Pasta With Crab & Avocado Sauce

tablespoon olive oil 150 milliliter fish stock 60 milliliters dry sherry salt to taste cayenne to taste 1 large avocado 1/2 lemon -- juice only 300 gram crabmeat cooked pasta for four If you don't want the trouble of dismantling crabs to obtain the crab meat, use frozen meat. Canned crab meat is very poor by comparison. And if you haven't time to make fish stock, chicken stock can be substituted at a pinch, though the result won't be quite as good.

Boil a large pot of water and cook enough pasta of your choice for 4. Meanwhile, chop a small onion, grate a centimetre or so of fresh ginger and simmer them gently in 1/2 tablespoon olive oil until soft. Add 150 mL fish stock and 60mL good quality dry sherry plus salt and cayenne pepper to taste. Mash or process together the flesh of 1 large avocado and the juice of half a lemon. Add the avocado to the fish stock together with 300 g of crab meat, and stir well, leaving the sauce on the heat just long enough to heat through. Taste and adjust the seasoning. and add more lemon juice if necessary. Serve over the hot pasta.

Posted by Stephen Ceideburg From an article by Meryl Constance in The Sydney Morning Herald, 7/13/93. Courtesy Mark Herron.