If you are ever lucky enough to find your self, as I was this morning, faced with a sign in the fishmonger that says “Crab – half price!” grab it and run home as fast as your legs will carry you. With three fat dressed crabs in the fridge, I turned to Nigel Slater for inspiration (the other option was to wolf the lot, smeared on brown bread before anyone else got home).

Mr Slater’s inspirational website suggested crab and tomato soup, so I have tinkered with his recipe (not because I think I can do any better, just cos I am too lazy to go out and buy the right ingredients) and have softened three shallots with a long, scarlet chilli, diced finely. Then I added a very large punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved and warmed till they started to collapse. Add a litre of chicken stock (from a cube) and the juice of half an orange and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Add the crab meat, white and brown, a tablespoon of Thai fish sauce (in my case it was much more but I love it) and the juice of a lime for freshness and zing. Eat with lots of crusty bread in the garden as the sun comes out to gently stream the rain saturated air dry. Deeply savoury, light and filling this soup has the fire and colour of the exotic yet is curiously cosy and English too.