This weekend Bristol has been putting on Food Connections, a citywide food festival that brings together people and a great range of food from the south west. So on Friday after work I headed down to the Riverford tent on College Green for a crab masterclass with chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks (Owner of Bristol’s Spiny Lobster).

Armed with whole cooked crabs, tools and a couple of glasses of wine supplied by the lovely people at Cornwall’s Knightor winery, we were guided through how to properly prepare our crabs. Mitch then whipped up a quick mayonnaise and we ate what we’d prepared with crusty bread.I learnt loads about crabs and it was great fun bashing open the shells, hooking out all the meat and getting covered in crab: on my clothes and in my hair.

After all this seafood fun it was only right that I make a crab recipe for the blog. This recipe combines sweet crab meat with zesty lemon,fragrant herbs and hot chilli. It’s actually really quick and simple to make and makes a really good weeknight seafood supper.

Gluten Free Crab and Chilli Linguine

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

220g gluten free linguine or spaghetti

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1-2 red chilli, chopped (if you don’t like spicy just use 1 chilli and remove the seeds)

2 cloves of garlic crushed

50g brown crab meat

50g white crab meat

3 tbsp white wine

½ lemon, zest and juice. Plus a couple of lemon wedges to serve.

3 sprigs of parsley, finely chopped

3 sprigs dill, finely chopped

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.

Whilst the pasta cooks gently heat the olive oil in a pan larger than the amount of pasta. Add the garlic, the chilli and the lemon zest and gently cook for a minute until they start to sizzle. Turn up the heat and add the white wine. Simmer for a minute until the wine and oil come together then take it off the heat. Mix through the brown crab meat and set aside.

When the pasta is cooked put the sauce on a low heat. Set aside a bowl of the pasta cooking water then drain the rest of the pasta. Pour the pasta into the crab sauce and add the white crab meat, parsley, dill, lemon juice and give it all a good stir. Turn off the heat, If it looks claggy add a drop of the reserved pasta water. Season the pasta with the salt and pepper and serve immediately with a couple of lemon wedges.