Crab Dip with Blue Chips

Among the classes I am taking this semester, my Food Studies Lab is without a doubt my favorite. It is essentially a cooking class and my teacher is amazing. Her name is Lourdes Castro and in addition to teaching at NYU, she teaches cooking classes at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami, flying down once a month. She also started her own cooking school that she sold a few years back. Oh, and she's also a published author, having written 3 cookbooks on Latin cooking with a 4th on the horizon. 

I added a bunch of diced avocado on top.

I purchased one of her books a week ago on Amazon. Titled 'Simply Mexican', the cookbook includes simple, Mexican recipes from tortilla soup to fish tacos. 


All the recipes look fantastic and I was eager to try one out. Lucky for me, I was invited to a friend's this weekend and we were each expected to bring a small appetizer. I decided to make the Crab Tostada from Lourdes' book. It was a big hit and three of my friends told me they had actually never had crab before (or had, but didn't like it) but that mine changed their minds! That is the ultimate compliment. 

In progress...

I don't think I am able to reprint the recipe here, but I would strongly advise picking up a copy of Lourdes' book, which you can find here. All the recipes are clear and easy to follow, and I really like that unlike most cookbooks, she has broken up each step into a separate heading. Ie: (To assemble the chicken XX, to make the sauce XX). If you're anything like me, you'll sometimes look at a recipe and feel overwhelmed by how wordy the directions are. Not the case here. 

What was great about this recipe was that it took all of ten minutes to prepare and looked and tasted like it took a lot longer. Of course, the freshest of ingredients do make a big difference. One tip I use in the winter: for salads or dips that call for fresh tomatoes, I sometimes sub in canned salsa if the flavors seem like they'd work. Canned tomatoes and salsa are made during peak tomato season and tend to taste better than the mealy, tasteless tomatoes found in winter. 


I served the dip with blue corn tortilla chips and besides the fact that the flavor worked well with the crab, their bright hue added a nice punch of color to the dish.