Crawfish

[RU shooter]

So Ive had this craving for a crab and crawfish boil for a few weeks now ,Not an expert at them but really enjoy eating them . Unfortunately Pa. isnt a crawfish popular place and can only find them at one or two places local and both only have frozen :( Has anyone had or cooked the frozen ones ? how did they turn out?

Thanks Tim

[Lance Boyle]

I'm a yankee so take it for what it's worth. Frozen crawdads were nothing special. All the stuff at price chopper the local supermarket and only source for crawdads are precooked in spiced water and frozen, you just dunk and heat them back up. They lack the real flavor. Of all the odd places the last time I had good ones were in Canada of all places.

I was seriously contemplating building my own traps and running them for food consumption. I did some google foo searches and read up on them.

[frankenfab]

The only frozen crawfish I will eat is the packages of frozen tail meat from Wal-Mart. I would rather have that in a gumbo than shrimp.
That's really about all the Crawfish I care to eat, period. The meat is very tasty, but it is too much trouble to me. Call me lazy!

[gbrown]

Crawfish season runs from about March-early July. Still a few fresh coming off the farms in SW La. Frozen is about all that's left. I am very careful about buying frozen seafood/shrimp/crawfish. If it says "China" on it, I am not touching it. China has the most polluted water in the world. National Geographic had an article on it about 2 years ago. Convinced me! I'll spend some extra on frozen from La. I use them in etouffee and gumbo. Taste fine to me. You live close to Maryland and Virginia. The big blue crabs from Chesapeake too far from you? Love them puppies.

[frankenfab]

gbrown, you got me thinking. I checked the tails at the local store here, and they are...from China! Don't know about the Wal-Mart ones, but they are a different brand. I will definitely be taking a close look! I agree completely about the Chineese water factor.

[Stephen Cohen]

We in Australia have several similar species, the red claw is an introduced species and is classed as vermin but very nice eating. Brother and I used to get together and go after some of the native species, at night with a lantern and five pronged spear, Last time we went we got 35 crays (some with bodies over a foot long) Two catfish a bass and two death adder snakes. I can still tast those crayfish. I forgot to mention the wasp nest I accidently knocked down with spear, and yes they do sting as well at night.

[5shotbfr]

if you like bigger crawdads keep an eye on maine lobsters .. there must be some ood fishing going on up there as i have seen very reasonable prices on both live and frozen maine lobster

a semi local giant eagle grocery store had 1-2 lb live lobsters for $6.99 a lb less then 2 weeks ago

[gbrown]

gbrown, you got me thinking. I checked the tails at the local store here, and they are...from China! Don't know about the Wal-Mart ones, but they are a different brand. I will definitely be taking a close look! I agree completely about the Chineese water factor.

There are some sold by companies out of La. More expensive than the imported ones sold in all the big chains. Most of the farm raised fish we eat is from Vietnam. Swai. Fresh shrimp, speckled sea trout (Specs), red drum (red fish) and flounder are caught locally, as well as yellow (ops) and blue (channel) catfish. I'm lucky to live near the gulf.

[Defcon-One]

We in Australia have several similar species, ....Last time we went we got 35 crays (some with bodies over a foot long) Two catfish a bass and two death adder snakes. I can still tast those crayfish....

Funny, I can still taste the DEATH ADDER! And I didn't even eat them.

All we get here in Virginia is a few Rattle Snakes and a nice quiet Copperhead every now and then. Rattle snake is OK eating. Never tried a Copperhead!

I do not eat anything from China either. Lead in the toys makes me pretty sure the food is worse.

My brother ran a hotel chain once and they used Shrimp Eggrolls imported from China. They had complaints about something weird showing up in the eggrolls once too often. An inspector went to China to see them made and reported back that the problem was that they shredded the frozen shrimp box and all to make the eggrolls. Yep, cardboard and all.

The plant manager told them that they did extensive studies with and without the cardboard and it was decided that they tasted the same with the cardboard. So to save time and money they changed the process. SURPRISE! He had no explaination about the Hot Glue on the boxes. I guess that was a bonus and the reason for the complaints.

[RU shooter]

That cardboard just adds for fiber to your diet.LOL

I was looking into some of the places in La. the shipping is just to high. The only place around me that has decent prices are in the city(Pittsburgh) at a big fish market called Wholleys . I guess I'll have to dig out my body armor and strap on my side arm for the trip as theres been an average of 2 people getting shot daily in the "burg"! 80 or so mile round trip plus pay parking and good chance of dealing with "interesting people" Hey whats not to like!

[Dale in Louisiana]

It's some loooong months before we can get live crawfish again. Frozen tails are still available at all the good-sized groceries around here, but this IS Louisiana, and it is to be expected.

Here's a recipe (http://mostlycajun.com/wordpress/?p=492) for crawfish etouffee.

Here's another for a generic Cajun stew (http://mostlycajun.com/wordpress/?p=10). You can make it with ANYTHING. Toward the bottom of the second recipe is a variation that calls for RoTel tomatoes and green chilis, basically changing this from a stew to a 'sauce piquant' (pronounced "pee-kont", long 'o', almost no 't').

And don't be telling me that you've seen different recipes under the same name. These things are written down from somebody's maw-maw who never wrote anything down, and everybody has a variation.

dale in Louisiana

[TXGunNut]

Rattle snake is OK eating. Never tried a Copperhead!-Defcon-One


Pass on the copperhead, trust me on this one. OTOH if you can stand to skin it you can probably eat it.

[Longwood]

Did someone say they are hungry?
I found some more photo's

[garbear]

I have built some traps for crawfish. I had 2 stolen a couple years ago. I have one now. They don't get as big athe ones in LA. We don't have a limit. I love the mud bugs
Garber

[Edub]

In my city, there's a man made pond and when we were younger we used to catch crawdads using a little bit of liver tied to a string. We would drop the liver down between some rocks and you would quick pull it up and hope a few crawdads were attached. We would give them to our friend's mom and she would cook them. We never ate them back then. I might just have to give crawdad fishing another try.

[RU shooter]

I have built some traps for crawfish. I had 2 stolen a couple years ago. I have one now. They don't get as big athe ones in LA. We don't have a limit. I love the mud bugs
Garber I would always catch a few in the minnow trap and like yours none to big. It would take me weeks to catch enough for a decent pot full of them. I sort of satisfied my cravings last weekend by doing up a batch of crablegs and shrimp,Still cant figure out how my 10 yr old daughter could crack those legs faster than me.Within a half hour she was almost hidden by the lange pile of empty legs and shrimp shells:bigsmyl2: