Posted: 3/9/2007 1:40:14 PM EDT
Does anyone have a good boiled crawfish recipe? 
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Take a pot of crawfish. Boil them. Eat them. Whaddelsedouyawant?  FWIW, somewhere along the way, you can throw potatoes, corn, peanuts, mushrooms, crab boil, garlic, onions, hot sauce, salt, and maybe some red pepper into the boiling pot. edited because I forgot the salt. |
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I used to be the second best crawfish boiler in the world, then my daddy died. Zatarains crab/shrimp/crawfish boil. 10 gallons water in a bigass pot, add one large bottle of Zatarains and three bags of Zatarains dry mix. Don't open the bags. About f lemons cut in half and squeezed into the water. A handful of garlic powder and about five big onions, whole but peeled. One box of salt. Bring to rolling boil, add crawfish, bring back to rolling boil for 10 minutes. Turn off fire and let soak for 20-30 minutes. drain and serve on newspaper. Bon Manger. |
Like these babies..............Fresh from Oregon.  2 sticks unsalted butter 1 (4.5 pound) bag Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil 5 pounds of #1 red potatoes, cleaned but not peeled 40 to 45 pounds live crawfish, cleaned 24 ears of corn, shucked and cut into halves Special Equipment: A 20-gallon crawfish pot with basket and lid, or equivalent pot used for frying turkeys A lifting hook to lower the basket into the cooking pot Propane burner 2 large ice chests with drain plug Leaving the crawfish in the broth for a longer time results in more spiciness. Sprinkling additional spice mixture on the crawfish after draining also will increase the spiciness. Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil: There are many manufacturers to choose from. This is a spice blend of salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, lemon juice, and additional spices. Typically a bag of spice mix costs about $5.00. The brand used for the show was Lousiana Fish Fry Products Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil. Instructions: Place the cooking pot with its basket on the propane burner and fill with 11 gallons of water, about halfway. This should be about the right amount of water to protect against spillage when the potatoes or crawfish are added later. Add the 2 sticks of butter and 2/3 of the bag of Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil, and the 5 pounds of red potatoes. Cover and bring to a boil. Cook potatoes for 15 minutes and, while the potatoes are cooking, rinse the crawfish. Place the bag of crawfish in 1 of the coolers, or, on the ground and hose down the bag until the water runs clear, about 5 minutes. Open the bag and pour the live crawfish into 1 of the coolers. With the drain of the cooler open, continue to rinse the crawfish for 5 minutes or until the water runs clear. After the potatoes have cooked for 15 minutes, add the corn and continue cooking the corn and the potatoes for 15 minutes more. Remove a potato and test for doneness, continuing to cook, if needed. Remove the basket and dump the corn and potatoes into 1 of the coolers. Close the cooler in order to keep the corn and potatoes warm. Pour the crawfish into the cooking basket and lower the basket into the pot. Bring to a boil and cook the crawfish for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and allow the crawfish to simmer in the liquid for an additional 15 minutes. Remove the crawfish and serve with the potatoes and corn. Traditionally, the crawfish is dumped onto a newspaper covered table (we used a door on 2 sawhorses). Additional spice mix can be sprinkled on the crawfish, if desired. Variation: Some cooks add 1 to 2 pounds of sweet onions, peeled and cut in wedges, and/or the juice from 1 dozen lemons to the cooking liquid. Variation: With proper ventilation, several pounds of shrimp could be cooked with approximately 1/2 to 1 cup of the spice mixture indoors. However, without proper ventilation the spice mixture fumes will overwhelm the typical house. |
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If you get them alive, you will want to purge them, fill a tub (kiddie pool) with fresh water a salt, keep the water going... It gets the nasty shit out and they will taste better. I will on occassion, boil up some seasoned water... let it get to a non-cooking temp and dump them in after I've boiled them and let them steep. When they float and their tails curl, they are done. The ones with straight tails were dead before you boiled them... Throw them out. Do what Pangea said. Purge them though... |
Mon frere. I'm from Louisiana too! Born and raised south of I-10 and all that! My momma and daddy lived on Grand Isle. You don't get more "Louisiana" than that chere! |
Give the man a see-gar. Same way I cook 'em. 
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Old Bay NEVER goes on crawfish...Blasphemy! Crab boil, cayenne, salt, lemons, potaotes, corn, onions, mushrooms, garlic (all whole) Purge them before you boil them (put crawfish in large tub of water and sprinkle with salt) Let them soak after they are done boiling, for 15-20 minutes (easier to peel, better taste) Throw in some smoked sausage while they are boiling. AWESOME! I really like crawfish season
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If you live in Louisiana and don't eat crawfish at least once a week this time of year, I hate you!
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Try to eat them more than that
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| How many will 30 lbs of crawfish feed? Those with experience in crabs and crawfish, which do you prefer? When we were younger we used to get bushels of crabs. Always made for a fun night and alternative to a BBQ. Might like to give it a shot again, with mudbugs this time. |
Those are about the way that we cook them. I was just wanting to see what others did to see if I wanted to add anything this year. The peanuts sound like they may be worth trying. I cant wait till tomorrow night. It will be the first time we cook them this year. How much are yall getting them for live in LA right now. The cheapest I can find here around Memphis is 3 dollars a lb.
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Dude do you put some butter or oil in your boil? Aren't they hard to peel? |
Overcooking crawfish and shrimp is the reason that they are hard to peel. I never even heard of butter or oil in boiled seafood.  eta, I heard that crawfish were going for $35 a sack in Opleousas. that's approx $1 per pound. decent. |
Damn, where was this post two weeks ago when I was down there? 
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I remember trapping and selling them for .17 per pound in the Atchafalaya Basin when I was a kid in the 60s. |
How do you eat those things? I can see peeling the tail, but what else is there and how do you go about eating it? |
+1 |
Also add some eggs !! Thats how we boil 'em here. Except for the soaking after the boiling part.......ain't got time cus we need to boil more to feed the masses !! |
Suck dem heads!!
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You're not eating crawfish if you ain't sucking the heads  Putting oil or butter in the water to make them "easy to peel" as some say, is complete bullshit. The boiling water breaks that shit down before it does anything. Proper cooking makes them easy to peel. Also, the larger crawfish get, the tougher the shells are, so you may not want the biggest ones you can find.
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I have utmost respect for a man who knows the way to boil mudbugs. Same way I do it. Cheers to you, you're a genius. SG |
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I'm from LA, yet I have stayed in the South all my life. -I neither have ever heard of putting oil or butter in the boil. -Purging them just makes them taste better IMHO, that is how I was taught and what has always been done. -I don't suck the heads. -Steeping has been mentioned, but I do it different. We usually cook sauage, corn, etc along with the crawfish. I/we do those first... Let the cool and then dump the boiled crawfish into that pot and let them steep. eta: I'm drunk, don;t fuck w/ me about my spelling or sentance strcture. Overcooking is what makes them hard to peel... You have to watch and taste seafood while cooking. |
I find it hard to believe you grew up south of I-10 and don't suck the heads. You musta been chased outta town up to TN I rinse 'em, but don't purge 'em. The shit in the vein is what gives it flavor. +1 on the sausage. We used to use Schott's Green Onion sausage. Back about 10 years ago, Kevin Naquin & the Ossun Playboys were at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa. They had a crawfish eatin contest. Five crawfish, suck the heads & eat the tails as fast as you could. One Yankee boy threw all five tails with the shells still on into the hole under his nose. Crunched it up and swallowed. We all just stared at him in silence with a WTF look on our face. When he was done, we all said, "what the hell are you doing." He says, "that's how I've always eaten them.  I won the contest. Five in 14.7 seconds. Still have the CD for first place. |
Well, it is shit, but that's no vein. Actually, we dissected them in lab today. Never eaten one, never plan to, especially after today. |
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The best shit ever is to watch a yankee or virgin actually peel the tails like shrimp. You get the first knuckle off and squeeze/suck, the meat pops. The yellowish/greenish fat give it taste (thought I give it a shake to get most of it off)... The shit make sit taste not as good IMHO. I purge them. $1an lb is smoking... We are paying $3.00lbs live or $3.50 cooked in NW-FL (where I get them cooked is DAMN good and worth the +$.50). If we throw a boil we drive to MS and get them, for much, much less... BUt, we buy over 100lbs. DYK: 3lbs or 5lbs of crawfish=1lb of meat. |
We know the "vein" is the shit tube. That shit tastes good! Your loss. |
I Hereby Proclaim; Pangea's Recipe to be one of the best...
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