This recipe is a great way of making a fairly expensive ingredient go a long way, and anyway, what could be nicer than crab with chilli and lime on crunchy bread with avocado and pickled cucumber? The perfect combo of flavours and textures. The lime is the perfect match for crab and is slightly more subtle than if I used a lemon, which you can do if you prefer. It’s a great starter to any dinner, just multiply it by the number of guests.

Recipe

For two as a light meal or four as a starter.

Ingredients:

1/2 red chilli very finely chopped
One tin of crab meat drained or 120g of fresh crab
Four slices of very thinly sliced scorched sourdough bread
One lime, zest and juice plus another for squeezing later
3 tablespoons of olive oil plus more for drizzling on the bread
1/2 a clove of minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon of maple syrup
1 ripe avocado cut into tiny cubes or slices
2 pickled cucumber spears finely chopped
1/2 a small red onion very finely chopped
A small sprig of parsley
A sprinkling of nigella seeds
Salt and pepper

Dressing
In a small bowl mix the olive oil with the chilli, lime juice and zest,  onion, maple syrup, pickled cucumber, garlic and salt and pepper to taste, then gently mix in the avocado to coat it in the dressing.

How:
Place the bread on plates and divide the avocado mixture between the bread slices placing it on top all over the bread. Next pile the crab on top. Sprinkle the red onion on top and then place a little sprig of parsley on top of that. Finally sprinkle with nigella seeds and serve with a wedge of lime for squeezing over the top.

lastly…my girlfriends and I think this is the perfect girl food.

I shop at:
Waitrose
Sainsbury’s
Tesco
Lidl