This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is a fanciful interpretation of ravioli. In this version, mandoline-sliced avocado stands in for the pasta to enclose a piquant crab filling. Clever, no?

I will say it sounded delicious. However, in reading the week’s chatter about problems and questions for this recipe (P&Q), it became apparent that slicing the avocado successfully was an iffy proposition. I followed the lead of several other Doristas and transformed the ingredients into a salad instead.

In my case, I made the crab filling according to the recipe. Lump crabmeat was flaked and tossed with lime zest, lime juice, shallot, cilantro, and some olive oil. Rather than attempting to thinly slice it, I chopped the avocado into chunks and tossed it in some lime juice. Then, I gently folded the avocado into the crab salad.

Since the idea behind the ravioli obviously intended to give the presentation some flair, I packed the crab salad into a container to mold into a nicer shape than a pile on the plate. I made the crab salad into a meal with some farro, beet, and fennel salad on the side. A wonderful light summer supper.

Verdict: Nice but not memorable. Howard wasn’t home to try it, but I predict that he would have liked it.

If you want to see how my Dorista friends interpreted this recipe, check out their links here. You can find the recipe it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.