Saturday 4th

In the fishmongers buying an octopus another crab leaps into my shopping bag. The octopus is going in the freezer for some fun I have planned in a week or so (freezing tenderises the meat).

Extracting the meat from the crab provides an entertaining 20 minutes or so in the kitchen, and I decide to use most of it too make a crab linguine. The best crab linguine I’ve tried was in a restaurant in Liguria about four or five years ago, it had a garlic and chilli hit which added some excitement to the soft sweetness of the crab. My attempt to emulate this manages to push the right buttons where the flavour is concerned, but the consistency seems to be a little too dry. A swift google reveals that good chefs (Locatelli in this case) are fond of reducing a good glug of white wine with the meat and chilli mixture before introducing it to the linguine.

An excuse to buy a crab and some wine!