Bow down for Matthew Scott's crab pasta with prawn shell oil. Keep it simple without the oil for a mid-week or Friday night dinner, as crab pasta on its own is just as divine. The secret is in the brown crab meat which adds rich flavours and textures to the sauce to complement the delicate flaky white meat.
Ingredients (4 ppl):
For the crab pasta:
- 1 kg fresh pasta (fettuccini or tagliatelle work best but dry linguini are good too)
- One pack of white and brown crab meat (50/50) from Henderson To Home.
- Two red chillies. Finely diced.
- One whole bulb of garlic. Finely chopped.
- One lemon, juice and zest.
- Handful finely chopped chives.
- 60 g butter.
For the prawn shell oil:
- 400 g Prawn shells and heads (do not throw these away!)
- 600 ml neutral oil.
- One star anise.
- 20 g white peppercorns.
- Three cloves garlic.
- Small piece of ginger.
- One spring onion top.
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika.
- Two red chillies.
Method:
1. If using prawn shell oil: Add Everything to a pan and cook over a low heat for 3-4 hours. Allow everything to cool completely and pass through a fine sieve.
Reserve until needed.
2. For the pasta, choose whatever shapes you like (whatever makes you happy) and cook as per pack instructions.
3. For the pasta sauce: on a medium heat melt the butter until it begins to get all nice and foamy. Chuck in your garlic and chilli and stir around to ensure it gets nice even colour. At this point, you can go ahead and chuck in the brown crab meat. Mush some of it down with the back of your spoon. This is going to make the richest base for the sauce! Cook this out for a minute or so before throwing in a ladle of pasta water and swirling the pan around and around to thicken the sauce to something that's going to coat the pasta all over. There's nothing worst than your sauce hiding in the bottom of your bowl.
4. Once your pasta is cooked, chuck it into the sauce and toss in the white crab meat and fresh chives. Finish with the zest and juice of a lemon and toss everything together. The trick here is to coat the pasta but not break the white crab meat up completely. You still want those little sweet nuggets of claw meat!
5. Finish by finally tossing in a generous glug of prawn shell oil (if using) and serve immediately.
6. Enjoy!
