It's Crayfish season!

Feeling a bit adventurous today, we walked by the aisles in Auchan supermarket this afternoon and passed by a bucketload of chinese crayfish on the fish section - apparently in season now. I have never cooked them before but their appearance is quite intriguing, surely challenging to cook. I wondered if the green curry sauce which I had in Auckland served with green lipped mussels can do. I decided to buy a handful to try. Upon a closer look, I noticed that these things didn't swim in water, instead they sort of walked on one another's back, had really really dark shells with tiny scorpion-like claws. Eeeekks!!! That put me off for a moment.....

All the 15 crawlers arrived safely at home. Mike helped to clean their guts simply by pulling their middle tail off - alive. Oef! Please, enough of this 'cruelty' - just dump them in the boiling water, will ya? After 5 minutes of steaming they looked almost edible enough ......

Freshly steamed chinese crayfish

Jiangsu province, where we live now, is quite famous for crayfish - which are also known as 'mini lobster' because of they're only as big as a thumb, with 3/4 of its length is the head. When in season, all local restaurants served them as a special offer - we just had the Hairy Crab season in last winter. Locals usually cooked them in light chili curry sauce.

It turned out that the green curry of our choice was a perfect one. I added a dash of coconut milk for the taste and sprinkled thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves. It tasted and smelled beautiful.

View Recipe Here