Crab!

Here's an impulse buy from the last time I went shopping! A cooked crab at an irresistible price. I had never dealt with one before, and was a bit bothered about it, because most of the books that mention crab say that after you have opened the crab up, you should "Remove the Dead Men's Fingers", without any clues as to where they might be. One of our newer books, Prue Leith's "How to Cook", has pictures that make it quite clear where these disturbingly named features are, and I've labelled them above. 

After about half an hour's work, I had a large amount of broken crab shell, dead men's fingers, and assorted gubbins, and a small bowl of actual crab meat. A very small bowl.

In the end, I decided to add it to this risotto of butternut squash, beans and asparagus. It made a great improvement to the flavour.