“They’re called mudbugs!”
“They’re crawfish by the way.”
Agh sheesh people. Then a fellow North Texan chimed in with: “Well, excuuuuuse me! They’re called ‘crawdads’ here in North Texas.”
Thank you sir, I feel much better now being reaffirmed. (I think this is where I type in “lol” or something.)
So, I followed the directions given by @gonendunit on how to cook the crawdads and they turned out spectacular. I then drew inspiration from a recipe found online to make what is called “Crawfish Monica” which I will promptly be renaming “Crawdad Monica” or “Crawdad Screwed Up Texan.” However, since preparing crawdads are a little involved I am breaking the recipe into two parts: 1.) How to Prepare the Crawdads, and 2.) Crawdad Monica.
How to Prepare Crawdads
First, if your crawdads are alive like mine were, you will need to purge them. I’ve heard this term in the past, but it wasn’t until this Twitter direct message that I learned what exactly purging means. Basically, you put the crawdads into a large bowl or bucket filled with water.
Then you add an ample amount of salt to the water and crawdads.
And then the crawdads basically puke and excrete. That is what purging means.
Grossed out yet? If not, then take the crawdads outside and rinse them off after you’ve purged them. You need to make sure you get all the dirt and sand off of them. You can do this without touching them by using a waterhose. Discard any dead crawdads.
Next, bring a large pot of water to a hard, rolling boil. Add your Cajun/Creole seasonings. If you cant do it yourself, like me, have your husband or wife pour the live crawdads all at once into the pot of boiling water. Cover.
Can you tell my son is happy to be cooking crawdads? I think he is going to kill me for this photograph when he gets older.
Boil exactly seven minutes. Then take out and place on ice for exactly five minutes. Times need to be exact “or the meat won’t pop out of tail when you pinch bottom of tail.”
Recipe Crawdad Monica coming soon. I used two pounds of uncooked crawdads.
