Easy Quick Summer: Tomato & Crab Angel Hair Spaghetti With XO Sauce!

If you love seafood and pasta then can I show you this super easy angel hair pasta dish redolent with flavours of the sea and summer? This is a superbly easy recipe and devilish in its simplicity. Just some garlic, XO chilli sauce, sun kissed tomatoes and crab meat are mixed with fine angel hair pasta to create summer on a plate!

If you love seafood pasta then this is a must make. I actually had three serves of this which is not necessarily wise but it made my soul happy. The XO sauce gives this simple dish all of the kick and gutsy flavour that it needs. You can get it at any Asian grocery store and as an added bonus, you won't have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen when all you want to do is make the most of the summer holiday sunshine.

We had a slight stumbling block when making this. It was nothing to do with the recipe but rather my slapdash way of typing on my phone. I use an app called Wunderlist that shares the shopping list with Mr NQN. Sometimes I ask him to pick up stuff on the way home from work. Except I thought I had written Crab and Tuna Tataki but in fact I had written "crap" and "tina tataki". It was either me or the autocorrect and quite honestly it's more likely me.

Mr NQN looked at the list, puzzled, trying to figure out what "crap" I might specifically want. Then he racked his brain trying to think if he knew a woman called Tina Tataki and that she might hold the key to the "crap". After mulling it over like a puzzle he finally messaged me!

So Dear Reader I have learned that if you want something in life, be specific and yeah don't ask for crap, ask for crab! Have you ever made a silly spelling mistake? And what makes your soul happy?

Tomato Crab Spaghetti

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serves 2-3 people, 4 with a salad and bread

• 250g/8.83ozs. angel hair pasta
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
• 200g/7ozs. cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• 400g/14ozs. crab meat (drained but reserve the juice)
• 4 tablespoons XO sauce
• Chopped parsley to garnish
• Fresh lemon juice

Step 1 - Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water until al dente (angel hair psata is very quick and only takes about 5 minutes).

Step 2 - Meanwhile heat a large frying pan on medium high heat and saute the garlic for 1 minute and then add the cherry tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes until they are softened. Add the drained crab meat and XO sauce and fry for a minute adding oil.

Step 3 - By now the pasta should be done. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water. Add the drained pasta and then add the crab juice and pasta cooking water 1/2 cup at a time making sure the pasta is coated in the crab and sauce. Keep turning and add the rest of the pasta cooking water. Season with salt and pepper and add parsley and lemon juice. Serve.