From Retro to Current Crab Canapes

As a food blogger, I start each year perusing articles online about food trend predictions. A talented chef may create one dish that steamrolls into the meal everyone wants to recreate. We find dishes that are streamlined to honor diet crazes or honor movements for sustainable change. And yes, we have inclinations to want to assemble dishes for no other reason than we saw it online.

I am guilty of all of it. There is an element of fun in the peer pressure of food development. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing especially if the results are a tasty morsel or two. The best thing is that if a trend is just too crazy, odds are it will be only that... a trend.

Reading the different articles going into this year, I found one topic that I will argue isn’t going to go away…. nostalgia food. One of the reasons I love to cook is the sense of going back in time and invoking happy memories.

One bite of fettuccine alfredo brings me to the rehearsal dinner before my cousin’s wedding, a potato skin transports me to U of I hanging with my middle sister and the brininess of an olive will make me smile to myself and think of “olive fingers” with my aunts. All of it is nostalgia, and all of it is food.

During the holidays, I was roaming the aisles of the grocery store and came across a display of cocktail rye bread. These adorable little pieces of bread have been around for years and in the late 80’s/early 90’s it seemed to be an elite canape choice. (Fun Fact: Chicago was once known as the party bread world capital!)

A favorite tradition in our family was making little crab meat melts on cocktail rye. Cheesy, crabby, gooiness on toasts. Pinky up folks because this was fancy eating. I know the elegance was more of an illusion that was encapsulated on a piece of toast because it brought together the people I love.

As my taste buds have “matured,” I’ve made crabmeat melts. My sentimental side smiles but my culinary side feels the crab and rye toast is being overshadowed by cheese. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheese. It just doesn’t have to go on every appetizer. (I think I gasped as I typed that sentence.)

My fondness for crab toasts could be elevated just a bit while preserving the joy I remember when eating them.

My nostalgic melts have now turned into more of a crabmeat salad with a dollop of pickled veggies. I still serve them on the cute little cocktail rye because it helps preserve the emotions that come with a good food memory.

There are a lot of food exploits that we will encounter this next year but let’s not ever make incorporating our memories into our food a trend. Let these past impressions build our creativity while embracing our past. 

Crab Canapes

Scroll down for a printable version of this recipe

Makes 24 individual toasts, serve 2-3 per guest when served with other appetizers or 4 people as a side with a big bowl of soup

Prep time: 25 minutes

1 package of cocktail rye bread (There are approximately 35 slices of bread in the sleeve. This recipe uses about 24 slices.)

8 ounces crabmeat, flaked and pick through for shells, etc.

2 green onions, minced

1/2 small fennel bulb, diced (1/2 cup total)

1/2 small red pepper, diced (1/4 cup total)

2 Tablespoons sherry vinegar (I also like to use champagne vinegar.)

1/3 cup mayo (good thick mayo like kewpie or Duke’s)

1 clove of garlic

2 Tablespoons of fresh dill, chopped (extra dill is nice for the garnish if you have it)

Lemon

Salt

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. In a small bowl, mix chopped fennel, red pepper and a sprinkle of salt. Dress with 2 tablespoons of vinegar and set aside.

3. Place rye bread on a baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes and then flip bread. Bake for another 5 minutes. (I only used 25 slices of bread. Save the extra slices for little baby sandwiches this week.) The bread doesn’t need to be “toasted” looking. It just needs to firm up a bit so it doesn’t become soggy.

4. Rub the bread with your garlic clove. Set aside.

5. In a small bowl, mix mayonnaise, dill, zest and juice (2 Tablespoons) of one small lemon. (I was using a Meyer lemon so if using a “standard” lemon you may only want to use half a lemon for juice). Set aside.

6. In a medium bowl, add the crabmeat and chopped green onions. Fold together gently so crab is still flaky.

7. Add about 2 tablespoons of the mayonnaise mixture to the crab. Taste. You may want to add a little more but you don’t want it so wet that it makes your bread mushy. You may have extra mayo but it will keep a few days in the refrigerator.

8. Make a little assembly line. Toast, crab mix, fennel topping and dill garnish.

9. Top each rye bread with a generous spoonful of crab, add on fennel topping and garnish, repeat. My edit to my picture would be to add more of the fennel topping on each one. I was cautious because I wasn’t sure if it would overpower the crab, but it didn’t. It complimented it beautifully and you could still taste that unique pungent flavor of the rye too!

Please share your favorite updated nostalgic memory with me in The Chopping Block's private Facebook group, and if you aren’t already a member, join now!

If you want some personal help revitalizing an old favorite recipe, we do offer private virtual lessons where you work one-on-one with our chef in your own kitchen through Zoom. 

And if you are interested in learning another delicious crab dish, don't miss our upcoming virtual Asian Dumplings Workshop on Sunday, 1/22 at 11am CST, where you'll make: 

• Pork Pot Stickers 
• Crab Rangoon 
• Shrimp Wonton Dumplings in Soup  

It's the perfect way to celebrate Lunar New Year this Sunday!