Every Monday morning I have to go to Cockfosters to see the docs, it’s a bit of an annoyance to tell you the truth, but it does give me a good chance to have a peek around the very lovely independent local butchers, fishmongers, green and Jewish shops. It always gives me a good inspiration, the fishmongers isn’t the cheapest, but they go down to the markets every day to get fresh produce, and have some very interesting stuff. The butchers is fantastic for inspiration, the guys there know their meat, and don’t think twice if you ask them for some off-cuts either “Because I fancy a bit of an experiment” or “To feed the dog”.
Last week, when I made this, I saw the Fishmongers had a special on Crab, £6 for a packet of white meat that’s frozen and has £18 on the label. I also saw a packet of crab legs, about the length of my arm in size, which was highly impressive, unfortunately when I went to pay for them, the ‘£’ was a ‘2’, and thus it was a bit out of my price range… at least, until one day when someone gives me a shedload of money for being an all-round-decent-stand-up-guy, which I don’t think they do anymore.

Anyway, back to the food, this was the first time I’ve tried real crab before, or at least, in recent memory. It tastes, oddly enough, of Crab Sticks, but the texture is slightly hairy. The dark meat has more flavour and more of a pate type texture. I wasn’t in love with it, texture wise, but the taste was right up there. I was expecting almost a prawn/lobster type taste, and although it wasn’t too far off, it wasn’t the same.
If you know someone who likes a bit of crab, this is a nice one to show off a crab’s crabbiness.

What You Need, enough to make for two.

• White crab meat and/or a ‘dressed crab’.
• Some pasta, I used Fusilli, but I think something like a linguini would work well too.
• A glass of white wine.
• Garlic, Chilli, Ginger and Parsley.
• Some Single Cream
• A drop of olive oil.

What you need to do.

• First up, boil the kettle for the pasta
• While that’s going, chop up the chilli, garlic, parsley and grate the ginger. Keep the seeds if you want a bit more heat; it’s the white coating on the seeds that are the ‘hot’ bit. I found the parsley very stalky, so chop this one up fine. I found the best way to do that, was to roll it up and do a rough-chop on it.
• Heat up some oil in a frying pan and add the chilli and ginger, then a few minutes later, add the garlic.
• By now, the kettle will be boiled, so boil up some pasta according to the packet, don’t forget to add salt and oil to the water, it stops it sticking and flavours it better.
• Add a big glug of white wine and let it reduce down to basically nothing.
• Add the crab, cream and parsley, let it simmer and reduce.
• I found it needed more ‘oomph’ to it, so I added juice from ¼ of a lemon, some salt, and some more wine, so I added that and let it reduce.
• Pasta should be done, taste a piece and if it’s the way you like it, drain it and add to the crabby creamy goodness.
• Serve and enjoy =)

Frozen white crab meat and pasta.

A nice bottle of plonk.

Chop the chili and garlic, great the ginger.

'Dressed Crab' - The mix of white and brown meat works well.

Fry up the Garlic, Ginger and Chilli.

Pasta ! Tip Top Tip: Fill up about 2/3 of your bowl to get the right amount.

Add the crab: It looks rank, but won't end up like that =)

Add the cream and wine, let it reduce.

Plonk in the Parsley: chop it up finer than this though.

That's more like it, give it a taste, add some salt or whatever you think it needs.

Stir in the pasta to the sauce.

Look. At. That.... Lovely.

Crabtastic Creamy Pasta: DONE.