This recipe appears in Chapter 39, Into Her Arms. Ava uses it on a Dungeness crab salad and notes it’s her favorite thing on the menu she makes for her Marisol’s Divorce party, but it’s not because it’s the prettiest—though it is, all pale microgreens, paper-thin daikon, and avocado fanned just so—but because it belongs to the island. Tide to table in the truest sense. She caught the crab herself, out on a boat with her buddy Brett at sunrise, hauling cages up from eighty feet of cold Pacific Northwest water. If you don’t happen to have a boat, a crab pot, and eighty feet of cold Pacific water nearby, this is how I usually suggest serving it.
AIOLI/DRESSING:
1 cup mayo
¼ finely chopped shallot
1 to 2 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil
1 splash of red wine vinegar
1 tsp of honey or agave
1 to 2 tablespoons of white or yellow miso paste to taste
Juice from squeezing half an orange
Put all ingredients in a blender and blend ‘til smooth. Store in the fridge until ready to use.
SALAD:
Spring Salad mix
Radicchio, hand torn
Green onions, slivered on the diagonal, Japanese style
Sliced English cucumbers on the diagonal
Slivered radishes
Thai rice noodles, like the wide ones used for Pad See Ew or the thinner ones used for pad thai
Poached chicken breast, thinly sliced
DIRECTIONS:
Soften flat rice noodles according to package directions, and set aside.
When the noodles are cooled or room temp, lay a handful in the bottom of a large salad bowl or in individual bowls. Add a dollop of dressing and toss. Place a spring salad mix on top of that, add the remaining salad ingredients, poached chicken slices, and anything else you’d love. Lightly toss the salad. I like to add a nasturitum flower on this salad. It’s peppery and pretty to look at.