I am a huge fan of homemade salad dressings. In fact, there are only a few store brought dressings that I will go near these days. I will opt for the old school “Italian Packet” mixed with oil and vinegar over anything in a plastic bottle. Not trying to rant on about what a dressing snob I am….but I’m trying to segway y’all into one of my new passions. Homemade Dressings. There is a restaurant close to my home that serves this kick ass, cold, crab salad with an amazing vinaigrette. I obsess over this salad and I set out to copy the sh#t out of it. After taking the kids crabbing last week we were faced with what to do with our bushel (almost a bushel) of blue crabs. On a normal day, we would steam them in a mix of Old Bay and seasonings, crack them with little wooden hammers, and dip in butter. But now I wanted to do something a little different…and now I knew I would not rest until I perfected my new crab salad. We decided we would steam them all as usual, eat half of the crabs like normal, and pick the meat off the other half to make a “THE” crab salad. By far the hardest part of doing this was to not eat the crab meat as we removed it from the shells. It takes lots of discipline to not eat what you pick when you pick it.
Ok, without further ado, I have a variety of vinegars in the fridge (yes I keep them in the fridge you heathens) and I like to use them in my vinaigrettes. But…today we are getting crazy…this recipe is vinegar free (but you can substitute white wine vinegar in place of the lemon juice if you want). If you don’t have all of these ingredients don’t worry. Use what you have, substitute if you like.
What you need:
- ½ cup of fresh lemon juice (add a bit more if you like it extra tart…or add more to taste)
- ¼ cup Dijon mustard
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp. of chopped sweet onions or shallots (chop fine like a hot dog topping)
- 2 tbsp. of chopped fresh parsley
- ½ tsp of chopped fresh thyme
- ¼ tsp of mustard seeds
- ½ tsp each of salt and pepper
Mix or all the above together and this should make about 2 cups. Most vinaigrettes will last a few weeks in the fridge as long as you do not add the fresh herbs. The herbs tend to get wilted and lose flavor over time. If you add the fresh herbs use the dressing in a week. If you like, you can make the dressing and store in fridge and add the herbs when ready.
With the crabs, we mixed some of the vinaigrette with the crab meat and served it over Romaine Lettuce with some sliced Vidalia onions, fresh tomatoes, and thin sliced celery (don’t forget to salt and pepper the tomatoes). Good Luck!
Thanks for reading,
