This recipe is a reimagining of Crab Louie, a classic steakhouse dish of chilled crabmeat with a mayo and chili–based dressing, usually including ingredients like lettuce and hard-boiled eggs. You can make the bitter lime mayo ahead of time (any extra is also great for a Frogmore Stew), and then all that’s left to do for this dip is cut up the fruit. The crab, citrus, mayo, and shichimi (a Japanese 7-spice mix) are layered in a wide bowl so that each bite eats like a deeply craveable flavor cycle of fat, acid, and spice.
recipe 
yields
Serves 2
½ cup Meyer lemon “soft suprêmes” or equal parts orange and lime “soft suprêmes”
1 pound cooked crabmeat (the best you can find), picked over for bits of shell
½ cup Kewpie Mayonnaise
1½ teaspoons soy sauce
1 lime, grated and zested
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon shichimi or yuzu shichimi, or to taste, depending on the spice level of your shichimi
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
Ritz crackers, for serving
Ingredients
steps
- Cut the citrus “soft suprêmes” into ¼ inch pieces. Lay the crab in a single layer in a wide serving bowl. Dollop the mayo over the top and spread it gently into a single layer. Sprinkle the citrus pieces over the top. Blanket it with a thin layer of shichimi, followed by the chives. Serve immediately, with Ritz crackers.
Date Published: 10.30.25
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Recipe excerpted from
How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea by Ari Kolender. Copyright © 2025. Photographs by Justin Chung.
