Cooking time for crayfish. Recipes for cooking crayfish. Composition of crayfish that were boiled in ordinary salted water

Boiled crayfish (photo).

How to cook crayfish step by step recipe with photo.

How to cook crayfish, how much salt? Brine for boiled crayfish.

How to properly cook live crayfish. How long does it take to cook crayfish?? Is it possible to cook dead crayfish? How to store boiled crayfish?

I'll tell you in the recipe for boiled crayfish. The recipe was brought from the banks of the Volga. This is how they cook crayfish in Volgograd.

What do you need.

  1. Live crayfish 3 kg..
  2. Salt to taste.
  3. Bay leaf 4 pcs.
  4. Black peppercorns 20 pcs.
  5. Lemon 1 pc.
  6. Dill seeds (can be replaced with stems from a bunch of dill)

How to choose crayfish. Crayfish can be any size - small, medium or large. The time it takes to cook the crayfish depends on the size of the crayfish. How long to cook crayfish? small cooking crayfish 25 minutes, medium cooking crayfish 35 minutes, large cooking crayfish 45 minutes. During this time, the cancer will nourish the broth and will be tasty. It is believed that the crayfish should be thrown into the water, if it turns red, it’s done. It is not right.

Crayfish must only be alive. Dead crayfish cannot be boiled Crayfish spoil very quickly in water after they die. If you are not sure that the cancer died a few hours before cooking, mercilessly throw it away dead crayfish, otherwise you will ruin the whole dish. If you know for sure that the cancer was alive several hours ago, then tear off its head and weld its neck. For cancer, the first thing that gets worse is the head. Do not store live crayfish in water, they will die quickly, store in a cool place, the crayfish will live for several hours.

This time I had small crayfish. They are good in their own way, small crayfish are easy to clean, and the palate and tongue don’t hurt afterwards.

Moment. Before as cook crayfish, it’s a good idea to use a brush to clean the area where the legs are attached to the body. We carry out this operation under running water. In this place, the crayfish accumulate silt and dirt as they crawl along the bottom.

The main thing in boiling crayfish this is the right one bouillon. The final taste of the crayfish depends on the broth. Take the largest pan. For three kg of crayfish I took a 12 liter pan.

Fill two-thirds with water. Throw in dill Bay leaf, peppercorns, squeeze lemon.

Very important for boiling crayfish how much salt we will add to the broth. The broth should be heavily salted. I put one heaped tablespoon of salt per two liters. I put 5 tablespoons of salt on such a pan.

Brine for boiling crayfish bring to a boil. Turn off. Let it brew for 10-15 minutes. Bring to a boil. Dip the crayfish into the broth.

How crayfish boil, reduce the heat, cover with a lid and simmer over low heat.

That's how we cook crayfish properly. After 25/35/45 minutes we take out the crayfish.

Place the crayfish in a deep dish.

Can't say that crayfish- gorgeous snack for beer. Right boiled crayfish Children eat with pleasure. Crayfish are a decoration for any table. Besides all this - crayfish are useful. If you haven’t eaten the crayfish, put them in the refrigerator; they will last for several days.

Eat crayfish on health.

What else would I like to add? I read all the readers' comments. I agree with some things and disagree with others. My opinion - cook crayfish you need to wait at least 15 minutes, then keep it in the brine for another 3-5 minutes. One more trick - Lately, I salt the brine for boiling crayfish sea ​​salt. The taste of crayfish is more refined.

Very tasty way preparations - boiled crayfish with parsley and beer.

How to cook live crayfish at home

Do you think crayfish are only tasty with dill? But no, they are no less tasty with parsley. Let's add more beer to the pan, but we won't be able to keep anyone away from these crayfish. Crayfish are basically delicious and you always wait for summer to enjoy them. The most important thing is to cook the crayfish fresh. Even if you bought them or caught them yourself, they should move, this indicates the quality of the product. You cannot cook dead crayfish; it may not be of good quality. It’s always a pleasure to cook fresh crayfish, and you wait for them to cool down so you can try this delicacy from our glorious rivers.


To prepare boiled crayfish with parsley and beer, we need 30 minutes, number of servings: 3.

Ingredients:

Fresh crayfish – 500 grams

Fresh parsley – 50 grams

Unfiltered beer – 250 grams

Universal spice mixture - 1 teaspoon

Rock salt – 3 tablespoons

Water – 1.5 liters.


Boiled crayfish recipe:
It is better to cook live crayfish outdoors. You can catch them yourself or buy them in the area of ​​any reservoirs where they live. Then the crayfish will definitely be alive, fresh and of high quality. Crayfish can be of any size, they will eat anything and be happy.


Rinse in cold water crayfish so that they are clean. Pour water into a saucepan. Immediately add fresh parsley.


Next, pour in a mixture of spices, it can be for fish or universal. It definitely includes paprika, turmeric, oregano, black pepper, thyme, dried garlic, carrots and coriander. You can simply add a mixture of ground peppers or laurel, allspice, whatever you have.


How long to cook crayfish after boiling

When the water boils, add beer to the pan and carefully lower the fresh crayfish, it is better to hold them by the shell so that they do not bite you.

In just a couple of seconds the crayfish will turn red.

We wait for the water to boil again and time it for about 20 minutes. If your crayfish are large, then you need to cook them for at least 30 - 40 minutes.

There is no need to stir, cover the pan with a lid and wait for our time to run out. The aroma is already permeating the entire area.

The crayfish have been cooked for the required amount of time; you can remove them with a slotted spoon or a spoon. Immediately place them on a plate and serve.

It’s ideal to eat crayfish with cold beer, but it depends on your preference. This delicacy is not only tasty, but also healthy. Yes, it takes a lot of time to clean the crayfish, but how delicious it is. Even children wait with trepidation when they receive the coveted crayfish meat.

Crayfish, being the object of fishing, have been used by humans as food since ancient times. The remains of the shells of these inhabitants of reservoirs were found in Neolithic deposits. Today, such arthropods are mainly processed by boiling them in slightly salty water. When they acquire a red tint and aromatic smell, they are served to the table along with dill, parsley, celery, and so on. Boiled, they are a fairly popular delicacy; they can serve as an appetizer for beer or as a complex dish that can surprise guests. Of course, not everyone knows how to properly cook crayfish at home. We will look further at how this should be done.

Color change during cooking

In the process of cooking crayfish and other crustaceans, the color of their integument changes. This can be explained by the fact that arthropods contain great amount carotenoids. In the integument of these inhabitants of reservoirs, the pigment astaxanthin is found, which pure form has a bright red color. In living creatures, carotenoids are combined with different proteins, so animals have a bluish, brown or greenish tint. When heated, these chemical compounds quickly disintegrate, astaxanthin is released and gives the arthropod’s body a rich, bright color.

Nutrients

Many novice cooks know how to cook crayfish, but not everyone has an idea of ​​what they contain nutrients. It should be noted that their main volume is concentrated in the abdomen, a little less is located in the claws. The meat of this arthropod white color, with small pink veins. It is very nutritious and pleasant to the taste. Meat contains a large number of protein, there is practically no fat. This is high quality dietary product With big amount vitamins and calcium, but with little fat, calories and cholesterol. Learning how to cook crawfish at home is not difficult. But you need to know that this inhabitant of reservoirs has little meat; a kilogram of crayfish contains about one hundred and fifty grams of it. It should not be stored in metal containers because it contains a lot of sulfur, which reacts with the metal and changes the color of the product.

Cooking crayfish

Before you cook crayfish, you need to understand one thing: they must only be alive. To do this, each of them is checked. Before cutting, the arthropod is boiled a little in boiling water so that the meat is very well separated from the shell. To prepare such inhabitants of reservoirs you will need large saucepan, a lot of salt and dill. Now let's look in more detail at how to cook crayfish (classic recipe).

Ingredients: take salt at the rate of one tablespoon per liter of water, ten black peppercorns, five bay leaves, dill seeds at your discretion.

Cooking

Before cooking crayfish with dill, you need to put all the spices in boiling water, and then put live crayfish there. Cover the pan with a lid and cook over medium heat. It is constantly necessary to ensure that the water does not escape. After ten minutes, turn off the heat and let the dish sit under the lid closed for another ten minutes. The finished crayfish are laid out on large dish and garnish with dill sprigs and lemon slices.

There are a lot of recipes for how to cook crayfish. They differ only in the presence of various spices; in any case, a lot of salt is needed, since the crayfish meat is protected by a shell that does not allow salt to pass through it well. Dill gives the dish an exquisite taste and aroma. Let's look at several recipes for preparing tasty and appetizing inhabitants of reservoirs.

Crayfish in milk

Ingredients: crayfish, milk, dill and salt to taste.

Cooking

This recipe requires some skill and patience. So, before boiling crayfish at home, you need to soak them in milk, which is boiled in advance and cooled to room temperature. They are left in it for three hours, and then washed and boiled in ordinary water, in which spices are placed in advance. At the end of cooking, the water is drained, and the previously used milk is poured in instead, put on fire and brought to a boil. The finished crayfish are laid out on portioned plates and topped with milk or sour cream sauce.

How to cook crayfish for beer

Ingredients: three kilograms of live crayfish, five liters of water, three bay leaves, five black peppercorns, one bunch of dill, eight tablespoons of salt.

Cooking

Before boiling the crayfish, the recipe we are considering recommends sorting them out first, leaving only the living ones. Then the arthropods are washed with water, thoroughly washing the shells and legs, since this is where dirt accumulates, which gives the dish an unpleasant river taste. Well suited for this purpose Toothbrush, however, the process itself is very long, so it is recommended to be patient.

Before cooking live crayfish, boil water, add salt and spices, and you can add chopped vegetables. After this, the arthropods are placed in a pan of boiling water upside down, holding them by the back. This is most likely done for humanitarian reasons. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for about ten minutes. Readiness is determined by color: the crayfish should turn a bright red color. Then the stove is turned off, but the pan is not removed, but left for fifteen minutes for the dish to steep. During this time the meat will become soft, but not overcooked. Then the delicacy is taken out and placed on a plate, served along with beer.

Crayfish in wine

Ingredients: ten crayfish, one glass of dry white wine, one spoon of flour, one spoon of caraway seeds, two spoons of butter, two bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking

How to cook crayfish in wine? They are placed in a pan with preheated oil, then fried until pinkish, turning occasionally. Then they are sprinkled with salt, pepper and cumin, a bay leaf is added, poured with wine and cooked under a closed lid for about ten minutes. Place the finished crayfish on a dish and cover with a lid.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce from the resulting broth. To do this, filter the broth and put it on fire, adding flour mixed with a spoonful of butter. Boil the sauce for two minutes, add more oil, stir until it dissolves. The finished dish is decorated with parsley sprigs, the sauce is served separately.

Crayfish in tomato juice

Ingredients: ten crayfish, thick tomato juice, wine, salt and spices, dill.

Cooking

The arthropods are thoroughly washed and thrown into boiling water for ten minutes, after adding salt. After time has passed, remove the pan from the heat and leave with the lid closed for fifteen minutes so that they become juicy. IN hot water add dill and spices. When the crayfish are cooked, their necks are separated, the shell is cleaned, and the meat is piled up in a small bowl. The claws are also cleaned of the shell and laid out along the edges of the dishes, around the necks. The dish is poured with wine and tomato juice.

Crayfish soup

Knowing correctly, you can prepare a first course from them, which will be unusual, but quite tasty and healthy. Let's see how to cook it.

Ingredients: two and a half kilograms of crayfish. For the broth: water, onions and carrots, salt, as well as bay leaves, dill, pepper and cloves. For the soup: onions, olive oil, carrots and butter, cognac and white wine, salt and spices, cream, as well as garlic and ginger, bay leaf and anise, cloves and saffron. To fry the necks of crayfish you will need butter.

Cooking

First of all, the crayfish are washed well, then the rectum is removed. To do this, take the central fin with two fingers, rotate it one hundred and eighty degrees and pull it along the tail.

Before boiling crayfish, you need to put several small onions, dill, carrots, salt and cloves, pepper and bay leaf in a pan and boil it all. There is no need to skimp on salt, as the broth should be very salty. Dip the crayfish into boiling water and cook until they turn red. After this, the arthropods are laid out on a dish.

So, we have learned how to cook crayfish with dill, we can move on. Meanwhile, the onion is fried, bay leaf, garlic, ginger, anise and cloves, carrots and butter are added to it. Crayfish heads and bodies are placed with the vegetables and warmed thoroughly. Cognac is added to this mass, the pan is covered with a lid and left for one minute, then the lid is removed, the cognac vapors are carefully set on fire. When the vapors evaporate, pour half a bottle of wine, hot water, cover again and put on fire for twenty minutes.

Then the crayfish are transferred to the blender, several ladles of broth are added, after removing the anise and bay leaf from it, and crushed. The resulting mass is diluted with broth to a mushy state, and then filtered through a sieve. The remains are poured with water and boiled for fifteen minutes, again rubbed through a sieve.

We already know how to cook crayfish properly, now let's move on to the soup. So, you need to grind the saffron with salt and add it to the soup preparation. Place the mixture on the stove and cook, stirring constantly. Next, add cream to the soup, stirring with a whisk until it boils.

Crayfish necks are fried in oil for several minutes, transferred to portioned plates, where the soup is already poured. The dish is served with croutons and sour cream.

Many people wonder whether it is possible to boil dead crayfish? The answer is obvious - it is impossible, because immediately after death, the process of decomposition takes place. When a person eats bad meat, even boiled, he risks getting poisoned, in which case he will need health care. As long as the crayfish have not fallen into a pot of boiling water, they should remain alive and active.

When choosing the inhabitants of reservoirs, you need to pay attention to their size. They should be large, only then the meat will be tastier. On taste qualities the time of their catch also affects: if they hit the table before the start of molting (winter or early spring), the dish will turn out to be extremely tasty.

Knowing how to properly cook crayfish at home, you need to remember how to properly store them. Boiled, but without broth, they are stored in the freezer for up to one month; live specimens are stored in the same way. The interesting thing is that after defrosting they begin to move, because under the influence low temperatures they do not die, just all life processes in the body slow down.

It often happens that a person is already offered ready meal(that is, he was not present during cooking). In this case, it is not difficult to determine whether the crayfish were alive during cooking or not. Thus, the tails of individuals that were boiled alive will be tucked towards the body; if the arthropods were lethargic, their tails will be straightened, so it is not recommended to eat them.

Many people know how to cook crayfish, how much salt and dill to put in, but not everyone has an idea of ​​how to tell whether they are cooked or not. The readiness of a dish can be determined by its color. It turns deep red. Moreover, spices play a big role here. If there are not enough of them, the meat will turn out tasteless. Therefore, it is recommended not to skimp on seasonings, especially for dill, which is placed in various forms: seeds, stems, tops.

How to eat crayfish?

We know how to cook crayfish correctly, let’s talk about how to use them correctly. They start eating crayfish, as a rule, from the tail, since that is where the most delicious and meaty place is. Scrolling, tear off and remove the shell. They eat white meat, except for a thin thread of black meat. Then they move on to the claws, break them off, remove the shell and eat the meat. Then the shell must be lifted up and torn off, there is also meat under it. They eat everything they have light color, everything else is inedible. Under the shell there may also be meat and some white formations - calcium.

There is no need to remove arthropods from the brine before serving, since otherwise they won't be juicy enough.

Finally...

The phrase: “Everyone loves...” fits very well with crayfish and dishes prepared from them. There is probably no person in the world who would not love such a delicacy. Both children and adults adore the juicy and aromatic meat of these arthropods.

However, choosing and buying crayfish is only half the battle, because the most important thing here is to cook them correctly, so as to preserve the taste and aroma, all its tenderness, softness and juiciness. There are a lot of recipes for preparing these inhabitants of reservoirs; they are boiled in water, milk or beer, brine, soups, soufflés and much more are prepared from them. Now we know how to cook crayfish with dill. There is nothing difficult in this. However, for some, this is an entire art, as is the process of cutting them. Some chefs, due to lack of time, manage to cook these river inhabitants in fifteen minutes. To do this, pour oil onto a baking sheet, wash and dry the crayfish. Then they are laid out on a baking sheet and sprinkled with spices. Place the dish in a cold oven and turn on high heat for fifteen minutes. It turns out very tasty and appetizing!

Be that as it may, you need to follow a few simple rules and recommendations when preparing crayfish. Then the meat will turn out not only juicy, aromatic and tasty, but will also retain all its useful material and micronutrients. Properly cooked crayfish will not only decorate the table, pleasing the eye, but will also have a beneficial effect on the human body. This is especially true in dietary and baby food. Delicious and the healthiest dish not found all over the world. Bon appetit!

Crayfish and beer are as classic of the genre as Romeo and Juliet. May Shakespeare fans forgive me, but this comparison is quite appropriate. We cannot imagine Romeo without Juliet, or Othello without Desdemona. So you definitely need to cook crayfish with beer. Although, if minors are present when eating these arthropods, then you can pour them lemonade. Do not deprive children of the pleasure of disassembling the shell of a crayfish and fishing out the tender one. Do not confuse it with the name of a once popular type of candy. Because in fact it has nothing to do with the neck, and arthropods don’t have one at all. They don't even have heads. Instead there is a cephalothorax, smoothly turning into the abdomen.

But this is all poetry, let’s leave zoology alone and move on to the most important thing. We decided to find out how to cook crayfish. But before you start cooking, you need to purchase them. If you are not eager to go into a lake or river after them, you can easily “catch” the mentioned arthropods at the market or in a store. Before the crayfish sold by the dozen. The seller arranged them into piles according to size and set a price corresponding to the quality of the goods. Naturally than bigger size It was cancer, so it was more expensive. Over time, when the crayfish are due bad ecology have become a shortage (after all, they live exclusively in clean water), then they began to sell them not in dozens, but in pieces. And today the count is in kilograms. Seasoned crab eaters just can’t come to terms with the fact that they are now forced to buy their favorite snack by weight, and they usually ask for five or six dozen. But we have again digressed from the topic.

You must cook crayfish alive. This is the most important postulate. And you only need to lower them into boiling water. Yes, this is real sadism, and animal activists should not be allowed anywhere near this procedure. The water in which you are going to boil the crayfish must be heavily salted. The proportion is approximately 2 tablespoons per liter of liquid. And water must be taken in such a way that all the crayfish are covered with it in abundance. Of the mandatory components, dry dill inflorescences should be noted. A bunch of fresh herbs will not fit under any circumstances - the aroma is not the same. We need it dry, and certainly with inflorescences!

The rest of the ingredients are selected based on your own tastes. You can add bay leaves and peppercorns to the water; some originals even like to add garlic. And neither is water prerequisite. You've probably heard that crayfish are often boiled in beer, white wine, milk, and even cucumber brine.

Before cooking, they must be washed in running water. If necessary, if too much dirt has accumulated on the crayfish’s abdomen, you can walk over it with a brush, and only then lower it into boiling water.

How long does it take to cook crayfish? It depends on their size. The main condition here is this: the crayfish must acquire a rich red color without the slightest shade of green. As soon as the water with our arthropods boils again, begin to monitor the change in color of the shell. It's hard to say exactly after it boils. Approximately 10-15 minutes. Maximum - 20. Under no circumstances should they be digested, otherwise the crayfish meat will begin to resemble rubber. Once you are sure that the dish is ready, turn off the stove and get ready for tantalum torment. You will have to endure them for about half an hour, since the crayfish must cool a little in the same water in which they were boiled in order to be saturated with juice and salted well. Yes, it's crazy hard. The whole apartment smelled of a divine aroma, and you walked around the pan and licked your lips. But the wait is worth the pleasure of eating deliciously cooked crayfish with your own hands.

Crayfish, being the object of fishing, have been used by humans as food since ancient times. The remains of the shells of these inhabitants of reservoirs were found in Neolithic deposits. Today, such arthropods are mainly processed by boiling them in slightly salty water. When they acquire a red tint and aromatic smell, they are served to the table along with dill, parsley, celery, and so on. Boiled, they are a fairly popular delicacy; they can serve as an appetizer for beer or as a complex dish that can surprise guests. Of course, not everyone knows how to properly cook crayfish at home. We will look further at how this should be done.

Color change during cooking

In the process of cooking crayfish and other crustaceans, the color of their integument changes. This can be explained by the fact that arthropods contain a huge amount of carotenoids. The integument of these inhabitants of reservoirs contains the pigment astaxanthin, which in its pure form has a bright red color. In living creatures, carotenoids are combined with different proteins, so animals have a bluish, brown or greenish tint. When heated, these chemical compounds quickly disintegrate, astaxanthin is released and gives the arthropod's body a rich, bright color.

Nutrients

Many novice cooks know how to cook crayfish, but not everyone has an idea of ​​what nutrients they contain. It should be noted that their main volume is concentrated in the abdomen, a little less is located in the claws. The meat of this arthropod is white, with small pink veins. It is very nutritious and pleasant to the taste. Meat contains a large amount of protein and has virtually no fat. It is a high-quality dietary product with a lot of vitamins and calcium, but with a small amount of fat, calories and cholesterol. Learning how to cook crawfish at home is not difficult. But you need to know that this inhabitant of the reservoirs has little meat, a kilogram of crayfish contains about one hundred and fifty grams of it. It should not be stored in metal containers because it contains a lot of sulfur, which reacts with the metal and changes the color of the product.

Cooking crayfish

Before you cook crayfish, you need to understand one thing: they must only be alive. To do this, each of them is checked. Before cutting, the arthropod is boiled a little in boiling water so that the meat is very well separated from the shell. To cook such inhabitants of reservoirs, you will need a large saucepan, a lot of salt and dill. Now let's look in more detail at how to cook crayfish (classic recipe).

Ingredients: take salt at the rate of one tablespoon per liter of water, ten black peppercorns, five bay leaves, dill seeds at your discretion.

Cooking

Before cooking crayfish with dill, you need to put all the spices in boiling water, and then put live crayfish there. Cover the pan with a lid and cook over medium heat. It is constantly necessary to ensure that the water does not escape. After ten minutes, turn off the heat and let the dish sit under the lid closed for another ten minutes. The finished crayfish are placed on a large dish and decorated with sprigs of dill and lemon slices.

There are a lot of recipes for how to cook crayfish. They differ only in the presence of various spices; in any case, a lot of salt is needed, since the crayfish meat is protected by a shell that does not allow salt to pass through it well. Dill gives the dish an exquisite taste and aroma. Let's look at several recipes for preparing tasty and appetizing inhabitants of reservoirs.

Crayfish in milk

Ingredients: crayfish, milk, dill and salt to taste.

Cooking

This recipe requires some skill and patience. So, before boiling crayfish at home, you need to soak them in milk, which is boiled in advance and cooled to room temperature. They are left in it for three hours, and then washed and boiled in ordinary water, into which spices are placed in advance. At the end of cooking, the water is drained, and the previously used milk is poured in instead, put on fire and brought to a boil. The finished crayfish are laid out on portioned plates and topped with milk or sour cream sauce.

How to cook crayfish for beer

Ingredients: three kilograms of live crayfish, five liters of water, three bay leaves, five black peppercorns, one bunch of dill, eight tablespoons of salt.

Cooking

Before boiling the crayfish, the recipe we are considering recommends sorting them out first, leaving only the living ones. Then the arthropods are washed with water, thoroughly washing the shells and legs, since this is where dirt accumulates, which gives the dish an unpleasant river taste. A toothbrush works well for this purpose, but the process itself is very long, so it is recommended to be patient.

Before cooking live crayfish, boil water, add salt and spices, and you can add chopped vegetables. After this, the arthropods are placed in a pan of boiling water upside down, holding them by the back. This is most likely done for humanitarian reasons. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for about ten minutes. Readiness is determined by color: the crayfish should turn a bright red color. Then the stove is turned off, but the pan is not removed, but left for fifteen minutes for the dish to steep. During this time the meat will become soft, but not overcooked. Then the delicacy is taken out and placed on a plate, served along with beer.

Crayfish in wine

Ingredients: ten crayfish, one glass of dry white wine, one spoon of flour, one spoon of caraway seeds, two spoons of butter, two bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking

How to cook crayfish in wine? They are placed in a pan with preheated oil, then fried until pinkish, turning occasionally. Then they are sprinkled with salt, pepper and cumin, a bay leaf is added, poured with wine and cooked under a closed lid for about ten minutes. Place the finished crayfish on a dish and cover with a lid.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce from the resulting broth. To do this, filter the broth and put it on fire, adding flour mixed with a spoonful of butter. Boil the sauce for two minutes, add more oil, stir until it dissolves. The finished dish is decorated with parsley sprigs, the sauce is served separately.

Crayfish in tomato juice

Ingredients: ten crayfish, thick tomato juice, wine, salt and spices, dill.

Cooking

The arthropods are thoroughly washed and thrown into boiling water for ten minutes, after adding salt. After time has passed, remove the pan from the heat and leave with the lid closed for fifteen minutes so that they become juicy. Add dill and spices to hot water. When the crayfish are cooked, their necks are separated, the shell is cleaned, and the meat is piled up in a small bowl. The claws are also cleaned of the shell and laid out along the edges of the dishes, around the necks. The dish is poured with wine and tomato juice.

Crayfish soup

Knowing correctly, you can prepare a first course from them, which will be unusual, but quite tasty and healthy. Let's see how to cook it.

Ingredients: two and a half kilograms of crayfish. For the broth: water, onions and carrots, salt, as well as bay leaves, dill, pepper and cloves. For the soup: onions, olive oil, carrots and butter, cognac and white wine, salt and spices, cream, as well as garlic and ginger, bay leaf and anise, cloves and saffron. To fry the crayfish necks you will need butter.

Cooking

First of all, the crayfish are washed well, then the rectum is removed. To do this, take the central fin with two fingers, rotate it one hundred and eighty degrees and pull it along the tail.

Before boiling crayfish, you need to put several small onions, dill, carrots, salt and cloves, pepper and bay leaf in a pan and boil it all. There is no need to skimp on salt, as the broth should be very salty. Dip the crayfish into boiling water and cook until they turn red. After this, the arthropods are laid out on a dish.

So, we have learned how to cook crayfish with dill, we can move on. Meanwhile, the onion is fried, bay leaf, garlic, ginger, anise and cloves, carrots and butter are added to it. Crayfish heads and bodies are placed with the vegetables and warmed thoroughly. Cognac is added to this mass, the pan is covered with a lid and left for one minute, then the lid is removed, the cognac vapors are carefully set on fire. When the vapors evaporate, pour half a bottle of wine, hot water, cover again and put on fire for twenty minutes.

Then the crayfish are transferred to the blender, several ladles of broth are added, after removing the anise and bay leaf from it, and crushed. The resulting mass is diluted with broth to a mushy state, and then filtered through a sieve. The remains are poured with water and boiled for fifteen minutes, again rubbed through a sieve.

We already know how to cook crayfish properly, now let's move on to the soup. So, you need to grind the saffron with salt and add it to the soup preparation. Place the mixture on the stove and cook, stirring constantly. Next, add cream to the soup, stirring with a whisk until it boils.

Crayfish necks are fried in oil for several minutes, transferred to portioned plates, where the soup is already poured. The dish is served with croutons and sour cream.

Many people wonder whether it is possible to boil dead crayfish? The answer is obvious - it is impossible, because immediately after death, the process of decomposition takes place. When a person eats bad meat, even boiled, he risks getting poisoned, in which case medical attention will be required. As long as the crayfish have not fallen into a pot of boiling water, they should remain alive and active.

When choosing the inhabitants of reservoirs, you need to pay attention to their size. They should be large, only then the meat will be tastier. The time when they were caught also affects their taste: if they hit the table before the start of molting (winter or early spring), the dish will turn out extremely tasty.

Knowing how to properly cook crayfish at home, you need to remember how to properly store them. Boiled, but without broth, they are stored in the freezer for up to one month; live specimens are stored in the same way. The interesting thing is that after defrosting they begin to move, because under the influence of low temperatures they do not die, just all life processes in the body slow down.

It often happens that a person is offered a ready-made dish (that is, he was not present during the cooking). In this case, it is not difficult to determine whether the crayfish were alive during cooking or not. Thus, the tails of individuals that were boiled alive will be tucked towards the body; if the arthropods were lethargic, their tails will be straightened, so it is not recommended to eat them.

Many people know how to cook crayfish, how much salt and dill to put in, but not everyone has an idea of ​​how to tell whether they are cooked or not. The readiness of a dish can be determined by its color. It turns deep red. Moreover, spices play a big role here. If there are not enough of them, the meat will turn out tasteless. Therefore, it is recommended not to skimp on seasonings, especially for dill, which is placed in various forms: seeds, stems, tops.

How to eat crayfish?

We know how to cook crayfish correctly, let’s talk about how to use them correctly. They start eating crayfish, as a rule, from the tail, since that is where the most delicious and meaty place is. Scrolling, tear off and remove the shell. They eat white meat, except for a thin thread of black meat. Then they move on to the claws, break them off, remove the shell and eat the meat. Then the shell must be lifted up and torn off, there is also meat under it. They eat everything that is light in color; everything else is inedible. Under the shell there may also be meat and some white formations - calcium.

There is no need to remove arthropods from the brine before serving, otherwise they will not be juicy enough.

Finally...

The phrase: “Everyone loves...” fits very well with crayfish and dishes prepared from them. There is probably no person in the world who would not love such a delicacy. Both children and adults adore the juicy and aromatic meat of these arthropods.

However, choosing and buying crayfish is only half the battle, because the most important thing here is to cook them correctly, so as to preserve the taste and aroma, all its tenderness, softness and juiciness. There are a lot of recipes for preparing these inhabitants of reservoirs; they are boiled in water, milk or beer, brine, soups, soufflés and much more are prepared from them. Now we know how to cook crayfish with dill. There is nothing difficult in this. However, for some, this is an entire art, as is the process of cutting them. Some chefs, due to lack of time, manage to cook these river inhabitants in fifteen minutes. To do this, pour oil onto a baking sheet, wash and dry the crayfish. Then they are laid out on a baking sheet and sprinkled with spices. Place the dish in a cold oven and turn on high heat for fifteen minutes. It turns out very tasty and appetizing!

Be that as it may, you need to follow a few simple rules and recommendations when preparing crayfish. Then the meat will not only be juicy, aromatic and tasty, but will also retain all its beneficial substances and microelements. Properly prepared crayfish will not only decorate the table, pleasing the eye, but will also have a beneficial effect on the human body. This is especially true in dietary and baby food. The most delicious and healthy dish cannot be found in the whole world. Bon appetit!