Crawfish Boil

[mrtr33]

Sweet. I'll try taking some pictures, but keep in mind, I'll probably be drinking beer and smoking cigars all day in preparation. We went to get the boil seasonings, and just went with the normal Zatarain's boil. Each crawfish place here in town sells their own "blend", though.

I am stoked on adding the mushrooms. Never done that before.

Any other tips you can think of? Again, I never thought this was going to be hard, but doing something for the first time......

[bigwhiteash]

Not sure if it translates over.. but every time I cook blue crabs, or Frogmore Stew..(Sausage Potatos, shrimp, corn on the cob), it is ESSENTIAL to add a full bottle of beer to the water.

[nhcigarfan]

Always wanted to try a boil. But right now I can get live lobster at less per pound than I can get live crawfish shipped in.

[mrtr33]

Well, it is done.

Got started early with the preparations. Picked up 25 pounds around noon, and put them on ice. Fired up the pot around 5:30. Made 3 batches. We put the potatoes in first, then after the water was boiling, then we added the crawfish, corn, mushrooms, and onions. Just cooked the veggies in with the crawfish. Didn't add enough spice the first batch. Got better as I added more spices.

The card tables we were supposed to be borrowing never materialized, so, I threw together a little 4' X 4' 2X4 table, with a quarter-inch plywood top. I then covered and stapled newspaper to the top of it. I figured even if it ran through the paper, it's still a cheap-o table.

Overall it was quite nice. I'd do a few things different the next time. Only have about another month of boiling crawfish, though. Then it's shrimp season....

[bigwhiteash]

MmMMmmmmm shrimp!


My favorite vegetable!

[CAJUNBLAZE]

Yeah, when you taste the water before you add the crawfish, it really has to burn, they always get better after every batch.

What did you learn that you would do different?

Rich

[mrtr33]

Two things. I think I would have started earlier (the first batch didn't come out until about 6:30). I would also definitely add more vegetables. The corn on the cob is good, but I love the potatoes, and those mushrooms. What about adding green beans, asparagus, what else? More experimenting is necessary.

But now I'm hooked. We might try to do one more boil (to those of you not in the know, there's about a month left in the season), but I'm really interested in boiling up some shrimp.

Thanks again, Rich!

[Diesel Grinch]

Just wrong talking about them and then shrimp. We have a Crawfish fest up here every year. Stop going as the $$$ got to much for a family of 4.

I was think of how to say this as I didn't want all the comments. After eating the tail do you suck the juice?

One of these days I'm going to Louisiana. Just love the food.

DG