Night Market · Spicy Crayfish
Kouwei Xia (Hunan Spicy Crayfish)
🦞
Photo coming soon
The dish is young: it first appeared at Changsha's Nanmenkou in the 1990s, then spread across the city and the whole province.
Whole small crayfish are stir-fried hard with lots of chili, Sichuan pepper and perilla leaves, then simmered in their spicy sauce. Diners pull them apart by hand, and the small claws are sucked rather than picked.
Why it's made this way: It grew out of the snack stalls of Changsha's Jiaoyu Street and Nanmenkou, and the Hunan provincial government's culture pages describe it as a Changsha snack that spread across the province.
More from China
Roujiamo (Braised Pork in Flatbread)
Chuan'r (Grilled Meat Skewers)
Youtiao (Fried Dough Stick)
Tanghulu (Candied Hawthorn Skewers)
Malatang (Self-Serve Spicy Broth)
Beibingyang (北冰洋) Orange Soda
Part of World of Street Food — 3422 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.