Posted: 1/25/2016 4:39:13 PM EDT
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I'm looking for suppliers of live crawfish in the northwest houston area. It's still really early in the season, but I've started to dream about crawfish. I caught a wiff of some crawfish boiling outside HEB and I about chewed my arm off. I'm a junky, help me get my fix.
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Hmmm.... I'll file this one away in my mental Rolex. Quoted:
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Blue Water off 1960 (Champions Location) sells to the public. Also, the best crawfish I've eaten while out. Hmmm.... I'll file this one away in my mental Rolex. Do you have to shake your head daily to keep it wound up ? :) |
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Do you have to shake your head daily to keep it wound up ? :) Quoted:
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Blue Water off 1960 (Champions Location) sells to the public. Also, the best crawfish I've eaten while out. Hmmm.... I'll file this one away in my mental Rolex. Do you have to shake your head daily to keep it wound up ? :) Damn autocorrect. I probably do need a new battery for the noggin though. |
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I've never done a boil, but i'd like to give it a shot this year. Any go-to methods and recipes to share? I'm pretty much in the same boat, hence my need for suppliers. 
I've help with several buddies backyard boils, but I'm basically starting from scratch in the recipe department. I'm planning on getting about 50 pounds, drive up to College station to a buddies for a good weekend of beer and bugs in late February or early March. I also promised my gf's parents I would bring some up to dallas at some point. Her dad was raised near Beaumont, and is part coon-ass, so I will probably just sit back and drink beer while he schools me. |
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I'm pretty much in the same boat, hence my need for suppliers.
I've help with several buddies backyard boils, but I'm basically starting from scratch in the recipe department. I'm planning on getting about 50 pounds, drive up to College station to a buddies for a good weekend of beer and bugs in late February or early March. I also promised my gf's parents I would bring some up to dallas at some point. Her dad was raised near Beaumont, and is part coon-ass, so I will probably just sit back and drink beer while he schools me. Quoted:
Quoted:
I've never done a boil, but i'd like to give it a shot this year. Any go-to methods and recipes to share? I'm pretty much in the same boat, hence my need for suppliers.
I've help with several buddies backyard boils, but I'm basically starting from scratch in the recipe department. I'm planning on getting about 50 pounds, drive up to College station to a buddies for a good weekend of beer and bugs in late February or early March. I also promised my gf's parents I would bring some up to dallas at some point. Her dad was raised near Beaumont, and is part coon-ass, so I will probably just sit back and drink beer while he schools me. Don't forget the corn and potatoes |
| HEB usually has some great live crawfish. As to boils of done them back to back years. Best stuff is the zatarains liquid with the addition to the powdered. Boil with corn and potatoes. Make sure you keep some of the dry season to put on the top. Turns out awesome. They are really easy to make. He Zatarains has instructions on the bottle. |
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There are a number of suppliers down here on 59 south (Wharton) where you can get local bugs by the truck load. I get mine from a local guy that only sells to resturants, but he is a family friend. I get them off the sorting table, fresh from the purge pond.
Anyhow, cooking.... Prior to cooking make sure you have a place to put the live bugs and a place to put the cooked bugs. Get bags of ice. I like 10lb bags so I can put 1/2 the bag in at a time. How spicy do you want it? Remove or add as you like. Pot big enough to cook to your desire (I am not sure how big mine is, but I can cook about 20lbs at a time) Season water. I like fish fry, and slap yo mama in my water. Along with lemons and Serrano peppers. But you can season how you want. Boil said water and put first batch in. Boil 8 min (time may very on the size of your pot) When 8min is up, dump 4-5lbs of ice in the boil pot and close the lid. Now listen.... You will hear the ice steam off and you will hear a sucking sound. When the sucking sound no longer occurs, they are done. (Last part sounds strange, but doing it this way means you don't have to salt them post boil. It helps them suck in all the spicy water) Cook other stuff as desired between crawfish batches. I usually cook taters, corn, sausage, whole mushrooms (they are like little nuke bombs), while garlic, fresh green beans, etc. you can pretty much cook anything to go with it. At some point after 2-3 batches you will probably want to re-spice the water. |
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There are a number of suppliers down here on 59 south (Wharton) where you can get local bugs by the truck load. I get mine from a local guy that only sells to resturants, but he is a family friend. I get them off the sorting table, fresh from the purge pond. Anyhow, cooking.... Prior to cooking make sure you have a place to put the live bugs and a place to put the cooked bugs. Get bags of ice. I like 10lb bags so I can put 1/2 the bag in at a time. How spicy do you want it? Remove or add as you like. Pot big enough to cook to your desire (I am not sure how big mine is, but I can cook about 20lbs at a time) Season water. I like fish fry, and slap yo mama in my water. Along with lemons and Serrano peppers. But you can season how you want. Boil said water and put first batch in. Boil 8 min (time may very on the size of your pot) When 8min is up, dump 4-5lbs of ice in the boil pot and close the lid. Now listen.... You will hear the ice steam off and you will hear a sucking sound. When the sucking sound no longer occurs, they are done. (Last part sounds strange, but doing it this way means you don't have to salt them post boil. It helps them suck in all the spicy water) Cook other stuff as desired between crawfish batches. I usually cook taters, corn, sausage, whole mushrooms (they are like little nuke bombs), while garlic, fresh green beans, etc. you can pretty much cook anything to go with it. At some point after 2-3 batches you will probably want to re-spice the water. Hot damn! Thanks for the tips. I like them spicy, so I'll play around with the ice idea. I'll have to figure out how to do two batches for different spice levels as the little woman is a pansy when it comes to spicy food, but she loves cajun... don't ask me how that works. I can't figure it out myself. Edit: you aren't talking about Pinchers are you? I drove by there today actually. I would buy from them, but it would be a 3 hour round trip to bring them back, and thats a bit far me for a small weekend type boil. |
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Hot damn! Thanks for the tips. I like them spicy, so I'll play around with the ice idea. I'll have to figure out how to do two batches for different spice levels as the little woman is a pansy when it comes to spicy food, but she loves cajun... don't ask me how that works. I can't figure it out myself. Edit: you aren't talking about Pinchers are you? I drove by there today actually. I would buy from them, but it would be a 3 hour round trip to bring them back, and thats a bit far me for a small weekend type boil. Quoted:
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There are a number of suppliers down here on 59 south (Wharton) where you can get local bugs by the truck load. I get mine from a local guy that only sells to resturants, but he is a family friend. I get them off the sorting table, fresh from the purge pond. Anyhow, cooking.... Prior to cooking make sure you have a place to put the live bugs and a place to put the cooked bugs. Get bags of ice. I like 10lb bags so I can put 1/2 the bag in at a time. How spicy do you want it? Remove or add as you like. Pot big enough to cook to your desire (I am not sure how big mine is, but I can cook about 20lbs at a time) Season water. I like fish fry, and slap yo mama in my water. Along with lemons and Serrano peppers. But you can season how you want. Boil said water and put first batch in. Boil 8 min (time may very on the size of your pot) When 8min is up, dump 4-5lbs of ice in the boil pot and close the lid. Now listen.... You will hear the ice steam off and you will hear a sucking sound. When the sucking sound no longer occurs, they are done. (Last part sounds strange, but doing it this way means you don't have to salt them post boil. It helps them suck in all the spicy water) Cook other stuff as desired between crawfish batches. I usually cook taters, corn, sausage, whole mushrooms (they are like little nuke bombs), while garlic, fresh green beans, etc. you can pretty much cook anything to go with it. At some point after 2-3 batches you will probably want to re-spice the water. Hot damn! Thanks for the tips. I like them spicy, so I'll play around with the ice idea. I'll have to figure out how to do two batches for different spice levels as the little woman is a pansy when it comes to spicy food, but she loves cajun... don't ask me how that works. I can't figure it out myself. Edit: you aren't talking about Pinchers are you? I drove by there today actually. I would buy from them, but it would be a 3 hour round trip to bring them back, and thats a bit far me for a small weekend type boil. Place I get mine from is family of pinchers, but not the actual store. There is a guy on the web that makes runs to east Texas and la to get bugs and has meeting spots around town. I will try to get the name. There is also Spankys crawfish on 723 and 359. They sell live from la too. |
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Perfect. I'm only a few minutes from Magnolia. Quoted:
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Go Crawfish in Magnolia. Biggest I've found so far. Great guy too. He drives them in from Louisiana every week. Perfect. I'm only a few minutes from Magnolia. Then just tell me where to go for your boil! |
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All the above mentioned suppliers are good.
Important part is prepping and cooking it right. Make sure you at least have a large enough igloo or basin to dump the live crawfish in to wash and get most of the dirt/mud off. I normally do a sack of 35# at a tiime, so it fits in large igloo perfect to rinse and clean...so when i get one batch cooking, I'm cleaning the next bag. Fill it with water to submerge the things, shake it a bit and open the drain x 3 or however many times to get it as clean as you want. I then fill the strainer bucket close to top with cleaned bugs (container with lots of holes in it, has a handle to carry, that came as a set and fits perfect inside the crawfish boil pot I have...normally can cook 12-15# at a time). Boil water: you can season it how you like...some above recommendations with using Zatarrain's crab/crawfish boil and seasoning is good. I have my own concoction with half water, half pineapple juice, seasonings, and a few large splats of butter. Boiling: Base on your pot size ( I have a very large one special for bugs, 3x larger than the typical turkey frying pot you see) best to fill it with about 1/2 or slightly more with boil water. When I put the strainer bucket in, the boil water gets displaced and rises, enough to barely submerge the bugs. You have to get the boil to a rolling rage before putting the bugs in, as the bugs will cool the boil and drop the temp quick...so only cook in batches. *Don't OVERCOOK as it's very easy to do and dries out the bugs. Giving a time as to how long to cook is difficult, because of variables (ie how big is your pot, how hot you got the boil going, how much bugs you dumped in,etc) so based on how fast your pot comes back to a rolling boil, cooking it any longer than 8-10 minutes after coming back to a boil is too long and will dry it out. With my set up and method, water comes back to boil in about 3 minutes and I let it boil for 3 minutes and turn the burner off. The ice method after cooking is great to introduce liquids (flavor) into the bugs, but personally I don't like to eat warm/cold bugs....so I turn the burner off, take the lid off and let the bugs sit for couple minutes. Then pull the strainer out, dump the bugs out into a steel vat where I pour on my garlic butter seasoning sauce and shake it up like hot wings. Comes out good and juicy  The Zatarains crawfish/crab boil and dry seasoning is good too and common practice, I'm just tired of eating it that way.
ETA: have you tried any of the crawfish joints around houston? There's quite a few Asian/Vietnamese Crawfish places that serves cajun, but with a twist and it's either going to convert how you've used to eat crawfish, or not. Stay away from LA Crawfish...Crawfish Cafe in the Hong Kong mall on Bellaire...also Crawfish and Noodles on Bellaire are good to try... |
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I followed this set of directions with great success this past year.
Had a good friend and aficionado of crawdad boils claim that mine was the best out of five he went to last spring. Smoker King Crawdad Instructions I did 60 lbs in two separate batches. I did lots of research before picking this one. One of the main common things is to cool it down with ice and let it sit for 20 min before pulling any out. They will soak up the flavor this way. I have to say that it worked. |
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All the above mentioned suppliers are good. Important part is prepping and cooking it right. Make sure you at least have a large enough igloo or basin to dump the live crawfish in to wash and get most of the dirt/mud off. I normally do a sack of 35# at a tiime, so it fits in large igloo perfect to rinse and clean...so when i get one batch cooking, I'm cleaning the next bag. Fill it with water to submerge the things, shake it a bit and open the drain x 3 or however many times to get it as clean as you want. I then fill the strainer bucket close to top with cleaned bugs (container with lots of holes in it, has a handle to carry, that came as a set and fits perfect inside the crawfish boil pot I have...normally can cook 12-15# at a time). Boil water: you can season it how you like...some above recommendations with using Zatarrain's crab/crawfish boil and seasoning is good. I have my own concoction with half water, half pineapple juice, seasonings, and a few large splats of butter. Boiling: Base on your pot size ( I have a very large one special for bugs, 3x larger than the typical turkey frying pot you see) best to fill it with about 1/2 or slightly more with boil water. When I put the strainer bucket in, the boil water gets displaced and rises, enough to barely submerge the bugs. You have to get the boil to a rolling rage before putting the bugs in, as the bugs will cool the boil and drop the temp quick...so only cook in batches. *Don't OVERCOOK as it's very easy to do and dries out the bugs. Giving a time as to how long to cook is difficult, because of variables (ie how big is your pot, how hot you got the boil going, how much bugs you dumped in,etc) so based on how fast your pot comes back to a rolling boil, cooking it any longer than 8-10 minutes after coming back to a boil is too long and will dry it out. With my set up and method, water comes back to boil in about 3 minutes and I let it boil for 3 minutes and turn the burner off. The ice method after cooking is great to introduce liquids (flavor) into the bugs, but personally I don't like to eat warm/cold bugs....so I turn the burner off, take the lid off and let the bugs sit for couple minutes. Then pull the strainer out, dump the bugs out into a steel vat where I pour on my garlic butter seasoning sauce and shake it up like hot wings. Comes out good and juicy The Zatarains crawfish/crab boil and dry seasoning is good too and common practice, I'm just tired of eating it that way.
ETA: have you tried any of the crawfish joints around houston? There's quite a few Asian/Vietnamese Crawfish places that serves cajun, but with a twist and it's either going to convert how you've used to eat crawfish, or not. Stay away from LA Crawfish...Crawfish Cafe in the Hong Kong mall on Bellaire...also Crawfish and Noodles on Bellaire are good to try... Only place in Houston I ever ate boiled crawfish was Floyd's, can't remember the location but it was the west side of downtown, a bit inside 610. |
| This is the place everybody at work talks about. Louisiana Crawfish Company |
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I use a 60qt pot with a double jet burner. 35lbs fits perfectly in a 60 qt.
Fill with water, a little less than 3/4 full. Add lemons cut in half, whole garlic cloves with the tops cut, onions cut in half, and crab boil. I normally mix a few crab boil mixtures, but I use a large bag of swamp dust, a bottle of liquid crab boil, and probably about half a large bucket of zataran's crab boil. I like it hot. Like others have said, prepping the crawfish is key. Wash them until the water you are pouring out is basically clean. If it still has mud on the bugs, your water is done, and you will have to redo all the crab boil mixture. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Drop them in and keep the burner on high. I normally bring the water to a rolling boil again and only boil them for about 2 minutes or so. Turn the heat off. Now a little different than the above posts. I normally freeze 6 or 7, 2 or 3 liter bottles of water (depends how many pounds of crawfish I'm cooking. Normally one 3 liter bottle per pot or two 2 liter bottles. When I turn the heat off, I drop them in and it cools the water down just a bit, but unlike with ice, it won't water down your boil mixture for future pots. I let them soak and occasionally stir them until the crawfish sink below the water. Once they've sunk, they've soaked up enough juices and I dump them in an ice chest. Then sprinkle some powder crab boil over them and shake the chest. Eat whenever your ready. Other things to add: Potatoes Corn Sausage I normally cook the potatoes first, bc they take a good bit longer, especially if they are kind of large. If you are using frozen corn, then on the last batch, use the corn as the cooler and it will cook in about 18 mins. Also if you do a round of potatoes and you have them in a strainer basket in the pot, make sure and put them either in a potato sack or a crawfish sack and tie them kinda tight. If not, when the water boils, the potatoes will come out completely peeled. Enjoy!!! |