Crabbie Mac & Cheese

This one took inspiration from one of my voyages of inspiration to the Tesco reduced section. On one cold night, whole dressed crabs were reduced to just £2.

I wasn’t sure what do to with this new found crab so I resorted to the age old answer to any problem ‘when in doubt add cheese and carbs’. And thus grew the new family favourite, Crabbie Mac & Cheese.

What I used

Half a bag of pasta, the curlier the better.

A fist full of butter

1 table spoon of plain white flour

1 pint of milk

1 teaspoon of proper English mustard.

1 dollop of hot sauce

An inhumane amount of cheese, grated. Extra strong cheddar, any hard cheese with a kick will do the job (red Leicester or double Gloucester would also smash it).

Half the meat from 1 dressed crab (save the rest to have on toast in the morning).

½ a bag of spinach.

Even more cheese to grate on top.

1 healthy sprinkling of breadcrumbs

What I did

First things first, I cooked the pasta until soft and preheated the oven on to 160”.

I then knocked up a simple white sauce. Melted the butter in a pan and whisked in the flour to form a paste. I then gradually added the milk while constantly whisking until I got a nice smooth sauce.

Then came the cheese. I added far too much cheese to the sauce and continued to stir. Once it had all melted in I added mustard, hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
After I was happy with the sauce I added in the crab and spinach and stirred until wilted.

Once all the ingredients were in the sauce I added the pasta back into the pan and gave it a real good stir, toss and shake to get all the pasta coated in the sauce.

Transferred to an oven proof dish (or two in my case) and sprinkled over the rest of the cheese and breadcrumbs. To finish her off I popped her into the pre-heated oven until golden brown and crispy on top.