Crayfish Cocktail

Ingredients

• 1.12 crayfish tails, frozen
• 2.15 millilitre white vinegar, added to cooking water
• 3.250 millilitre mayonnaise, homemade preferred
• 4.160 millilitre tomato sauce (ketchup)
• 5.160 millilitre cream, lightly whipped
• 6.Tabasco sauce, a dash
• 7.5 millilitre Worcestershire sauce

Method

1. 1.Plunge the frozen crayfish tails into boiling water to which you have added the vinegar. Cook for 15 minutes. The vinegar helps to keep the flesh white.
2. 2.Cool the tails and then remove the meat. The best way to do this is with a kitchen scissors. Cut up both sides of the underneath of the shell. You will be left with a whole shell and a whole piece of meat.
3. 3.Dice the crayfish meat into fairly large pieces.
4. 4.Blend the mayonnaise, the tomato sauce, the tobasco and the Worcestershire sauce.
5. 5.Fold into the lightly whipped cream.
6. 6.Gently fold in the crayfish pieces.
7. 7.Serve very cold, either in the cleaned shells or in seafood glasses, lined with shredded lettuce.

Notes

• Alternate sauce: blend 1 cup sweet cream, 1 cup mayonnaise, ¼ cup tomato sauce, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon Tabasco sauce (2.5 ml). Add the diced crayfish. Garnish with a sprinkling of paprika and sliced hard boiled egg.
• The alternate sauce also makes a very good salad dressing and is a tasty sauce for fried fish.
• In South Africa, 'crayfish' refers to rock lobster (spiny lobster), not freshwater crayfish.