While hammering a skewer between a live crab’s eyes to get it ready for the stock pot may not be everyone’s cup of tea, savouring the succulent sweet-tasting flesh of a freshly cooked crab just has to be. Last year, I went ice-diving for king crab in Norway, where the ball-freezing temperatures and quality and freshness of the crab both took my breath away. You’ll be pleased to hear it’s not necessary to go to such extremes to enjoy crab in this country. At this time of year, you’ll find an abundance of brown crab in local fishmongers, and it really is superb.

Buying ready-cooked crab is ridiculously expensive compared with getting a live one and doing it yourself. It is a little fiddly, yes, but there’s nothing more satisfying and rewarding – almost as good as catching the nippy creatures yourself. When choosing a crab, look for the liveliest and make sure it’s heavy for its size. The females are smaller and their flesh is sweeter, but males have larger claws and therefore more white meat.

Just before cooking, you will need to kill the crab (you could ask your fishmonger to do this if you plan to cook it as soon as you get home).

To do this, quickly and assertively insert a skewer between its eyes, then move it back and forth a few times – this will sever its main nerve. Immediately plunge the crab into a large pan of boiling salted water or court bouillon, cover and simmer, allowing 15 minutes per 500g crab. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

To extract the meat, start by twisting the claws away from the body. Turn the crab upside down and pull away the belly shell. Detach the body of the crab from the back shell by inserting a sturdy knife between them and giving it a firm twist, before lifting it out.

Remove the feathery-looking gills that line the edges of the belly cavity, also known as “dead man’s fingers”, and throw them away. Cut the body section into quarters, then extract the white meat from them, using a crab pick or cocktail stick.

Using a teaspoon, scrape the brown meat from the shell into a separate bowl. Next, gently crush the claws with a hammer and pick out more of the white meat.

There will also be some meat in the legs, but you might feel it is not worth the trouble. Finally, pick through the white meat to check for any pieces of shell. Once cooked, you can store it in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

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