Dino’s Grotto was our favorite Italian restaurant in DC. It was awesome. Their mission: make food the way Italians would if they had our local ingredients. Being near Maryland, that included a seasonal crab pasta that was to die for.
The owner retired and closed Dino’s in the fall of 2019, leaving me with no choice but to reconstruct their pasta myself.
From their menu, here’s what I had to go on.
MD Lump Crab Fettuccine
local leek, cream, black pepper
What I lack in “knowing what I’m doing” I can make up for in vegetables: chopped tomatoes, scallions, a dash of cayenne for kick. Is this Dino’s pasta? No, it’s mine, and it’s something akin to a crabby cacio e pepe.
Ingredients
- Pasta
- Crab meat, about 4oz. Don’t worry about large lumps, they’re expensive so any Blue crab is fine.
- Crab meat at Harris Teeter comes in 8oz tins. I’m trying to use half, put some olive oil over the other half (to keep ice crystals off) and freeze it.
- Basil. Lot’s of basil
- Scallions (2 stalks)
- 3 cloves Garlic
- Olive Oil (the good stuff)
- Sea salt or kosher salt
- Pepper. An obscene amount of of pepper.
- Red pepper, diced
- Asiago and/or Parmesan cheese
- Small tomatoes, halved
- (Optional) dash of hot smoked paprika or cayenne for 🔥
Choices
Using only olive oil, you’ll get a lightweight, fishy pasta that tastes like you’re sitting at a trattoria in Venice.
Using butter in addition to olive oil you’ll wind up with a luscious indulgent pasta that’s more American and perhaps slightly closer to the original.
Steps
- Make fresh pasta (example). Dried pasta is acceptable but it the real thing is magic. Boil it in salty water.
- Chop tomatoes, garlic and scallions while this goes, and shred cheese
- When the pasta is done and straining, re-use the pot to simmer some olive oil and simmer the garlic in another pot or dutch oven. Add and stir together:
- Crab meat
- Olive oil
- Garlic
- Pepper
- Salt
- Cayenne/Paprika if using
- Cook crab most of the way. It should start to smell crabby
- Add vegetables and basil, stir for a moment, then re-add pasta and stir to coat
- Just keep adding pepper. You will not overdo it.
- Move to a big bowl, toss with shredded cheese
I’m pretty happy with this and have served it to many friends and family. One of these days Dean will release his highly anticipated cookbook (well, at least highly anticipated by one dude and his beagle) and we’ll do a side-by-side comparison.