Lump Crab and Avocado Salad

I wanted to make a salad highlighting a pairing of crab and avocado. I imagined the buttery, earthy flavor of the avocado and the cool sweetness of lump crabmeat. But, I wanted it to be a unique composed salad that was also a balanced meal. What I came up with was this salad, featuring a lot of mild sweet flavors, dressed with a creamy hand-made dressing based on a Cajun remoulade. What you get is a lot of flavor and freshness, and a great salad.

So let's talk about the dressing. I start by making an avocado oil mayonnaise with cooked egg yolks, Dijon mustard, cider vinegar and avocado oil. Yeah, I know mayonnaise should be made with raw egg yolks, but food safety prudence recommends cooked eggs and my children eat the meals I prepare. The cooked egg yolks do lack the emulsifying effectiveness of raw yolks so you do have to work carefully. Once those ingredients are emulsified together, I gently fold in some traditional remoulade ingredients: horseradish, ketchup, cayenne, hot pepper sauce, and parsley. I finish it up with some very finely diced avocado. If you stopped right there you could use that instead of tartar sauce on fried fish or shrimp. In fact, you will be able to find that recipe, Avocado Remoulade here.

To round out the salad I used butter lettuce because I wanted it's simple flavor, and crunchy sweet corn and baby green beans. The final result was what I hoped for. Sweetness from the crab and corn, balanced by the acidity of the Dijon, cider vinegar, and lemon. As with my other composed salads, there is always some leeway as far as quantities go, but do not go lightly on the quantity of sweet corn, because it's sweetness really helps balance out the flavors.