Crab à la Mummy

Last week I made a discovery: My boys like crabs.

First up was crabbing.
We crabbed every day – the boys loved it. The grown-ups loved it. Perhaps a little too much so because on the penultimate day Boy A declared that “the grown ups are having all the fun. They aren’t sharing.”
Hmmm.

Crab sandwiches. Easy peasy.

Crab linguine. Wow! Wow!
Now this really shouldn’t have surprised me at all, seeing as my boys will eat almost anything with pasta and love fish. But whilst on holiday Boy O developed some kind of obsession with crab linguine and every time I ordered it he somehow ended hoovering it up leaving me with his children’s meal.
So back at home I had high hopes of recreating a child friendly version that we could all eat.
It worked. And so here is my recipe for Crab à la Mummy

Take the meat from a whole crab (obviously I bought it from the fishmonger ready prepared and shoved back in the shell).
FYI I used both the brown and white meat

Pasta – I like linguine but any will do – enough for two grown-ups and two hungry boys

A courgette, coarsely grated

A lemon

A drizzle of olive oil

One heaped tablespoon of soft cheese

A thinly sliced red chilli (for the grown-ups!)

Prepare everything and cook the pasta as per the instructions on the packet. Drain the pasta and throw it back into the hot pan. Drizzle in a little olive oil and toss to coat the pasta.
Gently stir in the cream cheese, crab and courgette, until the cheese has melted and everything is nicely coated, then squeeze in the lemon juice. Resist temptation to stir in more cheese as you’re not after a cheese sauce, just a gentle cheese coating on the pasta – if it feels at all dry add a little more oil or lemon juice, to taste.
Serve the children’s portions then mix into the rest of the pasta the red chilli and season with plenty of salt and pepper.

Sit down together and gobble it up.