Effortnesslessly: Garlic Cocktail Bread with Crab Salad

Crostini, in general, is the most versatile and popular finger food appetizer. Indeed, what can be more convenient and delicious than dollop of salad on a top of toasted bread. Here is one of my favorite crostini appetizers - toasted, garlic rubbed, cocktail bread with a swirl of crab stick salad.

Blog's Category: Appetizer, Effortless, Finger Food, Healthy, Holidays, Hors D'oeuvre, My Own Fast and Easy, My Staple Food, Seafood, Vegetarian

In a Few Words ...

- Of course, you can top those toasted pieces of cocktail bread with one of your favorite salad. Just keep in mind that the most suited salads are those with creamy dressing to prevent bread to become soggy and break in a hands of your guests. Try this crab salad I like to make for this crostini - it's delightful combination of crab sticks with freshness of cucumber and cilantro, dressed in lime infused mayonnaise.

- I use Kani crab sticks, which I buy at my local Asian store. Most likely, you'll find them in refrigerator section. This type of crab sticks separates into long strands easily and has beautiful flavor. If you use regular crab sticks from a grocery around the corner, I would suggest to grate it using coarse side of a grater.

- By the way, if you can, you can splurge on a real thing - real crab meat. If not, I can assure, you'll be happy with your crab salad as I offering below. By the way, you know that crab imitation sticks are made of real fish, right?

Garlic Cocktail Bread with Crab Salad

about 20 pieces of rye (or other) cocktail bread
5-10 garlic cloves (yes, you'll be surprised how much it takes for rubbing)
1 pack of kani crab sticks, thawed, peeled from plastic wrap and separated into strands
1 english cucumber, unpeeled and julienned (do not use the central seedy part of cucumber)
4-5 sprigs of cilantro, chopped
zest from 1 small lime
1+1 tbs nice mayonnaise
black pepper

- Toast bread.

- Rub bread with a garlic. For a strong garlic flavor, rub both sides.

- Place garlic toasts on a shallow serving plate and spread a thin layer of mayonnaise onto each piece.

- Sprinkle julienned cucumber with about 1/2 teaspoon of salt, mix and let it stend for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile prepare crab sticks - peel them from a plastic wrap and separate into strands. Now, rinse cucumber well from a salt and squeeze to remove extra liquid.

- Using two forks, mix salad ingredients together - crab sticks, cucumber, lime zest, mayo, black pepper, cilantro.

- To assemble, spin a little bit of salad onto a fork, like it would be spaghetti, and drop it on a prepared pieces of bread.

- Enjoy!

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In Pictures

You need to remove excess of liquid from a cucumber by sprinkling it first with a salt and then rinsing and squeezing it. This way your crab salad won't make bread soggy.

Kani crab sticks are piece of cake to separate into strands. Plus, these crab sticks has strong delightful flavor.

Don't forget to rinse cucumber from salt and squeeze nicely. Then, you can even dab it with a dry paper towel (I didn't do that).

I toast my bread in a regular toaster, dropping two pieces in a one slot, meanwhile working on a salad. As pieces are toasted, I like to make them "stand" on a paper towel to cool down to stay crisp.