Sweet and Spicy

Fast, Simple and Delicious

I was working as a chef for an upstart catering company, and we were looking for a quick, easy recipe to serve guests. We wanted it to be pretty, and we wanted to be able to vary the sizes. The dish had to have the versatility of serving it in tiny plastic cups or in a larger vessel. This way it could be served as a passed by cityappetizer or as a seated dinner app.

50 Crab Cake Recipes

I was thinking a lot about crab at the time. I was recently back in the south after spending several years on the coast, and I missed working with a lot of the wonderful seafood that was available to me. Crab was one of those seafood options that I missed so much. I’ve also been in love with mango for years. I had worked at an eclectic little restaurant in Memphis that used mango quite a bit, and the combination of mango and crab is delightful. The textures are complimentary, but the dish also needed a bit of crunch. Cabbage! Cabbage works so well as an ingredient in fish tacos that it seemed ideal to use as the crunch in my mango parfait.

So, I came up with a crab and mango parfait with a little cabbage to be served as one layer for a passed app or in several layers for a seated dinner.

Ingredients

Mango Salsa

• 1 cup mango, diced
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro (with extra small sprigs for garnish)
• 1 tablespoon finely diced red onion
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 minced jalapeno (seeds removed)

• 2 cups lump crabmeat
• 1 cup shredded cabbage (red or green and you may not need it all)

Directions

1. Combine all mango salsa ingredients together (except the extra cilantro) in a bowl. Mix well.
2. First place a small bed of cabbage into the cup. Just enough to cover the bottom of your vessel.
3. Layer in crab.
4. Top with mango salsa. Repeat as many times as you’d like.
5. Garnish with a small sprig of cilantro, and serve.

Article by:
David Thornton
Freelance Writer and Chef