LOUISIANA CRAWFISH BOIL

There is nothing like a Louisiana crawfish boil to bring great friends and family together, while staying in the states I got the enjoyment of cooking a boil for my American family who often have a impromptu fish fry with their neighbours at their lakeside home, this was a first for me and after much research we were super pleased with perfectly cook crawfish, blue swimming crabs, corn, potatoes and sausage a very messy lip smacking no one talking family boil.

This is really a very simple cook, the method is key to successful juicy spicy crawfish boil.

Allow up to 5 lbs of crawfish per person, 3-4 lbs if your adding in shrimp and crab.

Ingredients

(serves 4)

14 lb live fresh crawfish

4 fresh whole blue swimming crabs

3 sachets of Zatarain’s crawfish boil Extra spicy optional

1 bottle Zatarain’s liquid crawfish boil

1 pack 250g butter

4 lemons 2 zest and juice and 2 wedged

1 kg red potatoes whole

4 corn on the cob husk left on

4 large spicy sausages

1 onion peeled left whole

10 cloves garlic peeled and crushed

Equipment

Large pot with strainer insert.

First wash your crawfish in running cold water for around 10 minutes plus until the water runs clear, these guys come from the swamp so rinse them well.  You can do this in your sink or in a cooler that has a drain plug outside.  A quick rinse of the crabs also.

Important, next remove any crawfish that have a straight tail this indicates these guys have bitten the dust aka as dead!

Setting Up The Boil Pot
Now to set up your boil pot, fill the pot just over half way so that it will just cover the crawfish, place 3 sachets of zatarain’s shrimp and crab boil in the pan, depending on how hot you like your food add From 2 tbsp to 1/4 bottle of zatarains liquid shrimp and crab boil, add the juice and zest of two lemons and the lemons themselves, the acidity of the lemons makes the crawfish easier to peel and lowers the cooking smell which is great if your cooking indoors, then the whole onion, smashed garlic cloves, half the butter, the potatoes, corn in their husks and the sausages bring to a rolling simmer, pop a lid on to speed this up.

Glorious blue water swimming crabs, so flavoursome juicy chunky meat.

TheCrawfish Boil

Rapidly boil for ten minutes, then add the crawfish and blue swimmer crabs, pop the lid back on and cook for THREE minutes ONLY!  Over cooked crawfish are terrible they turn to soft mush very unpleasant.

The Cooling Part

Now this is very important, fill your kitchen sink or a large bucket a between a third and half of the depth of the boil pot with cold water, take the boil pot and place in the cold water to cool the cooking temperature of the pot to 65 C / 150 F stir gently this should only take a couple of minutes, meanwhile remove the husks from the corn and return back to the pot, place the pot on the side and leave to allow the crawfish and crabs to soak up all the lovely cooking stock making them even more tasty for around 30 minutes, also to finish cooking the potatoes, corn and sausage.

Crawfish float when cooked and after the cooling and soaking time they will sink with all that extra flavour they have soaked up.

Pull out the drainer part of your pot and tip the crawfish boil out on to either a newspaper lined outdoor table or serving dish if indoors, melt the remaining butter and serve in little pots for dunking all the glorious food, throw over the remaining lemon wedges and enjoy.  You can also dot butter all over the boil for extra wonderfulness, 

Top Tip

Clean your hands and face! with white wine or distilled vinegar after washing will remove all trace of smell.