A Perfect Kid Meal: Snow Crab Legs & Raw Vegetables with Red Pepper Garlic Mayonnaise

Jul 9, 2009 by Anna Migeon

I’m all about mayonnaise now. I pretend that all mayonnaise, even the cheap store brand, is mayonnaise in its ideal form, like I once made from freshly laid raw eggs from our backyard, free-range, happy hens (who are no more), with a little lemon juice, Dijon mustard, good olive oil. There’s nothing you can say against a little mayonnaise, at least in its ideal form. Good egg, good oil—it’s health food.

I made this mayonnaise-based dip the other day and served it with raw carrots, cucumbers, jicama (a crisp, fresh Mexican root vegetable), turnip and radishes, along with some ready-to-eat snow crab legs I found on sale for $5 a pound. I had never served crab legs and didn’t know how much to get, and found out that a quarter pound per person wasn’t enough. We could have eaten twice as much. Or three times. They were fun to crack and eat, the vegetables were fun to dip and eat, and all was delicious with the sauce, which was spicy and savory.

I’ve noticed that kids and other people like to eat things that involve using their hands: dipping, cracking, assembling, doing-it-themselves. Such foods bring a festive atmosphere to the table and facilitate conversation.

We ate a big bunch of raw vegetables, the little bit of crab, one slice each of sprouted grain toast, and finished it off with a green salad with vinaigrette. It sounds lightweight, but it was remarkably satisfying, even without as much crab as we would have liked, maybe because it went so slowly. Some fruit for dessert. It was a rather unplanned ten-minute meal that came together surprisingly beautifully.

2 large garlic cloves

½ C (or more) diced, drained roasted red peppers from a jar or a fresh roasted red pepper (blacken the skin under the broiler, let sit in a paper bag ten minutes and peel and remove seeds and stem)

½ t red wine vinegar

¼ t cayenne pepper (or less, to taste—it was perfect but could have been a tad bit less spicy for me)

½ C mayonnaise

With food processor running, drop garlic in. Scrape down sides of the bowl. Add roasted pepper, vinegar and cayenne and process until mixture is almost a smooth puree. Add ¼ C mayonnaise and process using on/off turns until just combined. Transfer sauce to a bowl; mix in remaining ¼ C mayonnaise. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes or more. Salt and pepper if needed.

Serve with any raw vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper strips…)

From Bon Appétit Fast & Easy cookbook