Charcoal-Grilled Crayfish
Charcoal-Grilled Crayfish: Ingredients and Preparation
Ingredients
crayfish
30 (about 40 g each)
sweet and sour pickled garlic
2500 g
minced ginger and minced garlic (each)
1000 g
dried red chili
500 g
red Sichuan peppercorns
500 g
green Sichuan peppercorns
500 g
doubanjiang (broad bean chili paste)
6500 g
cloves
200 g
cinnamon bark
300 g
licorice root
100 g
dried red bird's eye chili
250 g
sand ginger (Kaempferia)
500 g
tsaoko (black cardamom)
500 g
cardamom
500 g
astragalus root
500 g
monk fruit
500 g
cumin powder
1500 g
curry powder
1250 g
sand ginger powder
1000 g
rock sugar
250 g
rice wine
650 g
salad oil
10500 g
oil (equal weight to crayfish)
10500 g
water with 250 g base sauce
5500 g
milk essence and salt to taste (about 25 g)
100 g
Instructions
1
Step 1
Clean the crayfish, make a cut along the underside of the abdomen, snip off the antennae and the small claws, then deep-fry in oil heated to 50% hot until the shells turn red, about 1 minute.
2
Step 2
Bring the spice brine to a rolling boil, stir in the milk essence to combine, add the crayfish, and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Then remove from the heat and let soak for 20 minutes so the crayfish absorb the flavor.
3
Step 3
Brush a layer of butter over the surface of the soaked crayfish and arrange them neatly on a baking tray. Place in an oven preheated to about 220°C and bake for 10 minutes. Brush with butter again and bake for another 10 minutes. During the second bake, if the milky aroma of the crayfish does not seem rich enough, soak the crayfish in the hot spice brine for another 5 minutes (since the brine contains milk essence, an extra soak deepens the milky flavor), then remove, brush with another layer of butter, and bake for 10 more minutes.
4
Step 4
When serving, accompany the crayfish with a small dish of spicy brine (either the filtered crayfish brine itself or a homemade chili-oil spicy sauce).
5
Step 5
Before charcoal grilling, the crayfish must be well flavored, so the ratio of the spice brine used to cook the crayfish is critical. In the spice brine given below, in addition to raw garlic, sugar-pickled garlic is also added when stir-frying the base, giving a unique garlic aroma. To make the shells of the brined crayfish redder and glossier, in addition to the commonly used sand ginger powder, yellow curry powder is also added.
6
Step 6
The key to bringing out a milky aroma in the crayfish is using milk essence (milk essence is a concentrated dairy product, a flavoring used specifically for bread making, with a richer milky fragrance than milk powder). Crayfish come in green-shell and red-shell varieties; the green-shell crayfish has a thinner shell than the red-shell type, is smaller in size, but has plumper meat and more roe, making it more suitable for charcoal grilling.
