How to cook crayfish
1. Rinse crayfish and put upside down in a pot with boiled water and spices.
2. Boil the crayfish in boiling water, skimming off the scum, for 10-15 minutes (for 20 minutes if they are large).
3. After boiling let the crayfish stay in the pot under a lid for 20 minutes.
How to boil crayfish
Ingredients
Crayfish - 1.5 kilograms
Salt - 4 tablespoons, mineral salt is recommended
Lemon - 1 piece
Parsley - a small bunch
Dill - a large bunch; or dill seeds - 1 tablespoon
Bay leaf - 5 leaves
Black whole pepper - 20 peas
Water - 2 - 3 liters
How to prepare crayfish for cooking
Buy crayfish. Crayfish can be carried in several packaged on short distances, but the ideal option is a bucket or box. Rinse live crayfish: put them into a bath, pour with cold water and leave for 30 minutes, then drain water and repeat this procedure 3 times.
At the end rinse the crayfish with water thoroughly and splash with salted water. Wash crayfish in basin or directly in a pot. If you wash crayfish in the bath, than you have to displace them in a pot using a slotted spoon or tweezers.
You may sink crayfish in milk or sour cream for half an hour to make them softer.
How to cook crayfish in water
1. Pour 2-3 liters of water in a large pot, add 1 cut in half lemon, parsley, dill or dill seeds, bay leaf and black whole pepper.
Boil and let it stay for half an hour.
While the broth is cooking, you may start any phase of crayfish washing.
2. Bring broth to boiling once again, put crayfish in a pot in turn upside down.
3. During first minutes before boiling you should keep watch over scum: it appears in much amount during crayfish boiling.
4. Boil the crayfish for 10-15 minutes after repeated boiling, turn off the heat and let it stay for 20 minutes under a lid.
5. Put the crayfish on lettuce on a plate and garnish with lemon slices.
How to cook crayfish in beer
1. Rinse crayfish, put in a pot with near-boiling beer (preferably light beer) and spices.
2. Add salt (2 tablespoons of salt for each liter of beer) and pepper, and boil for 20 minutes.
3. Then let it stay in the broth for 15-25 minutes (if you have patience - for several hours).
4. Put the crayfish on a plate in the form of pyramid and circle, garnish with olives, fresh dill and lemon slices.
Broth for crayfish
Spicy broth for crayfish
For 1 liter of broth take half a tablespoon of salt, 5 pepper peas, a pinch of dill seeds, 2 bay leaves, 1 lemon juice.
Wine broth for crayfish
For each litre of water you should take half a litre of dry white wine, rosemary and dill. Add half a lemon juice (for each litre of broth) at the end of boiling and before infusion.
Cucumber broth for crayfish
Boil crayfish in water for 10 minutes, then add cucumber broth (half a glass of broth for 1 litre of water and boil for more 10 minutes after water starts boiling again.
Serve crayfish with chilled beer and pleasure! :-)
Factelicious
What part of crayfish is edible:
Put a crayfish on a personal plate, pinch off pincers, and separate tail from the body. Suck yellow substance from the trunk.
Suck yellow substance from the pincers, open pincers using a fork and separate meat. Open crayfish cervix and eat its content.
What crayfish can be cooked
Only river crayfish are suitable for our meal recipes. Marine crayfish (they are called lobsters) should be cooked in other way.
Nutritional value of boiled crayfish
- first of all - it contains protein for good health, calcium and phosphorus for growth of bones and muscles;
- if you have fissure on feet from cold;
- for treatment of spleen diseases;
- in case of cholelithiasis and urinory stone diseases.
Composition of crayfish boiled in salted water
Nitrogen substances - 13.63%;
Fats - 0.36%;
Nitrogen-free substances - 0.21%;
Water - 72.74%.
How to salt water for crayfish
Add salt more than enough during crayfish boiling, because pincer will absorb only necessary amount of it. Amount of salt is calculated according to amount of broth - so, for 2 litres of water poured in a pot (crayfish must be completely covered with water), you should take 2 tablespoons of salt.
If you insist upon crayfish after cooking 2-3 hours, the salt will be better absorbed.
How to choose crayfish for boiling
1. It better to choose crayfish caught in early spring or autumn.
2. The larger crayfish, the more tender and juicy meat will be.
3. It’s better if crayfish are not just live but active; the more active crayfish, the less diseases it may have.
How to eat crayfish
1. Start eating crayfish with princer.
You need to tear both princers in turn.
Meat of small arthropods is sucked from princer, meat of large one is cleaned from chitinious princer and taken up as one piece.
2. Lift princer, eat yellow or white meat, but do not eat a black lump in the beginning of princer.
3. Separate cervix - tail piece from the trunk.
4. Eat flesh from crayfish legs.
5. Remove a black stripe out of cervix - this is intestine, and eat the remained meat.
How long cooked and live crayfish can be stored
Live crayfish are stored for no more than 3 days. Crayfish are stored in the refrigerator's department for vegetables. You can feed them with sausage. :)
Crayfish can be stored up to 1 week in a bowl with water at room temperature and direct air access.
Cooked crayfish should be stored in water where the were boiled - no more than 12 hours; frozen crayfish - no more than 1 month.
Live crayfish can be stored in the freezer up to 1 month. After defrosting, deferred life activity of crayfish normalizes, so it may seem that they "come to life".
In both last ways of storing you should not unfreeze crayfish, cook them immediately while they are frozen.
Cooled crayfish should be stored in sealed package in the refrigerator for 2 days.
Why crayfish are cooked live
Dead crayfish are very dangerous for health. Providing that live crayfish are not frozen, decomposition process starts immediately. Besides, in most cases sick crayfish die more often - and excess risk of poisoning is not a good idea.