Blue Swimmer Crab pasta

Jaap and Peter spent the whole day trying to catch blue swimmer crabs in the harbour of Tumby Bay. They managed to catch 5 really big ones, which Peter and myself cooked up and made into a beautiful simple pasta dish.

It tasted even better eaten next to the bus overlooking Boston Bay on the Eyre Peninsula. For cooking up crabs or other crustaceans the rule is to cook them in the water they live in (yabbies’ in fresh water and crabs in salt water). We got some sea water to keep it pure.  Drop them in boiling water alive and cook them for about 10 minutes.  Then transfer them into a bowl of very cold (ice) water to stop the cooking process.  After fully chilled pick the crab meat out of the crabs.

Ingredients:

-         1          Pack  of pasta (fettuccini), or even better make some fresh pasta

-         250 gr  crab meat (or less if you can not fish as well as Jaap and Peter)

-         2 tbs    olive oil

-         1          red onion sliced

-         2          garlic cloves crushed

-         ½ tsp   chilly powder

-         1-2 tbs Coriander leaves (dried ones if you travel by bus)

-         400 gr  ricotta

-         50 ml   cream

-         300 gr  cherry tomatoes (quartered)

-                   Salt and pepper to taste

-                   grated cheese to taste

Method:

Boil the pasta.

Glaze the onion with garlic in olive oil and add salt, chilly powder and dry coriander (add coriander at end if using fresh leaves). Add Ricotta and cream and heat well but don’t boil.  When pasta is done add the crab meat to the ricotta mixture and mix, then mix in the cherry tomatoes before adding to the pasta. Mix in well and serve with salt and pepper to taste as well as some extra fresh coriander if you have it and grated cheese on top.