Crab Carbonara – And you thought this was a meat blog?

One man’s meat. It looks like I have completely forgotten what I am supposed to be at here. Meat should be beef, lamb, pork, venison, buffalo and various parts of big things that run around on four legs. They usually frighten us two-legged ones when we see them in the wild. Right? Well, yes and no. Yes, that might be one’s interpretation. It might have even been my interpretation at one stage. But now, I have broadened the brief and I am officially including anything that once lived. This is because I have been preparing and cooking poultry, fish and an occasional (very occasional) salad as well as the more robust horned ones that tend to chase us around the place when we visit the countryside.

For this post, I am going to the sea once again and flagrantly promoting the wonderful Irish crab available in abundance off our shores. The crab is caught and cooked fresh (a bit too fresh for the crab’s liking) in salted water. The experts remove every delicious morsel of meat from inside the hard-shelled creatures. I have given this a go myself with only minimal personal injury and plenty of meaty success. This time, I am deferring to the experts at Quinlan’s Fish and using their prepared fresh crab meat to cook a delicious Crab Carbonara.

The ingredients list is shorter than a sunny weekend and just as nice.

• 4 large free range eggs
• 150 grammes of 00 flour
• 150 grammes of fresh crabmeat
• A handful of garden fresh parsley
• 1 red chili

First thing to do is to make the pasta. To do this you will need a pasta machine. If you don’t have one, reduce the ingredients list above by 2 eggs and the flour. Replace it with some tagliatelle. Be warned, it will not be nearly as nice as the fresh pasta.

Add the flour, an egg and a yoke to a stand mixer.

Don’t throw out the spare egg white. That will be added a bit at a time for perfect pasta.

Beat this as shown below until the flour has absorbed all the egg.

The dough is in need of some white to be added. Do this carefully.

Add some egg white and mix. Continue until you have a nice pasta looking lump of dough in the bowl. Then change the hook to a dough hook and beat it on slow speed for ten minutes. At the end, you will have a nice lump of dough that looks something like this photo.

Perfect pasta looking dough ball. Use this for reference. There is no substitute for practice.

Place the dough in cling film and leave in the refrigerator for an hour. Use some of this hour to beat the remaining egg and a half. Bring a big pot of water to the boil.

Beat it up until it has a consistency of colour and texture.

Make the pasta, rolling it as thin as you dare.

Pasta doesn’t get much better than this. Can you see the Wife’s hand through it?

Add the slicing attachment and cut into nice strips as shown in the photo.

That’s my hairy hand this time. See the translucent pasta.

Add the pasta to the water and boil it for a couple of minutes until almost cooked through. Strain the pasta. Add a splash of olive oil to prevent sticking and return it to the pot. Add the egg.

Raw egg and barely cooked pasta. Are you sure? Yes, I’m sure.

Add the parsley chilli and crab meat and stir well. The egg will cook in the warm pasta. The crab meat will cling to the pasta using the egg as a kind of glue.

That’s far too much crab meat for two people. Yes. There was plenty for four.

Serve with a nice glass of Italian (it would have to be Italian) white wine.

The totally gratuitous wine shot. This proved to be a nice drop of Italian white.

Serve it in warm bowls. Anybody who ate it agreed that my widening of the ‘One Man’s Meat’ brief was wholly justified. I hope you agree.

I am totally justified in promoting Irish crab and Italian wine on ‘One Man’s Meat’. You agree, don’t you?