Boiled crayfish - a great appetizer for beer, has long been recognized as classic. Their meat has a white color, a very pleasant delicate taste and has dietary properties. Uncomplicated dishes from boiled crayfish captivate even the most strict connoisseurs of fine cuisine.
Pick your recipe
Cancer Features
Crayfish have a hard chitinous cover and 6 pairs of limbs - 2 large claws, 8 running legs, 2 remaining legs turned into a caudal fin. In length, these arthropods can reach 20 centimeters. The larger the cancer, the better its meat. As a rule, males are larger than females and have more massive claws.
Cancer staining is inconsistent. It varies depending on the properties of water, habitat, and varies from greenish-brown to blue-brown. Crayfish live in fresh water - lakes and rivers. A key condition for their existence is the availability of clean water. In an polluted reservoir, this arthropod simply dies. In the daytime, crayfish hide in shelters: under stones, in minks, tree roots. At night they go outside to start the hunt.
There are two kinds of crayfish: European and American. Large blue crayfish are considered the most delicious. They can be caught only in the Armenian Lake Sevan.
How to cook crayfish
The most popular way to cook crayfish is cooking. For this, it is better to take live specimens. In addition, each cancer must be carefully examined.
Before cooking, the arthropod must be chopped, previously boiled in boiling water, otherwise the meat will be poorly separated from the shell. Boiling water will condense the meat and it will easily separate from the body.
For cooking crayfish, it is better to take a large pan or stewpan. It is necessary to pour water into it, add dill and salt. It is better to use dried herbs and the more the better. Dill will give a great taste to meat. You can also use dill seeds.
Crayfish absorb salt quite poorly, so you should not save on it. Undercooked crayfish are very tasteless. Pour not less than a tablespoon of coarse salt per liter of water.
To improve the taste, you can safely add to the water, where crayfish, bay leaves, peppercorns, coriander will be boiled. With spices, you must observe the measure, otherwise they can drown out the taste of the crayfish.
Live crayfish should only be thrown into boiling water. They need to be taken carefully by the back, otherwise they can easily grab the finger with their claw. After all arthropods are placed in the pan, it should be covered with a lid. When the water with the crayfish boils, the fire needs to be slightly reduced.
The readiness of the crayfish will be signaled by their color, they should change it to orange-red. This usually takes 10 minutes. After that, the pan with crayfish must be removed from the stove and left it alone for 5-7 minutes. During this time, crayfish have time to infuse. Now they will only have to put them on a suitable dish, garnish with lemon slices, herbs and serve.
Boiled crayfish are good both in cold and hot form.
Storage of boiled crayfish
Do not store boiled crayfish in an aluminum container. In it will be the destruction of trace elements that are part of the meat of crayfish. In this case, arthropods will acquire a dark, almost black tint and will deteriorate quite quickly. The best containers for their storage are ceramic or glassware.
Cooked crayfish should be stored in the refrigerator in the vegetable compartment or “freshness zone” for no more than 72 hours. At the same time, it is permissible to keep them in the freezer for no more than a month.
When frozen, boiled crayfish should not be thawed. They should be immediately immersed in boiling water. The same goes for frozen live crayfish.