When seafood goes straight from the water to your local market – as it does on my island home-away-from-home in Stonington, Maine – resist the temptation to dress it up with fancy sauces or dips or lots of mayo and other gunk. Instead, let its essence of summer sing out loud and clear with a touch of herbs and other aromatics, designed to enhance flavor, not obscure! Here’s one of my favorite ways to serve my local Peekytoe crabmeat: a simple six-ingredient, one-bowl recipe, which is very much in this less-is-more vein – and insanely addictive any time of day! I dollop it on crackers for evening appetizers, but I also love it atop poached eggs in the morning or stuffed inside a luscious crab melt for a midday snack.

Fresh from the Sea
Yield

About 1 1 /4 cups (10 oz/284 g)

Prep Talk
  • If you’re planning to use this salad as a party app, by all means, make it on the morning of the event; then wrap it with plastic and chill it until it’s time to eat. There’s no reason to be making anything right before guests come over.
  • For optimum freshness, I like to eat crabmeat the day I buy it. Be sure to buy the freshest possible crabmeat; it should taste and smell of the sea, without any fishiness.
Ingredients
  • 8 ounces (227 g) well-picked crabmeat (I use oh-so-delicate Peekytoe crabmeat, which you can purchase frozen online if you don’t have the benefit of a nearby supplier. However, it’s at least twice as expensive this way and certainly not as fresh.)
  • 2 teaspoons finely grated red onion
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons finely minced fresh dill
  • 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons strained freshly squeezed lemon juice (less than 1 lemon)
  • 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons mayonnaise
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Method

1 | Place the crabmeat in a small bowl, and with clean hands, carefully pick through it again to make sure there are no stray shells.

2 | Add the next four ingredients and stir to evenly distribute them. Stir in the mayonnaise, just enough the bind the crabmeat and aromatics together without overwhelming the flavor of the crab. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and enjoy!