Crab Linguine
Crab meat is very sweet and makes for super summer eating – children especially will love this
dish. Use a fresh dressed crab from your fishmonger or even the excellent pasteurized crab
meats you now see from Devon, but make sure there is both white and brown meat. Just, if
at all possible, avoid canned crab meat: while canned white meat would be OK here, there will
be no creamy dark meat to coat the linguine and give this dish its richness and substance – you
would have to add cream to compensate. And don’t use Cromer crabs – they are too good and
should be enjoyed al naturale. Serves 4
Ingredients:
olive oil
2 large cloves of garlic (Rossa di Sulmona), thickly sliced
200 g cherry tomatoes (Red Cherry)
10 cm anchovy paste or 2 anchovies, chopped
1⁄2 glass white wine
500 g linguine
1 tablespoon tomato purée
120 g crab claws
a handful of parsley (Comune), chopped
120 g fresh dressed crab
butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper
chilli oil
Heat a large pan of water, ready to cook the pasta. Put a good slug of olive oil in a deep
saucepan and add the garlic. Gently fry for just 1 minute before adding the cherry tomatoes and
the anchovy paste or anchovies, as the garlic for this dish needs to be softened but still pale.
Cook for a couple of minutes or until the tomatoes start to open and their juices begin to run
out. At this point, add a good slug of white wine, otherwise the tomato juice and the garlic could
burn and go bitter.
Put the linguine on now as it will take about 7 minutes.
Add the tomato purée to the garlic and tomatoes and place the crab claws, along with any
crab juices, in the pan now to warm through. Add the chopped parsley and cover.
When the pasta is ready and just before you drain it, add the dressed crab to the sauce with
the remaining white wine and stir through. Taste the sauce for seasoning at this point and add a
good pinch of salt and pepper, remembering that the anchovies are salty. Drain the linguine and
place in the pan on top of the sauce and add 2 large knobs of butter.
Toss it all together so the linguine is coated evenly with the creamy crab dressing and serve
straight away – without cheese, as this would mask the subtleness of the crab and make the
dish too dry.
Allow each guest to add their own chilli oil at the table. Chilli oil added now (rather than
adding chilli when cooking the sauce) will lift this type of dish. If everyone dresses their own
plate with chilli oil, each guest can enjoy it as they like it. It’s also a very Italian thing to do.
Serve with scarpetta (bread – for mopping up) and a chilled Pinot Grigio.
*taken from the book ‘From Seed to plate’ by Paolo Arrigo, published by Simon and Schuster
