Delicate and satisfying, crab and zucchini tagliolini is restaurant worthy
Simple to create, full of flavour and texture, this is a pasta dish will wow your guests.
This is an elegant, ingredient-based dish with a subtle level of flavour that doesn’t overpower the delicate crab meat.
Try too my other pasta dishes: every day spaghetti with garlic and olive oil, and rigatoni pomodoro.
This is an edited extract from Tipo 00: the Pasta Cookbook by Andreas Papadakis.
Tagliolini with spanner crab & zucchini
Ingredients
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 long red chilli, finely chopped
- 250ml (1 cup) quality fish stock, plus extra if needed
- 150g raw spanner crab meat, or other white crab meat (cooked or raw)
- 1 small green zucchini, seeded, core removed, cut into matchsticks
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
- Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
- Olive oil
- Sea salt
- Fresh or dry tagliolini for two
Method
- Cook the pasta as per packet instructions. I like to use saffron-enriched fresh tagliolini for this recipe. Place a large frying pan over medium-low heat, then fry the garlic and chilli with a generous amount of olive oil until translucent, about 1 minute. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil.
- Add the crab meat, season with salt and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.
- In the meantime, cook the tagliolini in plenty of boiling salted water until al dente, about 2 to 3 minutes, depending on how long the pasta has been drying. Drain the pasta and add to the frying pan, along with the zucchini, parsley and lemon zest.
- Toss everything together for 1 minute, then taste for salt, toss again and add some more stock, if needed. Divide between warmed bowls. Serves 2