This is how a Mantis Prawn (Mantis Shrimp, Squilla Mantis) looks like – How to clean and remove shell (carapace) for cooking.

I posted a Deep Fried Mantis Prawn dish earlier and some of my readers have not seen a live mantis prawn before, so I am publishing the picture here. There are around 400 species of mantis shrimps in the world and the most common ones you see is Squilla Mantis or in Cantonese ‘Lai Lui Har’(Hokkien, Heh Kor). Actually mantis shrimps do not belong to the Shrimps family. It got its’ name from the mantis like look. At a glance, it sure resembles an extra terrestrial creature with hard armored like carapace. Mantis prawns live in rock cavities or burrowing themselves in the seabed. During low tides you can actually see their burrows and an easy way to spot them is by looking for a lump of mud on top of it. As mentioned in my post, Deep Fried Mantis Prawn, I used to dig for mantis prawns at the seaside when I was a kid. It was fun catching and cooking this nice tasty shrimps. Some mantis prawns can grow to around 1 foot in length and they are aggressive creature. They will chase their prey and literally tear them apart with their powerful claws before eating it! I have got a nasty bite from a mantis prawn while catching it and the claw made a hole through the flesh between my thumb and index fingers. It managed to escape and left the claw still attached to my hand! I have to get my friend to prise open the claw from my hand! LOL! The side of the carapace has sharp thorns, so you must be careful when removing the shell. If you are cooking the whole shrimps, it is advisable to cut away these sharp thorns. To separate the thorns from the flesh, cut along the side carapace of the shrimps around the whole shrimp. Then start from the head, peel out the carapace. Then remove the flesh slowly so that you will not break it. Mantis shrimps taste good if they are steamed whole with ginger and wine, fried kung po style or just deep fried in flour.

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