Coronation crab potato salad
This recipe was originally written for friends Liebherr; as part of a selection of summer recipes and wine pairings.
This dish is a mash up of a few summer classics… Coronation chicken, potato salad, and a prawn cocktail! If you were to smash the above together - elegantly, mind you - you’d arrive at this beauty. It’s robust and yet delicate, bold and yet subtle. We love its charming yellow hue, gentle warmth from curry spices and ginger, and the fresh, natural sweetness of crab. Peppery watercress and sweet red grapes play off each other really well, and make this salad the perfect dance partner for a chilled French Syrah. Read more on this pairing below.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20-24 minutes
This recipe serves 4.
Ingredients :
500 g new potatoes
200 g picked crabmeat, brown & white
4 tsp mild curry powder
4 tbsp crème fraîche
2 heaped tbsp mayo
2 tbsp apricot jam
4 dried apricots
2 stalks celery
1 banana shallot
1 tsp flakey sea salt
½ tsp freshly cracked black pepper
½ lemon, juice only
100 g watercress
2 handfuls firm red grapes
2 tbsp olive oil
½ lemon, juice only
2 tbsp roasted hazelnuts
2 spring onions, optional
Curly parsley, optional
Method:
If your hazelnuts need toasting, pop on the oven and roast them for 8 minutes at 160 degrees until golden. Allow to cool, then coarsely chop.
Rinse any loose dirt off the new potatoes, submerge in a pot of cold salted water, then bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 20-24 minutes, or until cooked through.
Meanwhile, dry toast your curry powder in a small frying pan over a low heat for 2-3 minutes, just until you can smell its wonderful aroma being released. Once toasted, tip from the hot pan to a plate right away to prevent burning.
Mix together the picked crab meat, toasted curry powder, crème fraîche, mayo, and apricot jam.
Finely chop the dried apricots, finely slice the celery, and very finely dice the shallot. Add these to your crab mix.
Season with sea salt, plenty of balck pepper and the juice of ½ a lemon. Mix well.
Once cooked, drain the new potatoes. Cut any larger ones in half, and allow them all to steam dry well. Once cool, add the potatoes to the crab mix.
When you’re ready to eat, halve the grapes, and toss them with the watercress, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and the juice of half a lemon.
Scatter the watercress and grape salad around the edge of your bowl, and pile the centre high with the Coronation crab potato salad.
Top everything with the roasted hazelnuts, and some finely sliced spring onions and chopped curly parsley, if you wish.
Enjoy immediately with a glass of that chilled Syrah.
A wine pairing.
Typically, Syrah is a medium-full bodied red wine with notable tannins and bright acidity. It’s elegant yet robust structure is a good match for the waxy new potatoes, and rich, creamy brown crab meat. Chilling it keeps things fresh and light, and even more apt for this summer salad.
Flavour-wise Syrah is packed with rich dark fruits - think inky cherries, and plums - and has a bold peppery note on both the nose and the palate. Fruity peppercorns are the quintessential aroma and flavour of a Syrah! Peppery watercress and generous twists of black pepper echo those of the wine, and the red grapes in the salad pick up on the sweet-tart red fruit notes in the wine.