Alligator Pear and Crabmeat Salad

Name: Alligator Pear and Crabmeat Salad
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 pound fresh lump crabmeat, picked over for pieces of shell; 4 scallions, slivered; 2 grapefruits, one yellow and one pink or red, sectioned; 2 perfectly ripe avocados; 1 pound mixed young salad greens; Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 2 lemons; ⅜ cup extra-virgin olive oil; Several fresh basil leaves, julienned; 1 ripe jalapeño pepper, seeded, stemmed, deribbed, and cut into small dice

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Hoppin' John's Charleston, Beaufort & Savannah

By John Martin Taylor

Published 1997

About

Avocados used to be called “alligator pears” in the lowcountry, a reference to their pebbly skins. Here they are served on a bed of greens, halved and filled with fresh lump crabmeat garnished with grapefruit and a little olive oil. Keep this salad simple, using the finest ingredients, and assemble it at the last possible moment.

Ingredients

1 pound mixed young salad greens
2 perfectly ripe avocados
2 grapefruits

Method

Divide the salad greens among 4 plates. Halve the avocados and remove the pits, then place one avocado half on each plate of greens. Rub a piece of grapefruit section over the cut surfaces of the avocados to prevent them from coloring.

Fill each avocado half with crabmeat. Divide the grapefruit sections, scallions, jalapeño, and basil among the plates. Drizzle the oil over the salads, t