Dipsomania

Holiday Colors Layered Crab Dip

This is really good and really fast. (As with all my recipes, adjust it to your taste and needs...)

A lot of people disdain canned crabmeat. I think it can be delicious. In any case, canned crabmeat is better than no crab in your crab dip, or, worse yet, pollock.

You can get lump crabmeat in a can (chunks picked from the body or backfin). On a budget, however, you might want to settle for flake or regular crab, small pieces from all parts of the crab. You may find blue crab from the East Coast of the United States, but more likely it will be from Southeast Asia. Trader Joe's crabmeat is supposed to be good. A lot of people like Phillips crabmeat, which comes in plastic tubs, but it's from Vietnam, and the meat is less rich and not as sweet as blue crab meat from the mid-Atlantic states.

Soaking the meat in ice water for 10 minutes, then draining it and patting it dry will take out a lot of the "canned" taste. I have also heard of using milk water or lime water, depending on what you're gonna do with the crab. Never forget to pick over the pieces to remove all bits of shell or cartilage that got into the can along with the meat.

Ingredients:

3 8 oz. tubs of soft (spreadable) cream cheese (use Kraft)
1/4 cup grated onion
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 12 oz. bottle Bennett's chili sauce
2 8 oz. cans crab meat
4 Tbsp. fresh parsley (or just use sprigs)

Instructions:

Mix cheese, onion, Worcestershire and lemon juice together. Spread in (maybe 3) shallow highly decorative serving dishes. Spread chili sauce over top. Spread crab over chili sauce. (This is why you might want nice crab. If you mix it up, who cares.) Sprinkle with parsley. (DO NOT PUT ON THE CHILI SAUCE AND CRAB UNTIL YOU ARE ALMOST READY TO SERVE IT.)