Crab & Asparagus Linguine

The fishmonger who chugs to Berko every Saturday and Wednesday always has a selection of good looking fish but a crab is a simple thing to spice up while the rest of the tribe have cheese sarnies or a salad at lunch. Anyway this was dinner on Saturday while the pastry chef, aka the wife, had salmon. 

1 medium dressed crab

As much asparagus as you feel like cut into 2cm lengths 

1 clove garlic finely chopped

4 spring onions cut to 1cm lengths 

1 dried or fresh chilli, crumbled or finely chopped

Small glass white wine

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Parsley chopped

Some good quality pasta, linguine seems to suit best but spag or some small shapes are fine. You just need the crab sauce to stick to it. 

Fry off the garlic and chilli if fresh in a desertspoon of olive oil until starting to mellow and soften. Add the asparagus and toss in the oil until starting to get a bit tender and add the spring onion.

Add the white wine (I added the dried chilli to the wine 20-30 mins earlier to soften) and reduce by half. Fold in the crab meat and take off the heat after it has warmed through. 

Cook the pasta, at the same time, after or whenever, and just before you drain it put a couple of tablespoons of the pasta water in to the crab sauce, which is now on the heat and just simmering. Stir in the water add the parsley and then add in the drained pasta and toss on the heat so all the pasta is covered but the sauce still has some sloppy moisture. Serve, with the rest of the white wine on the side of course. 

Serves 2 except on Saturday when it served 1!