August Crayfish Party

In Sweden August is the time for Crayfish parties. To a foreigner a completely insane event where Swed's eat huge amount of small crustaceans cooked in dill, beer and water, not to talk about the excessive snaps drinking. Crayfish fishing is something very special to alot of Swed's. It use to be something you were only aloud to do after the first Wednesday every August. The traditional way of fishing Crayfish is to row out onto a lake or river in late evening, carefully lower the traps into the water and let them rest at the bottom of the lake a few meters from land. Early next morning you row out again to empty your traps and hopefully they are full of brown "mini lobsters". Normally the crayfish are kept in large buckets of fresh water for 24h after pulling them up to get rid of any mud. It is important to keep the crayfish alive, just like mussels you don't eat ones that have did before cooking. Now we come to the tricky part, the cooking and getting the right balance of flavors. I think nearly every family have there own recipe for the cooking liquid. This is Swedish chef Per Mobergs recipe.

60 crayfish
5 liter of water
30 cl beer
5 tsp caster sugar
200 g rock salt
20 dill flowers

Boil water, beer, sugar, salt and dill.
When the liquid has boiled for 5 mins add 10 crayfish at the time make sure that water is boiling again before you put the next 10 in. This will ensure that the crayfish will die straight away. Once all 60 crayfish are in and the water is boiling again keep it boiling for 5 more mins. Take the pan off the heat and cool it down quickly. Leave the crayfish in the pan together with the liquid over night.

1 comment:

  1. I've attended Crawfish Boils in Louisiana many times and even East Texas...but oh my. This would be the way to really do it right. As children, we would help people fish for crawfish in creeks in Central Kentucky and I have always loved the story as to how the Crawfish came to Louisiana...they were lobsters that followed the Arcadians from Canada to Louisiana but became very small after that long trip!

    So, how did Crawfish come to be here? Thank you for sharing this!

    Jenn

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