Crab Linguine

A delicious and simple pasta dish using crab meat, which is in season right now, and just a few other simple ingredients. Quick and easy and the perfect end-of-summer dish.

(Serves 4-5)

Ingredients

  • 500g pack of Linguine
  • 500g of white crab meat (tinned crab also works perfectly well)
  • 1 whole bulb of garlic
  • Large pinch of Saffron
  • ½ teaspoon of dried chilli flakes (or +/- to suit your taste)
  • Small bunch of flat leaf parsley
  • Olive Oil
  • 100g Butter
  • Maldon sea salt
  • Parmesan (optional)

Method

Fill a large pan with cold water and a generous pinch of salt and place on a medium-high heat.

Thinly slice all the garlic cloves, they don’t need to be wafer thin by any means.

In a small saucepan on a very low heat pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil and add your garlic, chilli flakes and allow the oil to infuse with these flavours for 10 minutes. It is very important to keep the heat low, as otherwise you will burn the garlic and it will become bitter. After the 10 minutes is up, the garlic should look a little less opaque and should have cooked through, add the saffron to the pan, crushing the stems as you sprinkle it in.

Add a heaped dessert spoon of Maldon sea salt to the mix and stir well using a wooden spoon. To bring out more of the saffron, crush the sea salt into the garlic, chilli and saffron, this will bring out that beautiful golden colour of the saffron. Leave the mixture to cook for another 6-8 minutes, then add the crab meat to the mix and stir well.

Add your pasta to your pan of boiling water and cook as instructed on the packet. Once cooked to your liking, reduce the temperature to a low heat. Then drain the pasta and return it back to pan, with a drizzle of olive oil to prevent it from sticking together.

Stir your crab mix, which should have taken on the bright yellow colour tones of the saffron, and add the mixture to the pasta. Chop you butter into rough chunks and dot it around the pasta, with another generous drizzle of olive oil. Finely chop your parsley and add it to the pan and stir all the ingredients into the Linguine until they are thoroughly mixed in.

A little grated Parmesan is also superb, but entirely up to you.

By Sabrina Ghayour