Crawfish Baked in a Salt Crust

Name: Crawfish Baked in a Salt Crust
Yield: Serves 2
Cuisine: Australia
Ingredients: few sprigs of fresh herbs (for example, oregano, basil, marjoram, parsley or thyme), chopped; 1 clove of garlic, crushed; 2 × 450 g (1 lb) crawfish (otherwise known as spiny lobster and, confusingly, crayfish, but these are not the same as the delicate freshwater crayfish); 1 kg (2¼ lb) rock salt; selection of fresh vegetables, cut into julienne strips (for example, carrots, peppers, leeks, courgettes, parsnips); egg noodles, cooked; 1 cm (½ pint) piece of fresh root ginger, finely grated; 4–5 tablespoons light soy sauce

Preparation info

Serves
2

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Floyd on Oz

By Keith Floyd

Published 1991

About

Most of the dishes we had in Tasmania were pretty alfresco affairs, uncomplicated and delicious. But I thought it would be a good idea to include a rather sophisticated dish cooked by a pal of mine, John T. Bailey, who is Head Chef at the Sheraton in Hobart.

Ingredients

2 × 450 g (1 lb) crawfish (otherwise known as spiny lobster and, confusingly, crayfish, but these are not the same as the delicate freshwater crayfish)

Oceania
Australia
Hobart
Fish course
Pescatarian

Method

First, kill your crawfish. Better still, get someone to do it for you. The most humane way to do it yourself is to boil up about 4 litres (8 pints) water. Keep it boiling fiercely and plunge in the crawfish, one at a time, for about 20 seconds.

Transfer the crawfish to a large roasting pan and