Stacked salads look so fancy, don’t they?  I recently had a couple of friends over for a girls night and when I whipped out this salad, they were totally wowed.  ‘Five star’ was what they called it (thanks girls!). But really, they had no idea how easy this is to put together, well until now.  All you need is a 3″ ring and a little patience to put this posh-looking starter together.  And not only does it look glam, it’s so full of fresh yummy flavour.

A salad is only as good as it’s ingredients.  Nevermind the fancy tower of seafood, if the ingredients aren’t fresh, it’s just a stack of grossness.  So buy the best ingredients you can – you’ll be able to taste the difference.  When cutting fresh mint, make sure your knife is super sharp so you don’t bruise the delicate leaves.  To cut, I stack up a pile of leaves, roll them, and slice into thin ribbons before chopping them up.

To get uniformly thinly sliced veggies, you would need a mandoline.  Read more about it here. No mandoline?  No problem.  Just slice thinly and you’re perfect.  This recipe is adapted from the LCBO’s Food & Drink magazine from a few years back.  The great thing about this mag is they post all their recipes and gorgeous photos online.  I simplified the salad and modified the seasonings a bit.  This website is a great source for food and drink recipes – I use it often.

How do you get cubed avocado?  I cut the avocado in half and cut the flesh into squares. Then use a tablespoon to scoop out the avocado flesh. This way, you don’t need any of those fancy avocado slicers.  To get slices, just cut the avocado lengthwise and scoop out.

The ring I used here is from Sur la Table for $4.95.  If that’s not convenient, I think you can just go to a hardware store and buy some plastic plumbing parts.  When filling the ring, press the ingredients down gently.  The more compact the ingredients, the less likely it will fall apart when you slowly remove the ring.  Don’t freak out if the crab starts falling out – just gently put the pieces back into place or put them back on top.  Most likely, no one will even notice.  The chives crossed on top are an effective decoy for any errant pieces of crab.

This salad can definitely be made ahead of time – up to 4 hours is fine.  Just make sure the avocado is really well coated in the dressing; the lemon and lime juices keep the avocado from turning brown.  The nice thing about making this ahead is that the cucumbers get slightly pickled from the lemon and vinegars in the dressing.  So refreshing.  Reminds me of a California roll.