For a Christmas Day dinner salad we wanted something light and amusing,
since the entree was Osso Buco Milanaise with Butternut Squash Soup and mashed potatoes and parsnips–all pretty heavy stuff. So
here we have fresh tender watercress simply dressed with sugared rice wine vinegar. On top of that is one small just-sauteed crab cake, piped with a spicy hot raspberry wasabi mustard dressing. Nice contrasts here: bitter watercress, sweet rice vinegar, seasoned crab cake and spicy hot creamy dressing.
I always use ring molds to shape crab cakes. You will find 80mm and 60mm stainless steel rings molds in good kitchen supply stores. Both sizes too big for our purposes here. So at the hardware store, buy a length of PVC pipe with an ID of 40mm. Take it home and cut it into rings about an inch
high. One pound of crab meat prepared as crab cakes yields
four 80’s or six 60’s or twelve 40’s.
