How to clean crayfish before cooking and eating

Nobody will be indifferent to fragrant and mouth-watering boiled crawfish. But to get to the delicious meat, you need to know how to clean the crayfish from the chitinous shell. In addition to the tail( cancer necks), these arthropods have many more edible and delicious parts. But, before you can cut crayfish for food, they must first be cooked.

Clearing fresh crayfish before cooking

Crayfish live in rivers and lakes, where they dig deep holes in underwater steep cliffs or banks, steeply falling under the water. They can swim, but more often wander the muddy bottom in search of prey or sit in holes. It is clear that on the shells the earth settles, pieces of mud, mud. Therefore, before cooking crayfish, they must be thoroughly cleaned and cleaned.

The crayfish caught or bought on the market should be placed for a couple of hours in clean water. During this time they will cleanse the intestines. Then you need to clean the shell from dirt. To do this:

• Dirty water, in which there were crayfish, completely drained and poured clean. Leave for 5-10 minutes, occasionally stirring intensively.
• Replace the water and repeat the operation.
• Change the water and rinse the last time.
• If dead crayfish pop up during washing, they should be removed and discarded( only live crawfish can be cooked).

After that you can start cooking. Sometimes before cooking crawfish 1-2 hours soaked in milk. It is believed that this improves the taste of their meat.

You can clean these arthropods with salt water. They say that this way they are better and faster cleared of dirt. The cleaning procedure is approximately the same as in pure water. Only the first two washings use a cold salt solution. But crabs do not have to withstand a certain amount of time in the brine. Immediately after stirring, the salted water must be drained and poured fresh for final rinsing. After cleaning salt water cancers can not be stored, as they quickly die, they must be immediately cooked.

The cooking time is 20-30 minutes( depending on the size).Salt and seasonings are put to taste. Cancers are thrown into boiling water only alive.

How to properly eat cancers

Professionals eat crayfish almost completely, leaving only a shell and a few giblets. Amateurs eat only a ponytail-belly, throwing out half of the delicious delicacy. As it is - everyone chooses himself. But in any case, to get to the meat, you must first remove the shell. Cleaning crawfish is not difficult.

This is done in a certain order, at the same time describe all the edible parts:

1. First you need to examine the tail, if there is caviar under it - it is edible and tasty.
2. Then you should tear off the thin walking legs. In no case do they have to be thrown out, since there is meat in them, and if there is a large cancer, then quite a lot. It is not difficult to get this meat - break the legs into joints and squeeze out the contents with your teeth.
3. Now you can separate the claws. In them, the delicacy is not much less than in the cancer cervix. The edge of the shell near the joint should be opened, pruning with scissors, or gnawing teeth and, through the hole formed, take out the meat.
4. Holding the cancer with his left hand turned on his back, slightly tilt his head down and gently, breaking the movement, to separate the abdomen from the cephalothorax. If this is done carefully, then in the front of the shell remains a delicious broth, which should be drunk, as from a cup.
5. Pull in different directions behind the edges of the shell. It will burst at the junction with the head. Holding the tip of the head to separate it to the end.
6. From the inside of the head, you should eat all the pulp with the orange mass.
7. Scrape off the white mass from the inner surface of the shell - this is fat. It is edible and quite tasty.
8. Breaking the movement from the abdomen( cancer necks) to separate the gills( they are gray) and to suck out the broth.
9. There remains the most meaty piece - abdomen( tail or cancer cervix).First you need to tear off feathers at the tail, located on its tip, then suck out the broth from under the shell. Then remove the triangular plates from both sides of the abdomen. They can be broken off with their hands, but this is quite difficult, you can get hurt. It is better to use scissors or nibble teeth. After this, it is easy to separate the upper and lower parts of the shell. Remove a thin strip of meat from the top of the cancer cervix - it is easily detached. Under it will open a dark streak - the rectum. It must be deleted. After that, eat both pieces of delicious and tender meat.

If everything is done correctly, then at the end of the meal from the crayfish there will be only shells, squeezed gills and a few internals.

Some advice

• If the living crayfish brought home are not prepared immediately, but left "for later", they do not need to be released into a container of water. It is better to leave in the air, occasionally splashing with water.
• If prolonged storage of arthropods is foreseen, they should be rinsed with water from the shower, placed in a container with ice pieces and put into the refrigerator. So you can keep them alive for a few days, periodically draining the melt water.
• Before cooking, remove ice from the container and allow the crayfish to warm to room temperature.

We advise you to read an article on how to clean fresh shrimp