Saturday night - pan fried whole Newlyn crab with your own chilli sauce.

 Make your own authentic Thai chilli sauce to go with this hugely tasty crab dish, or cheat and use Nam Ploy if you must......

 some of the ingredients are easy to find in an asian shop (like Steve Chan's in Penzance).......

 but start with freshly boiled whole crab, this one courtesy of Harvey's in Newlyn.......

 to remove the 'body' section push the thumb into the mouth (this takes a bit of effort on a big crab!)......

 remove the body.......

 and pick out the full of flavour brown meat from inside the crab's shell - save for another day - add to a fish soup or stew........

 take off the dead man's fingers - they are not poisonous as such, but being the crab's gills that filter the water they live in - when crabs were taken from close inshore they could potentially become contaminated - but these crabs have come from many miles offshore - apart from anything else they have the the texture of foam rubber so why would you want to eat them?........

 crack the main leg sections with the back of a chopper or heavy knife - with practice you'll get the claws to crack across like this every time.......

 stir fry the chopped chilli, garlic and onion for the sauce.......

 three different sugars used in Asian and Indian cooking - top right, dark brown lump sugar, bottom left yellow lump sugar, top left palm sugar and crushed bottom right......

 final cook through for the chilli sauce......

 before the stick blender does the business......

 time to fry off the crab pieces for a few minutes to heat right through......

add the crab back to the cooked sauce.......

stir fry your preferred mix of veg to accompany the crab and chilli sauce.