I just ordered a new boiler and I'm excited. I didn't get to make any crawfish last year but I'm back in the game this year. I usually make my own rub, but when I'm feeling lazy I get one of the many boil mixes (they all taste more or less similar to me). Corn, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic, lemons, and sausage. Keeps things simple. I keep my crawfish days separate from other seafood. Crab/Shrimp I make together. I'm thinking of making all three in one go this year. I've never tried that before and wonder how it'll turn out. How do ya'll go about it?
I like Zatarans (or however you spell it) better than Louisiana's spice mix a whole lot better. I usually add a 2 liter of strawberry soda or lemon lime soda in the boil too, to add a little bit of a sweet taste. Also cant forget the butter. If youre going to do the the shrimp as well, Id recommend doing it after the crawfish and then mixing it in with the crawfish later in the cooler, if you want to have a mix. I havent checked the sizes yet this year but Im thinking with this weird weather, they should be decent size by now. Im getting excited now.
You should try boiled bananas breh. It's real good fersirious. Doesn't work for all bananas tho... I just found out recently that there are different type of bananas.
I usually go to my favorite local Vietnamese Cajun places. lol. Can't wait. Hopefully they haven't gone up to $10/lb. *sigh*
I almost started a thread like this, did my 1st batch last month. My favorite boil seasoning is louisiana, I've tryed most all of them. I was taught to purge crawfish at least 5 times using a whole box of salt each time. I've seen people who don't purge at all.
My last boil had pork bones, pork chop, shrimp, sausage, lemons, oranges, corn, potatoes, brussel sprouts onions, garlic, butter with lousianna boil for one batch and swamp dust on the other. That was a bit much and expensive, your right about keeping it simple. Hey what kind of boiler did you order?
Salt kills them. Just run hose water in a cooler with them unbagged for 30 mins to an hour (depending on how much you want your water bill to be) and agitate the cooler ever so often.
Hmm, maybe the idea is that they in the pot 15 minutes after purging. They don't die when I do it, or maybe I don't givem a chance by sitting up. My family would kill me if I didn't purge that mud and dirty water. I'll purge till the water stays clean. This how my louisiana folk did it.
Yup. Gotta purge the ish out of them. Not only does it get the mud and dirt but the crawfish intake the salt and helps them take a crap, cleaning out that little veiny poopybutthole
Literally if you google "salt to purge crawfish" every link says do not do it. Sorry, just the whole "salt purging" thing has always bothered me it makes no sense.
Exactly! Don't sit them in it for hours, hittem with it, drain and repeat till water starts cleaning up.
Woah. 5 times is a lot. I use salt as well. But 2-3 times is good enough for me. I ordered a 50 qt one. It's perfect for my needs b/c I don't have that many people over at a time. The only down side is, it's aluminum and not stainless steel, but I got it for super cheap (and I didn't want to shell out a lot of cash right now) and I'm pretty careful as it is, so it's all good with me!
I suppose I should say what i do with the full boil instead of just saying what not to do. That way someone can tell me how I am doing it wrong Run the hose in the cooler with the crawfish loose inside. While that is going on add alot of slap yo mama boil mix, around 10 yellow onions, 20 lemons, some jalapenos, honey, butter, celery, celery salt, kosher salt, bottle of sriracha, boat load of garlic cloves, pepper corns, coriander. I wait til it hits a rolling boil, drop the bugs in the water let it go with full heat for 8 minutes, then kill the heat and let the soak for 15 to 20 minutes. Of course you can add mushrooms, corn, sausage (andouille), potatoes, also we have added fresh artichoke hearts. When all the crawfish is cooked and done then I will poach a whole chicken in the water, to feed on later on durning the week.
Get your crawfish from Dumesnil Farms - pre-purged and absolutely the best you can buy in and around Houston. Somebody told me about them on this site years ago. Best advice I've gotten!
Yeah I use Zatarains as well and throw in some Tony Chacheres afterwards when it's done for good measure lol. Everyone from Louisiana I know swears by this. Thanks for the advice on the shrimp. So I should still do shrimp/crab separate and then just throw them in the cooler to mix everything later?
Yeah that would be awesome. But those run into the 1k range and above. I probably will get something like that one day...when I actually want to invite that many people over haha. Really? It's worth a try. How do I go about getting some? I want to see if they're as good as you say.
The dusting after the boil is a must in my book as well. Adds a level of flavor and spice when tearing those suckers open. I'm not too sure on the crabs, i would say cooking them with the crawfish is okay. I just don't want the hard shells tearing up the shrimp when cooking and moving them around. I usually get shrimp with the head on and the crwafishs hard shells easily tear the heads off the shrimp. Don't really know the cook time for crabs either in a boil. I always steam mine.
