Crabmeat Pasta

One of my all time fave pasta would be Marmalade Pantry's crabmeat linguine. The sauce it tomatoey with a hint of heat and freshness of the crab with a little crunch from the toasted pine nuts. I've yet to have any crab related pasta at Italian restaurants here, so decided to recreate it myself.

I'm all for convenience and ease of doing things. I simply do not like buying 20 ingredients to make a meal. I had an opened bottle of pasta sauce in the fridge so decided to use that instead of crushed tomatoes. I jazzed it up with sweet onions and shallots and some minced garlic for the aroma. Here's my adaptation of crabmeat pasta.

Crabmeat Pasta (Serves 4)
- 2 6oz canned crab meat
- a bottle of ready made pasta sauce (approx 15oz)
- half a white onion
- 1 big shallot
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 packet of pasta
- salt and black pepper to taste
- chopped parsley
- shredded parmesan

Saute onions and shallots with some preferred oil of choice. When onions and shallots are soft and are starting to brown, throw in minced garlic. This is so the garlic will cook for a shorter period of time as burnt garlic will render the sauce not as tasty. Pour in ready made pasta sauce or canned crushed tomatoes. Let sauce come to a boil and reduce slightly. Add in the canned crab meat together with the liquid in the can. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you are using ready made pasta sauce, it probably is already seasoned, so be light-handed on the salt. Bring sauce to a boil and serve over pasta of choice. Add chopped parsley and shredded parmesan.

Pizzeria Mozza Orange County

I can only attribute my absence for the last 3 months to sheer laziness. It is hard taking good pictures with the iPhone and I'm too lazy to take it with my digital cam or the dslr so I've been putting off many posts because of that.

Nonetheless, I feel compelled to share this meal because it was simply too good. I'm sure there are many fans of Pizzeria Mozza out there but just wanna contribute my 2 cents!

It was the eve of the Lunar New Year and so we decided to give ourselves a treat and make a long overdue visit to Pizzeria Mozza in Orange County. I was so excited about this meal because the last 2 times I tried it in Singapore, I left feeling so happy to have tried such yummy food.

We started the meal with their famed Proseco and we were served breadsticks. Wait a minute, breadsticks???!!!! What happened to the herby crusty amazing crisp bread I had in Singapore? Needless to say, I was disappointed in the plain un-creative breadsticks but that did not ruin my anticipation for the meal.

Knowing that their appetizers are as good as the pizzas, I suggested getting 2 appetizers and a pizza. I've read so much about the herbed fried potatoes I knew we had to have that. The baby potatoes were smashed flat and fried, with the outer layer crispy and the insides still soft and warm. They were served with a bunch of fried herbs (sage and rosemary) and chickpeas. Sea salt was sprinkled over to lend another layer of flavor. This dish was great, something I would order again and again. Would have preferred to have more potatoes and less chickpeas though.

Next appetizer was the mussels in a spicy broth. It was served with 2 slices of crusty bread. The spicy broth tasted vinegarish, reminding me of the chilli sauce for chicken rice. This dish was decent but did not have me awe-struck. I still prefer the Tasting Kitchen saffron mussels.

The star of the meal arrived next. I have to admit that when he ordered the brussel sprouts, red onion and pancetta pizza, I didn't have high hopes. I was not a fan of brussel sprouts (yet) and thought this might just be an okay pizza. Boy, was I wrong! The sprouts were cooked till tender and yet retained their lovely green color. The red onion lent a refreshing taste to the pizza and the pancetta gave it the saltiness and smokiness. Cheese was sprinkled sparingly over the pizza so as not to steal the show. The crust, Mozza's signature crust, so yeasty and crunchy at the right spot. This was perhaps the best pizza I've had at Mozza.

I'll definitely be back to try the other delectable items, but I really hope they will replace the ordinary breadsticks with the herby bread they serve in Singapore.  This will certainly kick it up a notch!