Black ink spaghetti with crab – “The long and the short of pasta”

Pasta is a feeling as well as fuel”

Most people love pasta and I certainly do so, that’s why I was pleased to review “The Long and Short of Pasta”, a book which has a collection of over 70 Italian pasta dishes. The authors, Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi cover the basics of fresh pasta and the perfect sauces to pair them with.

I have enjoyed this book with traditional recipes and found many I would love to try, like the large ravioli with an egg in the middle, the Sicilian ragu’ and the pasta with sardines and wild fennel sauce. Mmm.. I just love my pasta!

I tried the “spaghetti al nero di seppia con granchio” or black ink spaghetti with crab. The recipe was actually with linguine but I used spaghetti as I had them already in the house. These days it is quite easy to find black ink pasta (I found mine at “Carluccios”). If you cannot find it in the shops you can look online or you can even make it yourself otherwise just use normal durum wheat pasta.

I bought fresh crab at my local farmer’s market which was so fresh.. so this pasta was truly delicious: you could taste the sea with every mouthful!

• Prep Time : 20 minutes
• Cook Time : 20 minutes
• Yield : 4

Ingredients

• Black ink or white spaghetti or linguine – 320 g – 3 + 1/4 cup
• fresh crab meat – 2 crabs cooked or 100 g – slightly less than 1/4 cup brown crabmeat and 300 g – 2/3 cup white crabmeat
• fresh or dried chilly pepper finely chopped – 1/2
• parsley finely chopped – 1 tbsp
• white wine or Prosecco – 100 ml – almost 3+1/2 fl oz
• shallots chopped – 2
• garlic clove finely chopped – 1
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• olive oil – 4 tbsp + extra to drizzle

Instructions

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the shallots and garlic over a low heat until softened. Add the chilly and the brown crabmeat and stir through. Turn up the heat and pour in the wine, allow it to evaporate until the strong smell of alcohol has gone. Taste and season the sauce.

Remove from the heat and set aside. Cook the pasta until just al dente. Take a few tablespoons of water from the pasta saucepan and add it to the frying pan. Drain the pasta and put this in too. Add the white crabmeat and parsley and toss or stir through briefly. Taste once more and season further if necessary. Drizzle with olive oil and serve.

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