat (2.1 g sat.); 50 g carbo (1.3 g fiber); 1,058 mg sodium; 76 mg chol.

Sesame Cream Dressing. In a bowl, whisk 1/2 cup reduced-fat or regular mayonnaise, 6 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 3 tablespoons Asian (toasted) sesame oil, and 1 tablespoon firmly packed brown sugar until smooth. If making up to 1 day ahead, cover and chill. Makes 1 cup.

Per tablespoon: 49 cal., 73% (36 cal.) from fat; 0.3 g protein; 4 g fat (0.6 g sat.); 2.9 g carbo (0 g fiber); 285 mg sodium; 0 mg chol.

Whip up a dessert

* Back in June 1956, the closest you could come in this country to France's s creme fraiche was a firm, whipped mixture of cream cheese and sweet cream that we introduced as the filling for an incredibly popular recipe called French Cherry Pie. Recently, however, I discovered a way to smooth out what was an admittedly lumpy part of the process--folding the soft whipped cream into the firmer beaten cream cheese: You add the cream as you beat the cheese to soften it; the two whip up together, producing smoother, fluffier results.

Simplified, the French Cream is a classic--and particularly good with blueberries. I spoon it into bowls and top it with fresh Blueberry Pudding (recipe follows) or reverse the process and spoon the cream over the fruit.

French Cream

PREP TIME: 5 to 8 minutes

NOTES: You can make the cream up to 1 day ahead; cover and chill. If mixture softens, whisk to thicken.

MAKES: 2 cups

1 package (3 oz.) cream cheese, chilled

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 to 4 tablespoons powdered sugar

1. Chill a deep bowl and the rotary or whip beater of a mixer for at least 10 minutes.

2. Put cream cheese in bowl and mix on high speed with rotary or whip beater until cheese is spread around base of bowl. With mixer on high speed, pour cream down the side of the bowl (not into beaters) into the cheese, slowly enough that the cheese stays thick and forms ridges like stiffly whipped cream as you beat it; scrape sides of bowl as necessary.

3. When all the cream is whipped into the cheese, turn off mixer. Add lemon peel, lemon juice, and powdered sugar to taste; mix at medium speed to blend.