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It's been a long time since I've eaten crawdads and when I did eat them, we ate them on the shoreline of the lake where we caught them and boiled them live.
I was thinking it would be fun to catch a few this weekend and cook them up, but started wondering what the best way to do it is knowing I can't transport them alive. I would like to cook them at home and not the lake. I've heard you get sick if you let them die without removing their tails. Is this true?
So how do you guys clean and transport your crawdads? Also, how do you cook them if it's only the tail you bring home?
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It's kind of a pain to bring them home uncooked. I prefer to boil them up at the lake even if I'm not going to eat them at the lake.
If I'm bringing them home I pull the 3 center fins out of the tail with a twisting motion to remove the spinal cord and kill them all at once. The I lay in a single layer on some newspaper over ice. When I have a whole layer I put another layer of news paper over them and more ice, then more paper, then more dads then more paper, then more ice, then paper, dads, paper, ice, paper...
Don't let the ice directly touch the dads.
If I want only the tails I break them off, put in a gallon zip lock and put on ice.
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I agree about taking the tails off and pulling the third fin off to get the vien out, then just toss the tails and claws if they are big enough into a ziploc and put them in ice. If you want to keep them for a couple of days, just rinse them clean when your home and put them in the freezer. I have cooked them in the crawdad spices, and without. I don't find any difference in taste personally. I just dip them in cocktail sauce.
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Get a pot of vegies boiling. Use small or halved potatoes, 3 inch carrots, onions quartered, and corn cobs broken in half. Add a cube of butter, and some salt and pepper to taste. Also add a couple tablespoons of minced garlic and hot spices of your choice. Boil the vegies for about 30 minutes over your gas burner while you go prep the live crawdads.
To prep the dads, start by removing the alimentary (pooper) vein … also known as de-veining a crawdad. To do this, grab the center two tail fans and give them a quick 180 degree twist. You’ll hear a slight snap. Now just pull that center tail fan away from the dad’s tail and the pooper vein will come right out like a piece of long slimy brown snot.
“Purge” the dads by rinsing them of in cold salt water. Makes them barf up the mud and dirt. Then rinse them good in fresh water and drain them.
Now dump the whole batch of live dads into the boiling vegie mix. Bring to a boil and boil for about 5 minutes.
It’s time to eat. Twist off the heads, peel back the shell off the front of the tail and pull out the tail meat from the rest of the shell. Dip in some hot butter and eat um up.
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Thanks guys that's great info. Now I just gotta go find a few. Planning on hitting the Berry on Saturday so that shouldn't be a problem. Thanks again.
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[font "Calibri"]How long do you need to “Purge ” the dads in salt water? I tried dads for the first time this year up at the Gorge and didn’t much care for the green grit!!! Will purging get rid of that? Thanks!!![/font]
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I really wish crawdads would be exempted from the live-transport law. I realize it's likely in an attempt to stem the spread of disease and bucket biology, but crawdads really are a lot easier and tastier to cook alive. (PS - Zatarans crab boil is my fav way to cook the little buggers).
Any hope of getting that law changed?
How much damage could crawdads really do if they were introduced to a fishery that doesn't currently have them? My guess would be that they might eat the eggs of reproducing fish and COULD potentially have an affect in that aspect, but wouldn't they also create an additional food source for the fish? Any actual biologists here have credible information?
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I thought it was a purge (lather) - rinse - repeat kinda game. And then yank tails, some suggest the tailing kills 'em, so don'tcha want them to puke first?
You can tail-em, ice em and go. But I thought part of the "bawl" was about the sauce, suck the head, peel the tail, and go. Grundle of carrots, taters, onions and such...
I need to grab a bucket and go!
You can transport dead dads around for bait, at least most waters I think.
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[font "Calibri"]I love green veggies and green fruits but green meat puts a whole new twist on things. My name is not Sam I am and I refuse to eat green eggs and ham!!!!![/font]
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+1 on that,
We prepared our first batch a couple years ago and did not use the saltwater rinse or the ice and it was interesting to say the least. I kept sayin " I think were doing it wrong."
[:/]
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Just a pinch between the cheek and gum . . . sort of . . .
maybe this'll help.
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Got anything against Green Beer?
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[font "Calibri"]That’s a good diagram for someone like me that’s not from the south. I think this would be the only way I would try them again. I would also have to assume the Cajun spices would penetrate the meat better this way too. The ones we cooked up had very little flavor. As for Irish beer goes… all I can say is cheers and I got the next round. [sly][/font]
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[font "Calibri"]Thanks!!!!![/font]
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[cool][#0000ff]You're welcome.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]That was a page from a book I put out back in the early 80's...to get Utah troutaholics to begin using more of the "warmwater" species...and crawdads.[/#0000ff]
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