In the Philippines mole crickets are seasonal and many people check with their favorite restaurant first to make sure they are available before deciding to eat there. Option Add coconut milk to thicken the sauce. Numb them, remove the scratchy parts, then saute in garlic and onions with soy sauce, vinegar and hot pepper.

If you like a scratchy texture, leave the wings, legs and claws on.Ī second common recipe takes slightly different approach. They’re crispy on the outside, moist in the middle.

Drain, remove legs, wings, claws et cetera, then saute the bodies in oil, chopped onion and tomatoes until they are chocolate brown. To make the classic dish of Kamaro boil them in vinegar and garlic. However oil for frying and soy sauce for flavor seems to be the most common restaurant way of serving them. Some like to flavor them with soy sauce and vinegar. Not to be outdone there is also oil, garlic, onions and vinegar. Next comes cooking them in oil with garlic. Once cooked you can eat them totally but most folks prefer to take off claws, legs and wings. Some like to stir-fry them without any oil or flavoring, preferring a taste they give off that way, slightly like liver. In the Philippines where they are called Kamaro and are a sought- after delicacy, cooking styles range greatly, though there are a couple of themes. Rinse, pat dry, now you are ready to cook. Put the bucket in the frig to cool them off. They don’t break the skin, it really doesn’t hurt, but it is a distraction. Mole crickets are also lousy jumpers and flyers so easy to catch that way as well. They also like damp spoil and bright lights at night, look around patios and sidewalks. You can stomp your feet to scare them out of their burrows and/or dig a little. I’ve always found mole crickets just by rummage around infected areas of a lawn. If we didn’t have lawns - the second largest crop in America after corn - mole crickets wouldn’t mean much except perhaps pass the hot sauce. Others, perhaps with some green rehabilitation in mind, say they eat some grubs and just ain’t all that bad. Some say it is just a vegetarian and death on just grass. There is a bit of debate about the mole cricket. The imports - Scapteriscus boellii and Scateriscus vicinus - hopped ship from South America about a century ago and landed in Brunswick, Georgia, the epicenter of mole cricket-dom. Locally there are three mole crickets, an inoffensive native and two imports. Those who like decapitated grass spend hundreds - got that? - hundred of millions of dollars to get rid of mole crickets from their lawn. You can either look at that as a blight upon your personal putting green, or, where dinner awaits.Īs many of my readers know I am not a fan of lawns. Designed like a shrew for digging, they live most of their lives in your lawn eating roots and killing grass. More crickets have a face only mothers could live.