The 5pm Dining blog is bored with winter. Thunder snow was cute at first but we have grown tired of its novelty and we are now yawning at the idea of being weather bombed.

Instead, we have our eyes on the prize that is spring. We hesitate to predict when it might arrive, and we won’t be digging out our beach wear for quite some time, but we’re pretty confident that it won’t be Baltic around these parts forever.

And when spring does arrive, we can look forward to some new, seasonal addition to our menus.

Let’s get ready to crumble

Over the next few weeks, we should see rhubarb begin to appear on restaurant menus and in the shops. Rhubarb means crumble – something we can all celebrate.

It’s still a little early for things to change much on the veggie front. Spring greens should start coming through soon but otherwise we can work wonders with staples such as cabbage, spuds, kale, leeks, onions and our old friend the sprout.

It is much the same story for meat eaters. Beef, chicken and pork remain as reliable as always while rabbit, venison and wood pigeon offer some variety at this time of year.

While the coldest months limit many aspects of living well (this blogger hasn’t looked at his sarong collection for months), they are bountiful times for seafood.

Langoustines, clams, crabs, lobster, scallops, winkle, whiting and Pollack are all abundant and eating well at the moment.

If you want much more detail about which foods are in season when, you can download a more comprehensive calendar from the Greener Scotland website.

This is a recipe for crab linguine from the site.

Fresh crab linguine

This dish makes the most of fresh crab but takes the work out of preparing the crab by using dressed crab. You can use either fresh or dried pasta for this dish.

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10m

Cooking time: 15mins

Ingredients

Fresh or dried linguine

3 tbsp of rapeseed / olive oil

2 cloves of garlic chopped

1 red chilli deseeded and chopped

Grated rind of 1 lemon

2 fresh dressed crabs (about 300g crab meat)

1 tsp of capers drained and rinsed

200ml of single cream

1 tbsp of lemon juice

2 tbsp of chives/parsley to garnish

Method:

1. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet until it is al dente and still has a little bite.
2. Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan and gently fry the garlic, chilli and lemon rind for 3-4 mins until softened but not browned. Add the crab meat, capers, lemon juice and cream and simmer for 1-2 mins to heat through. Season with a couple of twists of freshly milled black pepper.
3. Put the pasta into slightly warmed serving bowls and put the crab mixture on top, sprinkle with chives to garnish.