This is ridiculously easy to make. I made this for two reasons: 1) The Forager-in-Chief presented me with lots of canned crab unexpectedly and 2) Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware is famous for its crabs, so I made this to celebrate his win.
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1 lb. tagliatelle. This is very close to fettuccini so use that if you can’t find any. If you substitute linguine for the tagliatelle and minced clams for the crab you’re making that 70s staple, linguine in clam sauce, which is also terrific.
1 lb. (2 8 oz. cans; gotta use ‘em up) crab. Try to get lumpy crab if you can, but sometimes it’s like the consistency of tuna fish, and that’s fine.
1 head of garlic, at least, diced tiny.
Butter, maybe 2 tbs.
Parsley, torn, if you have it. You can also add halved olives, to taste. I had some, so why not. Abbondanza!
Good olive oil.
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Boil the tagliatelle in a pot. It should preferably be on the al dente side when you’re done.
Meanwhile, add the butter to a large skillet. Add the garlic and brown, this takes about a minute.
[Do not doubt Cousin Matthew. You’re using a ridiculously large skillet for a reason.]
Turn off the heat and open up your cans of crab.
When the tagliatelle is al dente, drain and put it in the skillet. [See?]
Add the crab. I put half the tagliatelle in the skillet, then one can of crab, then the rest of the tagliatelle in the skillet, then the other can.
Pour on some olive oil and throw in the parsley and the olives, if using.
This is the trickiest part. You combine this altogether so you need to get the garlic from the bottom, mix the crab among the pasta somewhat evenly, distribute the olives and parsley among it, and try to get the olive oil to coat everything. If you’re making this much you might want to dump everything into a large pasta bowl and do it that way. I serve out of the skillet, it’s only the two of us, but you might be serving out of a bowl anyway. Since the tagliatelle are long, flat noodles they’re kind of difficult to work with but bend them to your will.
The time, from start to finish? Maybe 15 minutes, and when you’re done you’re transported to a Delaware seacoast town, where I first had this 15 or 20 years ago.
I make crab tagliatelle every Christmas Eve. Fish dishes like this are a Sicilian Christmas tradition. I also make two kinds of clam sauce, baccala (look it up) and pickled calamari. All for Christmas Eve dinner.
I won’t be doing it all this year, because my daughter’s staying in Chicago to keep us safe from the COVID, but I’ll do a little something for me and the Mrs.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes. I hated baccala when I was a kid, and now there’s nobody left in my family who makes it. Maybe one of my sisters, I’ll have to ask. But that’s too much food for a Covid Christmas Eve anyway.
Have you ever tried fresh merluzzo? It’s the same cod as baccala, but not salted. It’s very good.
No I haven’t. I’ll have to look for it.
You celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes! One of my neighbors did this one year and had about 20 people over, of which I was one. He’s a very talented cook (his father was a native Italian and worked as a chef) but I thought he was going to have a heart attack from the work and the stress. I offered to help him out with the cooking but he was like, “Don’t touch ANYTHING!” “OK, Mario Batali, but it’s buffet style so how about if I transport it out of your capable hands and put it on the serving sideboard?” That he allowed me to do. I don’t know how he did it. His stove is (was; he moved) smaller and inferior to mine, but he somehow managed to make enough food that there were leftovers after feeding 20 ravenous revelers.
One of the things he made was clams casino, have you ever had/made those? They’re not difficult, but they involve both the stovetop and the oven. He did it in courses, so that helped, but still. At the end of the evening I took the leftover shrimp pasta off his hands. Since it was all seafood the leftovers wouldn’t freeze-and-reheat well, so I brought that back, well after midnight, sealed it tightly, and we had cold shrimp pasta as an appetizer for Christmas lunch.
I made clams casino a few years ago, and it didn’t turn out great. Haven’t tried it since. My main problem this year is that I’m on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the closest decent fish market is several hours away, I think maybe in Roanoke. I’m from Chicago and used to go to the Fulton St Fish Market and they had everything in abundance and I had a couple cousins who worked there so they always took care of me.
You went from Chicago to a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains? There must be a good story behind this. You should overshare, like I do.
I will, sometime. It’s a good story, too.
I like to make a big pot of clams, calamari, shrimp and fish on Christmas Eve and I toss in Bacala (or salt Pollack, if that’s what they have at my store) for good measure.
Oh, baccala should be very well known, it’s cod, I’ve made it. I’ve also made Spanish versions, which is called bacalao. It’s ubiquitous in the coastal regions of the Iberian peninsula.
I had bacalao for the first time last year in Madrid. It was at the Mercado San Fernando. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat it again, because it won’t be as good! Maybe I’ll try the Italian kind this year for Christmas Eve. One of my best friends from high school is 100% Italian and her mom made baccala every year and my friend would complain that her whole house smelled like fish. Man, her mom was (is!) an incredible cook though.
Talk about a trip down memory lane..
I think I’ll make this for our Inauguration celebration. With Ellie’s chocolate mousse!
I picked up the ingredients for your stroganoff today. I’m going to skip the beef and use an assortment of mushrooms.
Check your source — some crab is sustainably harvested, some is stripmined. If it’s not clearly labelled, sustainably harvested shrimp or fish is a good sub — I’m seeing more of it my grocery store in recent years, although the labelling is kind of a pain to find sometimes.
https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/groups/crab
Thanks, I will check.
Mmmmmm. We just cancelled Thanksgiving and neither of us love turkey anyway. This looks like a winner!!!
So, how’d everyone take it when you cancelled?
This sounds so good! I’m not sure I’ve ever cooked with crab, this might be the place to start!
Hi bel_esprit , nice to see you.
Hi! It seems nice over here 🙂
It’s is, it’s good group of people.
I’m a little squeamish about cooking with shellfish myself. I’ve never boiled a lobster, for example, but I buy canned lobster because someone has taken the guesswork out for me. The genius of this is the crab doesn’t cook at all, really. You could eat it straight from the can, certainly a cat or a dog would, but what you’re doing here is enveloping it in the pasta so it warms up and becomes fun.
I eat whole crabs every once in a while, and they are the most work of anything I’ve eaten. There is a lot to be said for getting cans or jars of pre-shelled crab meat.
I once made a recipe that involved roasting a whole fish in its skin That meant the bones remained within. It was insane. What you did was when the fish was done you sliced it into serving-size portions, sliced open the skin, deboned it, and then put the skin back as best you could, trying to give the illusion that the fish magically deboned itself. This must have come from the New York Times, although I don’t remember any of those helpful hints like, “If your local spice shop doesn’t carry [something you’ve never heard of and of which you only need less than a teaspoon of] you can order it online at [website that has a foreign appendage, like .fr or .th] and allow 6–8 weeks for delivery.”