Norfolk crab & pea tart from my holidays

I'm on holiday. In North Norfolk. Eating crab. Like this...

This is not me speaking to you

Well, it is. Obviously. Just not the now me. In an uncharacteristic flurry of organisation and with the forethought I thought only possessed of people with journals and pencil cases (pencil cases?!), I am writing this in June, ready for the Substack robots to post whilst I’m away on holiday. Without my phone.

Last summer in Norfolk

Eating in North Norfolk

The advantage of leaving my phone in a drawer, as I try to do each year when we go to Norfolk, is that there is more time to eat. And the eating is good. For more on my favourite places to eat and buy food do read last year’s post, Guide to North Norfolk Eating (there’s a nice kohlrabi slaw in there for you too).

In summer, crab is the notable ‘harvest’ in the area, most famously caught around Cromer, but crab from anywhere along this coast is going to be delicious in peak season.

So, as a special holiday treat (like when you were allowed to watch cartoons on the last day of term on the TV that was inexplicably welded onto a metal trolley), this week I put plants in the service of another seasonal bounty - crab.

Norfolk crab and pea tart

This is the sort of dish you want to knock up when old family friends come over for lunch. It looks special, and it is given the price of decent, sustainable crab these days, but it doesn’t require much of the chef. The peas and crab have done all the hard work (and Mr Jus-Rol of course…)

Serves 2

• ½ a 320g sheet of ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry

• 150g peas (if frozen, defrosted, if fresh, boiled for 2 minutes and drained)

• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil