Crawfish boil (to buy, live, law)

[le roi]

Years ago, at a horse race in SC called the "Carolina Cup", I had the pleasure of attending a pregame crawfish boil hosted by a gentleman from Louisiana. Where I am from we have frogmore stew, which is similar -- but crawfish were a new experience for me.

My question to the forum -- do any of you Louisianans have a good recipe, or any good advice, for having my first crawfish boil?

As I understand it so far, at a minimum I just need my trusty propane cooker, some live crawfish, and some seasoning.

Any tried-and-true advice for how to cook these suckers? Any good ideas on what's the best place to buy mail-order live crawfish? Any time of the year that crawfish are best, or any time to avoid them? Help is appreciated.

[SacalaitWhisperer]

Boiled Crawfish and Boiled Shrimp


How to boil crawfish : boilCrawfish.com, Crawfish Pots, Burners, Accessories, Recipes, and More!


If you do boil your own crawfish you should purge them. Purging means to soak them in water in order to clean them internally and externally. I use plain old fresh water, some folks add salt. The salt supposedly makes the crawfish regurgitate which is supposed to clean them out.

When purging crawfish in an ice chest I put the entire still sealed sack in the chest and fill it up with water. Then I'll move the sack around making the water flow through it, pull the sack out and dump the water. If the water is super dirty I do it again, if not, I'll open the sack and dump the crawfish in so they can run around. This allows me to pick out grass and bait fish sometimes left in the sack. If you move fast enough they won't pinch you... if not... ?
Change the water every 15 minutes or so until it is relatively clean. Don't let your mudbugs sit in the same purge water very long. The oxygen begins to deplete and they'll start to die.

[le roi]

ok, cool. i live near the ocean so i will just use salt water for purging. i suppose a cooler is the best thing to use.

thanks for the advice and the links.

[Rosinante]

If you can find Alton Brown's video on crawfish you'll be way ahead of the game. If you know somebody here in Louisiana, it might be a good idea to have them send you some Zatarain's or other crawfish boil of their preference.

Don't forget the small new/red potatoes and the corn on the cob. LMK when they're just about done & I'll come over and help you eat them. Great video here, but in all my years I never heard of mushrooms in boiled crawfish.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umOUr0y4GkI

[Innotech]

the secret to it is pretty much not to over-boil them and also to cook them in a way that it actually absorbs the seasoning.
Boil the water for several minutes, then drop in the purged crawfish, and let that boil for several more minutes. The main thing to remember is that if too much steam starts to escape, the flavor is escaping as well. At that point you should turn down the flame and allow the crawfish to soak up the seasoning into their shells. Same goes for boiling crabs. Its all about timing. Dont boil all the flavor out of the crawfish.

[SacalaitWhisperer]

not to over-boil them

That is against the law in Louisiana.

:^p

[mhounit]

People put all kinds of things in with the crawfish . Mushrooms , corn , potatoes , sausage , even hot dogs . There's no rules .

[HiBall]

I'm an old country boy and will eat almost anything but, I ain't never et no crawdad's as we call them here. I'm willing to try anything once. My (dumb)question is what part of these critters do you eat? And how? I got a big propane cooker, two in fact and I'm ready to cook and eat.

[SacalaitWhisperer]

The meat in the tail is what people peel and eat.

[HiBall]

Originally Posted by SacalaitWhisperer

The meat in the tail is what people peel and eat.

OK...kinda like shrimp... just peel and eat. What about all the other stuff in side? I heard somewhere that your supposed eat that too.