I love seafood and one of my absolute favourites is fresh, dressed crab. We’re lucky that we have a lovely man who brings fresh fish down from the Norfolk/Suffolk coast on Fridays and sells it outside the Three Kings pub in Fornham. This week, however, I was even luckier because my lovely neighbour Gill brought me a couple of fresh crabs back from her day trip to Cromer. So, I thought I’d make my very favourite pasta dish for supper – creamy crab linguine laced with fresh parsley, juicy cherry tomatoes and a little lemon. Any dry white wine from the Loire goes with it perfectly.

You will need…

This serves 4 people, just halve it for two, double it for 8!

• 1 x 450g pack of good quality dried linguine
• 10 cherry tomatoes, skinned (plunge them in boiling water for a minute and the skins will slip off easily) and chopped
• 2 fresh, dressed crabs (you could use tinned crab although it won’t be quite the same)
• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon of finely grated lemon zest and about a tablespoon and a half of the juice
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/4 teaspoon of Maldon salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• A very small pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil plus a little extra for drizzling

To make…

• Put your serving dishes in the oven on low to warm.
• Using a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic to a fine paste with the Maldon salt.
• Put the white crab meat to one side and add the brown meat to the garlic. Add the lemon zest, juice, cayenne pepper and olive oil. Pound or stir gently to make a thick sauce. My mortar is large enough to hold all the sauce but if you only have a small one, transfer it to a bowl large enough to contain all of the ingredients.
• Gently stir in the chopped tomato and parsley.
• Meanwhile, cook the linguine in plenty of boiling water, lightly salted. Cook al dente according to the instructions on the packet i.e. with a slight bite to it, be careful not to overcook it so it becomes soft and sloppy. I use De Cecco linguine and 10 minutes is al dente.
• Once cooked, drain the pasta and return to the pan. Stir in the brown crab meat sauce and once thoroughly combined, add in the white meat. Stir once or twice so as not to break up the white meat flakes too finely.
• Serve in warm bowls and drizzle with a little extra virgin oil and a couple of turns of black pepper.

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