Yesterday we had a traditional Swedish Crawfish party. I've told you about crawfish before - it's a very special thing in Sweden, and it's very seasonal. August is the time for crawfish parties - you can buy frozen crawfish all year, but that doesn't mean that you should - it's much more special to have it once a year. The traditional parties involve lots of booze, crawfish, bread, cheese and great friends - and that's exactly what we had.
Sweden import most of its crawfish from China, Spain or Turkey, where it's prepared especially for the Swedish market, with Swedish recipes. I made my own brine for the crawfish, since the one they come in is usually a bit boring and sometimes outright disgusting. It's simple - you just mix 2,5 litres of water, 100 ml of beer, 3-4 tbsp salt, 1/2 tbsp sugar and one onion, pour over a bunch of flowering dill and let it cool. Pour over one kilo of crawfish, and let it sit for 3-4 hours before serving.
Lena brought two lovely Västerbotten Cheese pies. (Recipe for my version of this, here.) In addition to this, I had made some nice dill bread (will tell you all about that another day) and two desserts; a special one for the Daring Bakers, and a frozen raspberry semifreddo that vanished in an instant!
And Martin brought amazing flavored vodka! The yellow one has oranges and grapefruit, the red one raspberries and strawberries. Very yum!
Danne, demonstrating the sucking
Everyone has their own rituals for eating, but most goes something like this - break off the claws. Suck the legs of the crawfish, break open the claws and eat the meat. Remove the tail - some will now also suck the head and the body of the crawfish, but many skip that part. Clean the tail, removing the intestine and the shell, and devour. Yes, it's a lot of work for very little food, but it's fun!
You also have to wear funny hats, and have - preferrably - serpentines and other fun party toys. Regardless of how old you are.
Recipe in Swedish:
Kräftlag
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