crays

A big part of NZ seafood is the not-that-humble crayfish (koura in Maori), or as it's more properly called, Spiney Rock Lobster. they differ from your yanky lobsters by not having pincers on their fighting claws, and having much thicker legs (the best bit). Being a freediver I get loads of them, and I'm a bit spoiled, I've gone off them a bit I've eaten them so much. Here's a piccy of a nice one my brother in law nabbed.

People seem to get a bit silly over them (paying $70 for ones a fraction of that size etc etc) so I thought I'd post up what I do with them for others (my mate eats them raw, ripped in half with a dive knife whilst floating around when lunch seems too far away) as they do seem to be an iconic kiwi food. I have two main methods I use.

1. Boiling.
Some people get a bit iffy about dropping live animals into boiling water. Crays don't really have a very centralised nervous system, but rather a row of neural clusters... they don't experience pain as we do or really operate over the reflex level. Due to this I don't really have a problem with it, it's way better than shooting a mammal, but this is probably not the right place to discuss it. some like to chop the head in half (as if that's better) but I believe that unless you're using seawater, it harms the meat quality. Anyway; I put the cray in the freezer for maybe 45mins to get them all sleepy, and then drop them straight into the boiling water (seawater is best, brine second best) and they die pretty much instantly with the shock. small ones are done in around 6-7 minutes, and the bigger boys take around 12-14. the problem with boiling them is the legs cook much faster than the tails, so I like to err under on cooking time, quench the legs in cold water upon removal, while letting the tail cook longer under the residual heat. They look like this when done:


I prefer to eat cray cold. after they're cool, I remove the tail by severing the very thin skin that connects the tail to the carapace and pull out the tail. this then gets shelled and sliced into medallions. then if its a big cray I extract the belly meat that is up inside the body. the really keen like to eat the roe if its a female and all the guts and stuff as well. many folks blend all the 'mustard' (thats what they call it, seriously. Its yellow.) with mayo and use that as a dressing for the rest of the cray. I like the roe but not a fan of the guts. then all the legs get broken off, and the horns etc. These are my favourite bits. I fridge the whole lot for a few hours, I like cray cold not room temp. Then serve on a bed of lettuce, with lemon wedges to squeeze over and maybe some tartare sauce for those that want it. It's a delicate flavour so most don't like to do too much to it. medallions in the middle, claws and lemon scattered around. red on green, looks good but don't have a piccy for you

2. Grilled
This is my preference when I've managed to damage the cray getting it out of it's hidey hole. It's more violent than you might imagine, I've ripped big ones clean in half before . if the shell is damaged or its lost a few legs along the way, it seems to me to be better for the meat quality if it isn't boiled. I take a great big knife and rest the tip between the two horns, blade facing back, then strike down on the handle and chop, this cuts up all it's brainy bits and kills the wee beasty. then I chop the whole thing in half along the same line. according to peoples preference, I then either scoop out the mess (guts / roe) or don't, remove the intestinal tract from the tail, slather in garlic butter and put under a grill or on the grill of my barby, shell down. This tends to burn the legs though, so sometimes I'll take the legs off and do em seperate. If the cray is really big, I wrap it in tinfoil and grill for 10 mins or so extra at the start, before removing to allow for a nice browned finish. they normally take about 15 minutes under the grill. I normally just dish them up on the half shell for a group of people to pick at all together.

They're also great wrapped in tinfoil on the campfire!

Finally here is a very simple capture of a cray by my mate Paul that I took on a very cheap underwater cam. This one was lurking in the shallows and in a cave without a second exit so made it very easy for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPgBJy933W8

great post, kiwi, whether boiled or grilled, sounds like some great eating of fresh seafood.