Feeling crabby

I had arranged for a friend to come over for supper this evening, however as it got later and later and I still hadn't left work, I thought that I'd probably be cancelling and decided against doing a food shop on my way back to the flat.

So, when I found myself at home at 7.30 with my friend arriving in half an hour, I was in a bit of pickle.  The cupboards were pretty bare but I managed to find 2 tins of crabmeat that I had bought on a whim (hey, it's cheaper than shoes) some time earlier.  Rest assured this is quality, 100% crab meat, unlike so called 'crab sticks', which I was disgusted to discover were made from 'pressed white fish'. Gross. However, if you're not ok with tinned things, and you have managed to plan ahead, fresh picked white crab meat would obviously be ideal.

I tipped 300g (2 tins) of the crab meat into a bowl and assembled some ingredients.

Ignore the spring onions, I didn't use them

Basically, I smushed up the crab (you can see it's in large chunks at the moment) and added mayonnaise (not too much please), lime juice, chilli flakes, salt and white pepper to taste  This created a pleasingly snowy white mousse with the occasional dash of red chilli. I moulded it into sort of round shapes and chilled it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Avocado would have been an obvious choice with this, but miine was rock hard and in fact I broke a knife trying to prise it apart. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board. In the end I tossed a mixed salad with a mustard vinaigrette, plonked the crab mix on top in attractive blobs, sprinkled with chives and served with some small toasts for my guest, who is not currently in an emotionally abusive relationship with carbs.

Delicious. Phew.