Recipe: Cornish crab linguine with chilli, lemon and parsley

This recipe would perhaps be a last meal request for me, says Emily Scott: it contains all the ingredients that I simply love. Crab is available in most good supermarkets or, even better, head to your local fishmonger. If on holiday in Cornwall, find a local fisherman to point you in the right direction.

Serves 4

• 300g dried linguine pasta
• 250g fresh white Cornish crab meat, picked over for pieces of shell
• 2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• zest and juice of 1 lemon (zest is optional)
• 100g parmesan, grated
• 150ml olive oil, for drizzling
• Cornish sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

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• Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the pasta and cook according to the packet. Meanwhile, combine the crab meat in a large bowl with the chilli, parsley, juice and zest, if using. Stir together.
• Drain the pasta (reserve some of the cooking water) and add to the crab sauce along with a couple of tablespoons of the pasta cooking water. Use tongs to thoroughly mix the pasta with the crab so that all the pasta gets a good coating of sauce.
• Serve in warmed bowls and sprinkle over a generous amount of parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil and a grinding of black pepper. It goes deliciously with a cold glass of sauvignon blanc.

Taken from Sea & Shore: Recipes and Stories from a Kitchen in Cornwall by Emily Scott, published by Hardie Grant at £26. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £20.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.