If you didn’t know, I’m half Cajun on my mother’s side. Growing up, we would shoot on down to bayou country (see Thibodaux and Houma Louisiana), and enjoy what south Louisiana has to offer… which means crab, shrimp, and crawfish boils. I’d missed it, so we recently went ahead and got a big boiler pot and the 16″ burner to make this happen.
So you are aware, the food we did in this batch included new potatoes, frozen corn, 12 blue crab, 2 lbs of frozen (headless) shrimp in the shell, and snow crab clusters. For my first boil attempt, I pretty much nailed it. The next batch will be a little spicier, but the base mix of seasonings and the sequencing of ingredients listed below turned out pretty much perfect for folks who like just a little bit of heat but don’t want their lips to burn.
Equipment
- 60 quart stainless steel pot (TALL)
- Associated stainless steel basket
- 2″ long or more sturdy stirring stick
- 40 quarts of water (is that considered equipment?)
Ingredients
- 1 3oz Zatarains Bag Boil (2 for spicier)
- 1 5oz Louisiana Dry Crawfish Boil (2 for spicier)
- 6 pureed celery stalks
- 3 pureed large white onions (sweet for mild and standard for spicier)
- 3 quartered large white onions (sweet for mild and standard for spicier)
- 6 large lemons halved, juiced (peels go in pot as well)
- 3 large oranges halved, juiced (peels go in pot as well)
- 1 stick butter
- 6 – 8 full clusters of garlic (just cut off the stem portion)
- 2 8oz Louisiana Liquid Boil (+1 for spicier)
- 1 16oz Crystal hot sauce (+1 for spicier)
- 1-2 cups salt of any kind you prefer (we use Himalayan not iodized in all cases)
- Various foods (see below)
Food Cook Times
Note: these times are your guide as to when to add them to the pot. I recommend that you take whatever your ingredients are and set up the sequence, counting backwards from those that require the least time to those that require the most. Once you have the sequence set, line up your ingredients near your boiling pot and use sticky notes and a timer to get the order right without having to run around.
Also, keep in mind that you can reduce the boiling times a bit because the whole mass is going to sit at the end for 15-25 minutes, which ensures full cooking as well as setting the amount of spiciness.
Various Foods
- Potatoes – 25 mins
- Artichoke Hearts – 25 mins
- Sausage – 20 mins
- Button Mushrooms – 20 mins
- Lobster – 15-20 mins
- Live Crawfish – 10-15 mins
- Live Crab – 10-15 mins
- Frozen/fresh corn cobs (3″ – 4″ long) 10-15
- Frozen Snow Crab Clusters (10 mins)
- Shrimp (live or frozen) – 3 mins
Preparation (based on the first boil I did)
- Bring water to a full boil
- Make sure your basket is in the pot
- Add in ALL ingredients except for the food
- Let mass return to a boil
- Boil 5 mins and keep stirring the whole mass through every step
- Add in potatoes
- Boil 10 mins
- Add in Sausage / button mushrooms
- Boil 5 mins
- Add in corn cobs
- Boil 5 mins
- Add in crab (whole live blue and/or frozen snow crab clusters)
- Boil 7 mins
- Add in shrimp
- Boil 3 mins
- Cut heat
- Let sit for 15-30 mins… the longer the spicier it gets
- SLOWLY extract basket from pot
- Either dump out on a picnic table covered with newspaper or pull out carefully and serve
IT WILL BE VERY HOT
DIG IN!!!
