Seafood – New Zealand Crayfish two courses in Thai-Chinese Style

 1:  Crayfish Head with Vermicelli in Clay Pot or Casserole

Ingredients:

-        Head of a 1 kg NZ Crayfish preferably live or fresh

-        2 rashers streaky bacon

-        100 grammes mung bean vermicelli (when dried)

-        1 stem Spring Onion

-        1 stem Coriander

-        1 stem Chinese Celery or a few leaves of celery plant

-        2 pieces thinly sliced ginger

-        1 big clove garlic bashed and cut into few pieces

-        2 star anise

-        1 teaspoon Szechuan Pepper

-        3 tablespoon cooking oil

Sauce:

-        1 tablespoon light soy sauce

-        ½ tablespoon dark soy sauce

-        2 tablespoon oyster sauce

-        1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (optional)

-        2 tablespoon water

Method:

1.      Rehydrate the mung bean vermicelli by soaking it with cold water for about half an hour or longer and drain them when soft. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce and set aside.

2.      Rinse the spring onion, coriander and celery. Discard the root of the spring onion and cut the white part into 2 to 3 sections, cut the green part into 4cm or 1 ½ inch. Scrape the dirt from the top of the root of the coriander, cut the leaves from the rest of the stem and keep both parts. Cut the celery stalk into 4 sections if using whole Chinese Celery stalk. If using celery leaves, no cutting is needed. Cut the streaky bacon into 4 cm or 1 ½ inch pieces. Set all of them aside.

3.      Rinse the crayfish head well and remove the gills on both sides. Cut off all the claws and bash them with the back of a cleaver or a meat tenderizer. Chop the rest of the head off into at least 4 chunks.

4.      Heat up a frying pan with 2 tablespoon of cooking oil. When hot, put the crayfish pieces including the claws to fry for about 3 to 4 minutes by turning the pieces when each surface is sealed. When done set them aside.

5.      Heat the clay pot or casserole with medium heat, put in the star anise and Szechuan pepper and stir fry them for 1 minute. Add one tablespoon of cooking oil to the clay pot/casserole, when turning hot, add the garlic, ginger and the white sections of the spring onion and stir fry for another minute. Put in the streaky bacon and stir fry them for 1 to 2 minutes.

6.      Stir in the sauce and the celery sections or celery leaves as well as the stem of the coriander. When the sauce starts to heat up, put in the crayfish pieces, claws and the juice remaining in the pan. Bring the sauce to almost boiling and turn the heat down to low and let all ingredients simmer for 10 minutes with lid on.

7.      When ready, use a pair of tongs to push the crayfish to the side of the casserole and put in the vermicelli to the bottom of the casserole. Use the tongs to stir the vermicelli and make sure they absorb the sauce/juice evenly and every strand is covered with the sauce/juice, it should take no more than 2 minutes. When this is done, use the tongs to spread all the vermicelli on top of the crayfish pieces which are pushed back to the centre of the casserole. Put half of the coriander leaves and the green sections of the spring onion in and put the lid of the casserole back on and turn off the heat. Let it stand for 7 - 8 minutes or more.

8.      Open the lid, you can (not necessary) use the tongs to put the crayfish pieces back on top of the noodles, garnish it with the rest of the coriander leaves before serving.

Hint:

-        You can cook the whole crayfish this way or add more vermicelli. If so, adjust the quantity of the sauce proportionally.

-        Unless you cook a much bigger crayfish or a lot more vermicelli, you can keep the spices the same quantity

-        You could fry the star anise and Szechuan pepper the same way but tie them in a muslin cloth when they cool down and put bouquet in when you stir in the sauce, this you could avoid having the Szechuan pepper among the vermicelli when the dish is served.

-        Spread the vermicelli on of the crayfish and put the lid on with the heat turn off is to cook the noodles with the residual heat.  This make sure the noodles is cooked through but not getting soggy or too salty.

-        The traditional way is to use a piece of pork fat, but I prefer rashes of bacon which give another dimension with their smoky flavour.

-        In Thai cooking, coriander root (head of the stalk) is very often used as an important spice. Just scrape off the brown or soil. Same as ginger skin/peel for Chinese, older generation Chinese use the ginger with the skin/peel.

2:  Crayfish with Thai Yellow Curry

Ingredients:

-        Tail of a 1 kg NZ Crayfish preferably live or fresh

-        1 stem Spring Onion

-        Coriander to garnish

-        2 - 3 tablespoon cooking oil

Sauce:

-        1 teaspoon Thai yellow curry paste

-        4 teaspoon mild Chinese/Thai chilli oil

-        1 teaspoon fish sauce

-        ½ teaspoon caster sugar

-        1 duck egg (could be replaced by chicken egg)

-        4 tablespoon water

Method:

1.      Cut the crayfish into half lengthwise and discard the intestine. Rinse and pat dry the crayfish.

2.      Brush a small amount of cooking oil onto a frying pan and heat it up. When the pan is hot, put the 2 pieces of crayfish in with meat side down. Seared them for 1 – 2 minutes then lower down the heat to medium.

3.      Continue to fry the crayfish till they shrink but not fully cooked. Turn the crayfish and fry the shell side of the crayfish till the shell changed to orange colour and the meat is able to be pulled out from the shell. At this stage, the crayfish will be about 80% cooked. Turn the heat off and let the crayfish cool down.

4.      While waiting for the crayfish to cool down, cut the spring onion into 4cm or 1 ½ inch. Mix well the curry paste, 2 tablespoon chilli oil, fish sauce and sugar. Beat the duck egg and add it into the sauce with 4 tablespoon of water. Mixed them well and aside.

5.      When the crayfish is cool to touch, pull the meat out of the shell and cut each half of the crayfish meat into bite size pieces. Put the 2 half shells on a serving plate and set aside.

6.      Heat up a frying pan with the remaining cooking oil, when hot, put white sections of the spring onion and the crayfish pieces to sautéed together. When the meat is fully cooked, stir in the green sections of the spring onion and pour in the curry sauce and stir it briskly for a few seconds till the egg is started to set.

7.      Fill the empty half shells with the crayfish meat, put the curry sauce on top, drizzle the remaining 2 teaspoon of chilli oil op top and garnish with coriander leaves before serving.

Hint:

-        You can grill the crayfish tail or cook them in broth or water, if you cook them broth or water, cook it in whole and cut them after cooked.

-        The duck egg could be replaced by chicken egg, but the texture will not be as light. Chicken egg is smaller than duck egg, you may need to reduce the water added to the sauce.

-        Unless you can eat really hot, mild Chinese/Thai chilli oil or sesame chilli oil is recommended, you could put more than 4 teaspoon.

-        Do not overcook the sauce, stir it briskly till it just started to set.

-        The sauce goes very well with plain steam rice. Enjoy!