If they are, in fact, American invaders to your fair shores (and do, please, send me some here Down Under as I miss’em and there ain’t none to be had) then they were in America first and thus the name applies, as there has been a Louisiana (or, as my Louisiana living father says, “Louise-e-anner”) for about three hundred years. When did they escape in the UK?
On the other hand, you can call them Throatwarbler Mangroves, if I can have some to boil with Zatarans and taters and corn, thanks. These yabbies are just so not the same.
This particular species is a recent invader to the UK (escaped from farms in the 70s, I believe), but we already had crayfish here before that - probably since the last ice age and we’ve been calling them crayfish for six or seven hundred years. The American newcomer species is morpohologically quite similar to the existing native crayfish and indeed belongs to a group of animals that is (and has pretty much always been) called ‘crayfish’ here, so it makes no sense at all to call them by anything other than the familiar name.
In the unlikely event of European species of crayfish being available in Louisiana, I would fully expect everyone there to call them ‘crawfish’, because that’s what they are there.
Anyway, to get back to topic - are you guys that bother purging them doing so to to avoid the hassle of cleaning out the sand vein, or are you doing it so you can cook them whole in with all the other ingredients in a dish ready for serving, or both, or something else altogether?
Personally, I don’t care if they’ve been purged - that poop line is NOT going in any recipe I serve to my family. You probably noticed when you were peeling your crawfish, the tail is in three pieces - the tail meat, the poop line, and another strip of meat which covers the poop line. Many crawfish connoisseurs will eat the whole thing, but I just can’t bring myself to unless I’ve had a lot of beer and can temporarily forget that I’m eating crawfish shit. I peel the poop line out and keep the other two.
Another thing that you might not be aware of is that the fat (that orange colored blob o’stuff at the top of the tail when separated from the body cavity) is to be retained and included in most recipes which include a sauce or gravy. It adds a rich body and flavor to the dish that can’t be replicated with butter, lard or oil.
I noticed that, but this time I discarded it because I wasn’t quite sure what it is. In terms of crustacean anatomy, what part are we actually talking about here?
Well, fat is not on your link, much the same as fat on a chicken would not be present. The best I can do is tell you that it’s liquid consistency with hot crawfish. It congeals to a soft, orangy yellow in color with a buttery texture when cool (especially after chilling in the fridge). When you pull & twist the tail away from the body, the hunk o’fat is most times adhered to the crawfish tail, but occasionally gets stuck right inside the body cavity, which is easily scooped out with your pinky finger nail. While all of this sounds gross beyond belief, the rich fullness of flavor it adds to a crawfish dish is delicious beyond description.
Another side note - when you prepare a dish using crawfish it’s important to know that the longer crawfish tails cook, the tougher, smaller and more rubbery in texture they become. Their flavor doesn’t change, but they don’t melt in your mouth as nicely as they do when cooked just long enough. When I make an etouffee, I only add the tails in the last 10 minutes to meld their flavor with the dish. Then I remove from heat and serve immediately.
Is that 10 minutes from raw? (If so… how are you killing them? Or are you just buying the raw tails?). I boiled mine whole for 5 minutes, then plunged them into ice water to arrest further cooking - after shelling them they weren’t cooked any further - just added to the dish at the last minute to warm through - and they were really nice and tender.
No, that’s ten minutes from previously boiled (pretty good recipe on that link) for about 5 minutes.
We like our boiled crawfish very highly seasoned with a lot of spicy goodness. The degree of spices is loosely judged by how quickly your nose runs after you eat a few or how many beers or soft drinks you go through to wash them down.
Adoptamom_II - do you bother with the claws? There was some pretty worthwhile meat in the claws of the ones I caught, but they were all largish specimens (Maybe that’s because they were line-caught?)
Nah, call them Ron and Reggie. Still, it’s pretty good that you can get the good karma of helping to get rid of an invasive species AND get a good dinner out of the deal.
(Even if the good dinner in question is beginning to sound quite scary and disgusting)
When I’m eating them boiled I will eat the meat from larger claws but rarely fool with smaller ones. When I’m peeling crawfish for recipe consumption I don’t bother with them but that’s just because I’m lazy, not because the meat isn’t good - it’s actually very tasty.
(Sorry it took me so long to reply - long, long day at work)
Trouble is, I don’t think there’s anything at all that can be done to stop this species from spreading more or less everywhere - catching and eating them apparently just means more of the existing juveniles will make it to adulthood (they’re cannibalistic - Adults are a limiting factor upon the population of juveniles), but sitting and wringing our hands in despair won’t stop them either.
It’s like the Grey Squirrel thing, only a hundred times worse, because the crayfish are all hidden underwater and at any given time, some of them are microscopic in size and will evade any control. The signal crayfish is inevitably here to stay, short of ‘take off and nuke the site from orbit’ - and the little buggers would probably survive even that.
