First you have to clean the crabs:
Place the crab face down on your board, make a cut in back of the eyes, and
cut out the face. Lift up on the "wings", and scoop out the lungs and sand-
bag. This is important because these can make you ill. Turn the crab on it's
back and remove the small hard apron at the lower portion of the shell with a
small knife.
Roll the crabs in fine bread crumbs with a little red pepper and drop into a skillet
containing 375F veg. oil, (about 3/4" deep) and fry about 4 min. each side.
Drain and serve.
Crawdads (Use the term Crawfish when you find youself south of the Ohio
River, or folks will look at you funny.)
In a 2 gal. stockpot place:
1 T Red pepper, yes tablespoon.
1/2 T Black pepper
2 Lemons, thinly sliced
2 Garlic heads, (not cloves) sliced in half vertically
Add water to fill 2/3 of the way to the top, and bring to a rolling boil. Add:
artichokes
Boil around eight minutes. Add crawfish, bring back to a boil, and continue
another five or six minutes. Add corn on the cobb, and boil another three minutes. Scoop out and serve piping hot. Crawfish are not serverd with any sauce. Just break 'em in half, squeeze the tail out of the shell, and enjoy.
As far where to get them is concerned: I've seen crawfish sold frozen in it's
own fat (tail meat only - no shell). But I've never seen it far north of the Ohio River. Go to a library and get the New Orleans yellow pages, and look under
Seafood. Many retailers there are happy to ship via FedEx or UPS. If it's OK
with Betsy, I'll post the number of the folks down there who usually help me
out with this kind of stuff sometime after Tuesday (It's at the office).