Enjoy a rich and decadent pasta, then balance it out with a fresh and crunchy salad. A bit of attention in meal pairing elevates your home cooking.

Time: 2/5
Doesn’t take that long to boil pasta and throw some vegetables together.

Effort: 3/5
Not too bad, considering I made two courses.

Under the sea

I’m usually a very intentional shopper. I plan out a week’s worth of meals (often several weeks in advance), then I go to the store and get what I need. My SO is the complete opposite, bringing home good deals whenever she sees them. It’s a nice dynamic, because I enjoy the challenge of working with a surprise ingredient.

This time round, it’s some unbelievably cheap cans of crab meat in brine. Now granted, they’re cheap for a reason – the crab meat is in pretty fine shreds. But there’s plenty of flavour that I imagine would go well with some of the mini pasta shells I had left over from making a shrimp-infused Pasta Aglio e Olio.

This recipe post is mainly to commemorate the very first time I made a roux (I don’t get many chances, as I mostly cook Asian), and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was. I used the roux to thicken some milk, and the sauce was plenty rich after adding the cheese that no cream was necessary.

I also wanted to pat myself on the back for pairing the cheesy and decadent pasta with a light, refreshing Greek salad that I made ahead of time. Combinations like these are a lifesaver on date nights when the stakes are high and you don’t need the stress of worrying about two things at once (and even if you’re already very familiar with your date, date nights should be about each other and not stressing about the food).

So here’s a double whammy of a new addition to the growing list of date night pastas in my repertoire, plus a win in terms of how I chose two courses that complimented each other. Makes me feel like a big boy chef!

Posts since the last recipe that was actually served with rice: 1

Dramatis Personae

Served 2.

For the pasta

• 150g pasta

Any shape you like, although I feel like some shapes hold sauce better than others. Macaroni, penne and fusilli are all good options in my opinion.

• 240g drained, canned crab meat

I’m not crazy enough to shell my own crab, so canned crab it is. The bigger the pieces the higher the grade, and the better the texture. Make your own call about how high up the price ladder you want to climb.

Drain the meat but save the brine for something else. I ended up using mine to upgrade a mushroom risotto with some savoury crab flavour!

• 2 tbsps butter
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp flour
• 250ml milk

I think I used all purpose flour, but don’t quote me on that. The flour in my pantry was bought before Covid, so well past 3 years ago. That should give you an idea of how often I use flour. It kept fine, in a plastic oatmeal jar, sitting under my sink. All’s well that ends well.

• 50g Parmesan cheese

I know that some people have strong feelings about not mixing cheese with seafood, but I am not some people. However, there’s also an opinion in internet food circles that pre-grated cheese is inferior to grating your own cheese from a block, because pre-shredded cheese has anti-caking agents like potato starch that prevent it from melting as well as the whole product.

I’ll give them that, but I don’t cook with cheese often. I actually avoid wastage by buying convenient pre-shredded cheese that I am more likely to use, rather than grating part of a block and having the rest of it grow mould in the fridge because I don’t know what to do with it.

Take it as a lesson that norms and traditions are good rules of thumb, but take a moment and consider if they actually fit your needs and situation. Besides, nothing stops me from just buying pre-shredded cheese that doesn’t have any additives!

• Salt and pepper to taste

You might not need any additional salt at all, especially if your pasta water is well salted and you used plenty of cheese. Black pepper is always welcome, however!

For the Greek salad

This can be made ahead, with the caveat that salted vegetables will wilt over time. I actually like my vegetables a bit wilted instead of totally raw and crunchy, and I made a double batch to enjoy over the next few days. The quantities here are adjusted for two servings.

• 1 cucumber
• 1 shallot 
• 1 tomato
• 100g reduced fat feta cheese
• 50g olives

I prefer shallots to onions because it’s much easier to get smaller portion sizes. Have you seen how much volume a whole diced onion takes up? You can also consider using cherry tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes because they are more reliably juicy and flavourful.

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• Salt and pepper to taste

Since the salad isn’t going to be cooked, here is the chance to break out the fancy oil. And like with the pasta, I would advise you to go light on the salt since the feta is quite salty.

Executive summary

1. Whisk olive oil, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper together.
2. Clean and cut the salad vegetables. Dice the feta. Toss these along with the olives with the dressing, and set aside.
3. Bring salted water to a boil, and cook pasta according to package instructions until al dente.
4. In the meantime, measure out the cheese and finely mince the garlic.
5. Once pasta is done, drain it. Melt butter in the pan, sweat garlic and black pepper until aromatic.
6. Add flour to the pan and stir into the butter. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes.
7. Add milk to the roux, stirring well. Simmer briefly until thickened.
8. Turn off the heat. Add pasta, crab and cheese. Stir until combined and serve.

Play by Play

Beginning with the dressing. Pick a bowl that’s bigger than you think you need, and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble down the line.

I clanked up the vegetables next. Nothing too small, they’ll shrink a bit after water gets drawn out of them.

Vegetables, feta and olives into the dressing bowl. My bowl was barely big enough to hold everything, which made tossing the ingredients very annoying. Keep in mind you’re seeing 4 portions here.

Now that the salad is out of the way, I can get things together for the pasta.

Cook the pasta in as little water as possible, to concentrate the starch in the pasta water.

Saved the pasta water when I drained the pasta. Just in case I needed it to emulsify the sauce, but didn’t end up needing it.

Now that the pan is freed up, I can start making the sauce. Garlic and pepper gets sweated in butter, then flour goes in to make the roux.

Milk in, stir well, simmer until thickened.

There’s plenty of residual heat to melt the cheese and warm up the crab. Toss everything with the pasta.

Dinner time! Doesn’t look the best, but we’ll let taste be the judge.

A solid B-plus in terms of flavour, and the salad was super refreshing. A success!

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