Summer Fest: Cucumbers Stuffed With Crab-Mango Salad
Week
three of our season-long garden party Summer Fest 2011 welcomes food
and garden bloggers to feature garden-to-table recipes and tips. We’ll
help you to enjoy all that this season has to offer. So far, we’ve
delved into eggplant and peaches. This week we’re getting creative with
cucumbers.
Summer appetizers should be fresh, light and they should take
advantage of the bounty of the season. Ideally, they’d be great-tasting,
and wouldn’t take a lot of time to make (you’ll need that time to waste
by the pool or in a hammock somewhere) and summer apps should not heat
up the kitchen. This is not the time for spinach-artichoke dip, folks.
It is time for bite-sized chunks of cool cucumber, stuffed with mango
and jalapeno-studded crab salad. It tastes like the crab walked out of
the sea and into your garden.
I was inspired by Daisy Martinez’s Avocado Stuffed With Crab-Mango Salad,
but since it’s not avocado week of Summer Fest, I wanted to use
cucumbers instead. Plus, cucumbers are lighter, so you can pop a couple
of these in your mouth without needing a nap afterward. The end result
is a no-cook snack or appetizer that looks pretty fancy but is done in a
half-hour, and you won’t have to heat up the kitchen at all.
Cucumbers Stuffed With Crab-Mango Salad
(adapted from Daisy Martinez’s recipe)
1 lime, zest finely grated
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 mango, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1 cup)
1/3 cup diced (1/4-inch) red bell peppers
1/3 cup diced (1/4-inch) red onion
1/2 jalapeno, stemmed and cut into small dice (about 2 tablespoons)
1/2 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
2 English cucumbers
cilantro, for garnishing
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 mango, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1 cup)
1/3 cup diced (1/4-inch) red bell peppers
1/3 cup diced (1/4-inch) red onion
1/2 jalapeno, stemmed and cut into small dice (about 2 tablespoons)
1/2 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
2 English cucumbers
cilantro, for garnishing
Squeeze the juice from the lime into a bowl. Add the olive oil and
cilantro and whisk well. Add the mango, red pepper, onion, jalapeno, and
lime zest and toss to coat. Gently stir in the crabmeat to keep it from
breaking up. Set aside while preparing the cucumbers.
Wash the cucumbers and peel evenly-spaced strips around the cucumber.
Cut the cucumbers into 1-inch-thick rounds, discarding the ends. Using a
small spoon, scoop the seeds and some of the flesh out of each round to
form a small cup. (Don’t scoop all the way through the cucumber round.)
Fill the cucumber cups with crab salad and garnish with a sprig of cilantro. Serve right away.
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