Crab, Chilli and Lemon Linguine 
Why this one?
Obviously I thought this dish looked delicious but one of the main reasons I wanted to make it was because I had seen the fish man at the market had crab for sale and wanted to try and support him in these woolly and wild COVID 19 times and I just fancied something a little different from our normal fish selection. And, somewhat embarrassingly, I thought it sounded like something pretty chic,, not always something that easy to feel in sleepy Stowmarket.
Any substitutes - of course, this is me!
Lime instead of lemon (we only had one lemon and wanted to use it for a cake - see my priorities)
Bog standard white spaghetti instead of high-quality durum wheat linguine
The actual cooking of the dish
Jim (my husband) and I cooked it together once the baby was in bed. Although it was in Gizzi's Slow book this recipe said it only took 30 minutes so decent for doing in the evening. Timing was pretty accurate.
The recipe was easy to follow and the only thing I would say was that the sauce was a lot looser than I was initially expecting. I wondered if this was because it was April so the tomatoes I used weren't perfectly ripe. Which is also why I think I ended up cooking the sauce a bit longer as the tomatoes hadn't broken down after the 8 minutes stated in the recipe. The extra time helped thickened it up a bit. You might have worked out I am a little bit specific about sauce consistency - I like it thick. Don't give me a watery gravy or runny custard and don't even get me started on a thin curry sauce - the thicker the better, in my opinion. Anyway back to the recipe.
Where we ate it
For once, sat at out dining room table, with candles on and a glass of wine.
What I thought
Hopefully this will be a theme of the blog but it was lush. To me it felt like really grown up cooking, it started off with very subtle flavors, I might have been a little disappointed to begin with but the more I ate the more the chilli merged with the crab which was then offset by the lemon and the lovely oily goodness coated the pasta leaving the oh so satisfying oiliness on my lips. It reminded me of eating in Italy where the simplicity of the dishes and the freshness of the ingredients make what could be a simply dish into an outstanding one.
You will also be pleased to know that the consistency of the sauce was also just right. Gizzi you know best.
Difficulty: Easy
Tastiness rating: 8/10
Next time I'd...: use all the ingredents and try and get tomatoes when they are at their freshes.
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