While growing up,we all loved seafood from clams to mussels to abalone to smelt that we would gather ourselves, but it was crab, dungeness crab fresh from the nearby ocean, we loved best. Whenever we went to a seafood restaurant during crab season, Poppa would order the Crab Louie. At the opening of the crab season, around Thanksgiving, we would prepare our own version at home. Since it is a time-consuming chore to clean the crab, it became a family activity reserved for special occasions. This year we made Crab Louie for Christmas Eve. Jim spent the afternoon cleaning crab and Carol put together the salad. Sourdough bread is our preferred side to this scrumptious meal, but it has become increasingly difficult to locate the real thing, a San Francisco specialty.
Our "recipe" for the Louie is to slice up and layer the following ingredients: ice-berg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, hard-boiled eggs, red peppers, celery and pickled beets from the can. The eggs often are still warm from just being boiled and the beets are chilled in the can in the refrigerator. We then place a heaping serving of crab meat on top of it all and drizzle the dressing on top. My recipe for the dressing is done "by taste". It includes: mayonnaise, ketchup, fresh lemon juice, a tiny bit of sugar and horseradish. All together this is what makes the traditional Feige Family Crab Louie.
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