Piment d’Espelette harvest is finished for the year and winter Mexican avocados are here, so I started thinking about how to combine two great things. Crab is one of my favorite shellfish, and together with avocado and a soft egg makes a delicious and satisfying meal. This simple dish only requires one technique, poaching an egg. The rest is just delicious assembly.

 

Espelette Crab Toast

Christian Leue

Servings/Yield

4

Category

Snack

Espelette Crab Toast

Ingredients

  • 8-ounces of lump crab meat

  • 1 large avocado

  • 4 eggs

  • 4 slices of bread (my favorite for this is sourdough)

  • Butter

  • Garlic (optional)

  • 2 tsp Espelette pepper

  • Shabazi, to taste, for garnish

Directions

  1. Bring a sauce sauce pot half full of water to a low boil, drop the heat to low and add a good splash of white vinegar (the acidity helps the egg whites coagulate so you get a neater egg, and gives a nice flavor). Crack each egg into a small bowl or ramekin. With a spoon gently stir the water in one direction creating a spiral. Gently add one egg to the center of the vortex and keep stirring until it comes together in a nice round ball, about ten seconds. Continue this for each new egg then poach them for a total of 3 1/2 minutes. No desire to poach? This dish is great with a soft fried egg too.

  2. Toast each piece of bread, optionally rub each piece with a cut clove of garlic to further flavor the bread, then butter generously on one side. Top each slice with 1/4 of the avocado and mash roughly into the bread with a fork. Add two ounces of crabmeat and a good dusting of Espelette pepper and top with the poached egg. Garnish with Shabazi and serve alone or with a simply dressed salad of bitter greens.

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