Lemon linguine with crab

I absolutely adore crab. Despite our strict budget on our recent California road trip, I managed to squeeze in a portion of fresh crab in Monterey Bay - and I'm not sure much beats eating pure crab meat in the sunshine with the tiniest squeeze of lemon. However, if you actually want to be full after a crab meal (without spending 3 hours cracking enough crabs to fill up on crab meat) - crab linguine is a decent solution. 
This is a rich treat of a meal - the clotted cream and crabmeat combine into a luxurious sauce, lightened up a tiny bit with lemon and tomatoes. The original recipe called for peeling the tomatoes, but I never have patience for that (and tomato skin doesn't bother me at all) so I would just skip that, especially for a cozy meal at home.
Sadly I doubt this will ever be in high rotation for us, but I will certainly return the next time I have a huge crab craving and don't feel like murdering a pile of crabs.

Lemon linguine with crab
Adapted from Gousto

Ingredients

40g Cornish clotted cream
200g linguine
1/2 tsp chili flakes
2 tomatoes
10g fresh chives
1 veggie stock cube
1 lemon
100g Cornish fifty fifty crabmeat
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tsp French Dijon mustard

Method

1. Boil pasta for 8 minutes.

2. Dissolve half stock cube with 50 ml boiling water. Zest half the lemon. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Chop the chives finely. Chop tomatoes into quarters.

3. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to wide based pan over low head. Add garlic, chili flakes and lemon zest and cook for 1 minute until golden and aromatic.

4. Add shaoxing and cook for 1 minute. Add stock and cook for further 2 min.

5. Separate white crab meat from brown crab meat. Remove stock pan from heat and stir in brown crab meat, clotted cream, Dijon mustard, tomatoes and half the chives.

6. Add cooked linguine and juice of half the lemon.

7. Loosen sauce with pasta water if needed. Add white crab meat and remaining chives and toss. Enjoy!