Cold Crab Salad and how I started liking salads

I have never been a salad person neither have I been a connoisseur of salads, till such time I met Madhushree. Growing up, I have had salads on a daily basis. If neatly plated sliced cucumber, onions, tomatoes and carrots on a daily basis and capsicums in winter can be called a salad, then yes, I have had them everyday.

Salad as per dictionary definition means – a cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients.

A salad can easily be an appetizer , a side dish , a main course and as well as a dessert . It all depends on when the salad is served and what salad is served .

Cold Crab Salad in cucumber boats when ready

Madhushree has been a fan of salads and like many things else, I also started liking salads slowly. Its not that I still don’t have a mind block of the fact that unless the spices and oils are doing passionate dance on your taste buds, its not a complete meal.

I recently attended an invitation by Casa Kitchen on their summer menu and the cool salads and sandwiches . Although vegetarian, this left a lasting impression on me . I made the mistake of getting a little overboard in praising them at home – Madhushree had to offer this to me :-)

Cold crab salad in cucumber boats from a different angle

Cold Crab Salad in Cucumber Boats

Time Taken: 15- 20 minutes

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients:

Cooked Crab Meat	500 gms	Mayonnaise	4 heaped tsps
Spring Onion	3-4	Tomato Ketchup	2 tsp
Yellow Bell Pepper	½	Kasundi (or mustard paste)	1 ½ tsp
Tomatoes	2 small ones	Red Chili Powder	1 tsp
Coriander leaves	A small bunch	Salt	For Seasoning
Cucumber	4 large	Black Pepper	For Seasoning

Raw produces for Cold Crab Salad in Cucumber boats

Method:

To make the filling, in a bowl, take the cooked crab meat, chopped spring onion, chopped tomatoes, chopped yellow bell pepper and chopped coriander leaves.
Add the mayonnaise, ketchup and kasundi (it’s a spicy Bengali mustard paste). If you don’t have kasundi then substitute it with any other mustard paste.
Add ½ a tsp of chili powder and season with salt and pepper.
Mix it all up properly, cover it and chill it in the refrigerator.
While your crab filling is chilling in the refrigerator, you can prepare the cucumber boats.
First peel the cucumbers and cut them length wise in half.
Then with each half, cut into 2 or three pieces depending on the length of the boat you want.
So each cucumber would yield either 4 or 6 boats.
Then with a spoon, scoop out the seeds so that the cucumbers have a cavity and they resemble boats.
Just before serving, spoon in the crab filling and sprinkle some red chili powder on top.