Crayfish hunting is a very exciting activity. Amateur hunters love to talk about the aroma of smoke and herbs, which are saturated with the freshest crayfish, just caught from the river. The fishing season begins in spring, in May, and ends by the end of October. Autumn crayfish are the most delicious and meaty ones.
The wives of rakolovs (or those who love tasty invertebrates) should definitely know how to cook crayfish. Water with spices, pickle, kvass, beer and even sour cream with adjika can be an excellent basis for cooking.
How to Cook Crayfish - General Cooking Principles
Immediately soaked crayfish purchased or brought from a river should be soaked in cold water. If cooking in milk is intended, you can pour live crayfish with milk. By the way, this soaking is suitable for other methods of boiling: milk to give the meat of crayfish tenderness and special taste.
Before preparing the crayfish, rinse very thoroughly with cold water, and even better - carefully clean the places of possible accumulation of dirt (silt, sand) with a soft brush. As a rule, this is the area of the abdomen and joints.
How to cook crayfish? Exceptionally lively, and this is one of the unpleasant moments. However, dead invertebrates are not suitable for food, and even dangerous to health. Resisting cancer can pinch quite sensitively, so when washing it should be firmly held by the back.
For cooking, you need a large bucket or other suitable container. It is important that it was quite high: if there is less than 10 or even 15 centimeters from the surface of the liquid to the edge of the dish, it will take some time to throw panicked crayfish into boiling water.
In addition to water, crayfish can be boiled in beer, milk, cucumber pickle, kvass. Per liter of liquid you need to take a tablespoon of salt (with the exception of brine, and without that salty).
How much to cook crayfish? It will take about fifteen minutes to half an hour to cook the crayfish. Small copies will cook quickly, a maximum in 20 minutes. The middle ones should be boiled for 25 minutes. Well, the most impressive individuals will be ready in about thirty minutes. It is important not to digest the delicacy: in this case the meat will become hard, tasteless, dry. Therefore, as soon as the greenish-brown color of the shell became bright red, the container with the finished crayfish must be removed from the fire.
Do not rush to get them right away: Let them infuse a little in the decoction, soak them. Boil crayfish should be immediately before a meal: you can not keep them after cooking.
Traditional crayfish with seasoning and salt
There is nothing simpler and tastier than traditional dishes. It is according to this recipe that Rakolov boil their prey by making a fire on a quiet shore. Black pepper and bay leaf - that's all that is needed to flavor boiling water.
Ingredients:
• one and a half to two kilograms of crayfish;
• four liters of clean water;
• four tablespoons of salt;
• five bay leaves;
• a teaspoon of black peppercorns (vary the sharpness to taste);
• a bunch of dill;
• lemon.
Preparation:
Pour water into a saucepan or bucket and put on fire.
Wait for boiling and salt.
Throw in spices and herbs in boiling water.
Squeeze the juice from the lemon and boil for a bit of boiling (three minutes is enough).
Grabbing crayfish by the back, carefully lower them into boiling water.
Wait for the secondary boiling of water, reduce the heat.
Cover the container with a lid and cook over low heat until tender.
Crayfish with Sour Cream and Spicy Sauce
The special taste of this broth will inform the crawfish tenderness and sharpness at the same time. Instead of traditional spices, you can take any hot sauce or adjika homemade. The second component, a softening decoction, is sour cream. For extra flavor you can take seasonal greens. How much to cook crayfish for this recipe depends on their size.
Ingredients:
• two kilograms of crayfish;
• six liters of water;
• four tablespoons of sour cream;
• six tablespoons of coarse salt;
• two tablespoons of finished adzhika or hot sauce;
• a bunch of fresh herbs (dill, parsley and cilantro optional).
Preparation:
Bring water to a boil.
Salt boiled water.
Add sour cream and adjika to the pickle. Finely chop the greens and dip them in a fragrant pickle. He should boil about five minutes.
Run crayfish, holding them back.
As soon as the broth boils, reduce the fire to the minimum.
Boil the crayfish under the lid until tender.
When the shells turn red, remove from heat and serve.
Crawfish in light beer
Beer lovers will certainly appreciate the original crayfish recipe. If you do not mind transferring beer to decoction, you can try this method. How to cook crayfish in beer pickle? As much as in the water. However, after the backs turn red, you need to let the dish stand. This will increase the cooking time by half an hour.
Ingredients:
• kilogram of fresh crayfish;
• one and a half liters of light fresh beer;
• one and a half liters of drinking water;
• three tablespoons of salt;
• a teaspoon of black pepper.
Preparation:
Mix water and beer in a large saucepan.
Bring the liquid to a boil.
Add salt, pepper and let the brine literally simmer for a minute.
Put the crayfish in the beer.
After secondary boiling, cover the container with a lid and cook with a slow boil until ready.
For half an hour, do not remove boiled crayfish from the beer pickle: they must be thoroughly soaked with the taste of spicy beer.
Crayfish in Milk
It would seem that milk and crayfish are few compatible products. In fact, the taste is very thin, delicate, with a pleasant creamy touch. How to cook crayfish in this way? All the same as in previous recipes. However, there is a nuance: before boiling invertebrates you need to soak in cold milk.
Ingredients:
• kilogram of live crayfish;
• two liters of water;
• two liters of milk;
• four tablespoons of coarse salt;
• dill to taste.
Preparation:
Pour the prepared crayfish with milk and leave for three or three and a half hours.
Boil water, add half of the specified amount of salt and boil the crayfish in the usual way (according to the first recipe, only without spices).
Water pour.
Boiled crayfish again pour cold milk, add salt residues and bring to a boil. As soon as the milk boils, turn off the fire.
Leave the crayfish in a bucket of hot milk for 20 minutes.
Remove and serve.
Crayfish in brine
Cucumber pickle - a very useful thing in the household. On it you can not only make a wonderful pickle or knead the dough on dry biscuits, but also boil the crayfish.
Ingredients:
• kilogram of fresh crayfish;
• three liters of brine;
• three liters of water;
• Spoon of salt;
• fresh dill to taste.
Preparation:
Cook the crayfish in plain water, salt it with a spoonful of salt.
Pour out the water and re-fill the finished crayfish with cold brine.
Chop the greens.
Bring the brine to a boil, put the chopped dill and boil the crayfish for a minute.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the crayfish to stand in a little brine. Fifteen minutes is enough.
Crayfish in dry white wine
Spicy wine aroma gives crayfish a special shade. With the help of dry wine you can diversify the recipe for cooking crayfish, giving the dish originality. How to cook crayfish in wine?
Ingredients:
• kilogram of fresh live crayfish;
• two liters of water;
• liter of white dry or semi-sweet wine;
• three tablespoons of medium or coarse salt;
• seasonal greens to taste (bunch);
• a mixture of peppers to taste (teaspoon)
Preparation:
Water and wine combined in a large container and put on medium heat.
When the liquid boils, it needs to be salted and pepper.
Throw chopped dill, boil a minute.
Run crayfish.
When the decoction boils, reduce the heat to a minimum, cover the container with a lid.
How much to cook crayfish after boiling? Until the shells turn red.
Boil until cooked, then remove from heat and serve.
How to cook crayfish - Tricks and tips
- If the crayfish are alive, they should be boiled right away: this is the most delicious option. You can cool the crayfish and keep in the refrigerator, but not more than two days. Frozen crayfish can lie in the freezer for up to three months without losing juiciness and taste.
- If you do not plan to boil the crayfish immediately, you can prolong their freshness with cold water. Type it in any container and start a future lunch or dinner there. Another cooling option is to simply put the crayfish in the refrigerator, putting it in a metal container.
- When buying crayfish from hands or in a store, you need to pay attention to the activity of the invertebrate. Healthy, recently caught cancer behaves actively, moves its claws, mustache and tail, tries to escape. If the cancer is sluggish or, worse, does not move at all, you cannot buy it. Sick and dead crayfish are harmful, dangerous substances accumulate in them.
- Only cooled cancer can move a little. But he cannot fall asleep from the cold, this is slyness of the sellers who are trying to sell an unusable product.
- It is important to choose a really high saucepan. If this is not done and does not follow the process, stubborn crayfish will scatter. In addition, a sufficient distance between the surface of the water and the lid of the tank will allow the crayfish to boil better.
- Do not stuff the crayfish into the pan too tight. If they are cramped, the dish can remain damp. To make the crayfish boil enough, they must feel quite free in boiling water.
- Do not be afraid to over-salt the dish: spoons of salt per liter of liquid is just enough. The shell of the crayfish is dense, it does not pass salt well.
- While cleaning the crayfish and lowering them into boiling water, thick rubber gloves can be put on their hands to avoid pain from possible tweezers with claws. If there are kitchen plugs, then you can run crabs in a boiling bucket with their help.
- There are crayfish to be hot. Meat will be juicy and very tasty.
