Crayfish Recipes
How To: Cook Crayfish
This is our indicative guide to cooking crayfish. If you plan to finish your fish under the grill, or on the BBQ, we’d recommend you cook them a little less than the times below so they’re underdone.
Use: fresh or frozen crayfish.
If your crayfish are alive, pop them into fresh water, or into the freezer, for forty minutes to an hour to send them to sleep.
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Concession Karitane (Small) Crayfish
From Fresh
- Bring salted water to the boil in a pot, then add your crayfish.
- Cook fish for 3-5 minutes depending on size, until the shell is bright orange if you want it well cooked.
- Remove from the water and plunge into an ice slurry or ice cold water to stop the cooking process.
From Frozen
- Defrost your crayfish slowly in the fridge if you have time and then place in boiling salted water, and cook as above. Small fish will defrost overnight, large fish may take longer.
- If you don’t have time to defrost your fish you can cook it from frozen. Place your frozen fish in a pot of cold salted water.
- Turn the heat on and slowly bring it up to a gentle boil, and cook until 75 degrees celsius when probed with a thermometer in the thickest part of the fish.
- Remove from the water and plunge into an ice slurry or ice cold water to stop the cooking process.
National (Larger) Crayfish
From Fresh
- Bring salted water to the boil in a pot, then add your crayfish.
- Cook fish for 5-8 minutes depending on size, until the shell is bright orange if you want it well cooked.
- Remove from the water and plunge into an ice slurry or ice cold water to stop the cooking process.
From Frozen
- Defrost your crayfish slowly in the fridge if you have time and then place in boiling salted water, as above. Small fish will defrost overnight, large fish may take longer.
- If you don’t have time to defrost your fish you can cook it from frozen. Place your frozen fish in a pot of cold salted water.
- Turn the heat on and slowly bring it up to a gentle boil, and cook until 75 degrees celsius when probed with a thermometer in the thickest part of the fish.
- Remove from the water and plunge into an ice slurry or ice cold water to stop the cooking process.
