Linguine con gamberi

An intermission from intercontinental travel.

An easy, simple dish to make, takes about 20 minutes…

Take 100g – 125g of dried linguine per person, and put to the boil with a generous pinch of coarse salt. What we want to do is to drain it about 3 minutes from al dente indicated on the pack and finish cooking it in the sauce.

In a separate pan, sauté some freshly chopped garlic with olive oil until soft, but not coloured over medium low heat. Increase the heat and put in one seeded chopped chilli, and the prawns.

Stir gently until the prawns are cooked, and pour in about 50ml of white wine per person and continue to stir until the alcohol has evaporated. Next, pour in some stock made from the shells of the prawns and simmer very very gently whilst waiting for the pasta.

Some chopped parsley (flat leaf variety) and halved cherry tomatoes (mix of sweet red ones and tangy yellow ones) would be nice at this point.

Drain the pasta from the cooking water and transfer it into the sauce. Turn the heat up and continue cooking until remaining al dente time is completed. At this point, stir in the remaining chopped parsley. Most of the sauce would have been absorbed by the pasta by now, and whatever remainder you have in the pan would have been thickened by the starch emanating from the pasta. Season to taste. I personally do not like black pepper with my seafood but it’s your choice.

Serve piping hot!

Linguine with Japanese King Crabs (linguine to taraba kani)

Here’s probably my favourite dish of all – one of the quickest and easiest to prepare, and delicious to eat too!

What you will need (for two persons):

250g dried linguine (I use De Cecco no.7)

400g cooked / raw king crab (usually frozen, Isetan supermarket)

2tbsp chopped garlic

2# brid’s eye chilli (red preferred)

150ml white wine

A small bunch of Italian parsley or spring onion (chopped)

A squeeze of lemon

Salt to taste

.

.

Technique:
All pasti have cooking indication time (this is to be followed to the second for al dente). If you are using De Cecco it’s 11 minutes to al dente.  What we want to do though, is boil it for exactly 2 minutes less (9 minutes) and finish cooking it in the sauce which we will prepare separately so that the pasta absorbs the flavours of the crab sauce.

Bring 1.5l of water to a boil in a pot and add a generous fistful of salt to it (can be coarse / fine).  Put in the linguine and keep it on rapid boil for 9 minutes.  Stir occasionally.

When 5 minutes have past, start on the sauce.   Heat up some extra virgin olive oil in a pan on moderate heat.  Put in the garlic and chilli, and saute till soft and slightly coloured.

Immediately put in the crabs, together with its juices and white wine.  Bring down the heat to a simmer and season the sauce to taste.

Drain the pasta after 9 minutes of cooking, and pour the wet pasta in the sauce.

Bring up the heat again to moderate and stir gently to ensure even cooking of the linguine in the sauce.  At this point, you may want to squeeze in the lemon (if you like to add lemon).

Switch off the fire after 2 minutes and stir in the chopped herbs.  Serve piping hot.

Post-serving.