Spicy crabs

As a teenager I’d take weekend trips to Kemari jetty for a night-crabbing cruise with friends. Once out of the harbour, we would throw lines in and ‘fish’ our crabs for dinner. The boatmen then served up a feast of fresh ‘tawa’ (pan) cooked crabs with red chilli masala mopped up with naans. The rustic presentation and simplicity of the spices is deeply etched in my mind, and though the boatmen would never share their recipe, I have created this from memory.