Crawfish & Crab Roast

Crayfish, crawfish, or crawdads are freshwater crustaceans resembling small lobsters, to which they are related. They are eaten all over the world. Like other edible crustaceans, only a small portion of the body of a crayfish is edible. In most prepared dishes only the tail portion is served.

It is my first time cooking them and I had picked up some big live crawfish at the Korean store(around 2 pounds).Even though they looked like a lot - by the time I boiled and cleaned them there was hardly 1 cup of meat left, so I combined them with crab.


















Ingredients:

1. Crabs - 5 (I used blue crabs)
2. Crawfish - 2 lbs
3. shallots - 1/2 cup chopped
4. Ginger - 1/2 inch piece cut into big pieces
5. Garlic - 8 cloves chopped fine
6. Chilly powder - 1 tsp
7. Corriander powder - 1 tsp
8. turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
9. Cocum/Kudam puli - 3 pieces soaked in water OR you can use tamarind instead if you dont have cocum.
10. Curry leaves - 1 spring
11. Salt - to taste
12. Oil - 4 tbsp.

Preparing the crawfish:
Wash the live crawfish well under running water and keep aside.
Add 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer.
Add the crawfish into the water and boil for 5 minutes
Drain the water and let the crawfish cook.
Twist the head off and remove the peel like you would do for shrimp.
Remove the vein that runs alond the back and keep the meat aside.
 

Method:
Clean and cut the crab into 2 pieces.
Into a frying pan and add in the shallots, ginger,garlic, corriander powder, chilly powder, turmeric powder, cocum water, salt to taste and 1/2 cup of water.
Cover and cook until the water is evaporated and crab is cooked( around 10 minutes).
Add in the cooked crawfish meat and stir .
Heat oil in a nonstick pan and add in the curry leaves and stirfry .
Add in the cooked crab crawfish mixture and stirfry until slightly dry and browned.

NOTE: If you are using only crawfish you can cook it as follows.
Heat oil in a fryiong pan and add the shallots ginger and garlic and saute until it starts to turn light brown.
Add in the corriander,chilly and turmeric powder and stir for 2 minutes.
Add in 1 chopped tomato instead of the cocum and stirfry until the tomaro is cooked.
Add in curry leaves and the crawfish meat and fry until dry and slightly browned.