Posted: 4/9/2005 8:57:34 AM EDT
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Alright you La. boys, and I do not mean the place in Kalifornia. The local fish place has fresh, live crawfish, which I just love. Now, I Know how to cook up shrimp (Old Bay, beer, some lemons, boil he shrimp for abt 2 minutes or if water starts bioling again) , so do I cook up the craw dadies the same way? My mouth is watering....... How do I do it like ya'll in Louisiana do it? The crawfish, I mean..... 
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www.lacrawfish.com/recipes_crawfish.html I'm not from Louisiana, but my brother and parents live there...I have live mudbugs shipped to CO every year from LA Crawfish in Nachitoches. Biggest difference between crawfish & shrimp boiling is that I like to let the crawfish steam in a cooler after boiling, after dumping a bunch of Tony Chacheres seasoning on them. Don't forget the andouille sausage, corn, red potatoes, and onions! Oh, and beer...lots of beer. Don't put any in the boil pot, though! Damn, made myself hungry.  (ETA) Don't use Old Bay - use Zatarains boil spice if you can find it. Or order one of the big jars online. |
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Since I cook the best tasting crawfish in the world, I'll tell you how. First you have to have a pot big enough to hold the crawfish and about 6 inches of water over the top of them. For one 40# sack, get the water boiling, add one small bottle of liquid crab/crawfish boil from Zararans or Rex. Four of the bags of crab /crawfish boil, 1/2# of table salt, four table spoons of ground cayennepepper, about 5 whole peeled onions, 10 lemons cut in half. Now is the time you want to add your small red potatoes. Stick the hell out of them with an ice pick first. 5# will be enough. Let the water come to a rolling boil and add your crawfish providing you already culled the dead ones out. Add the corn on the cob now too. Let the water come to a rolling boil for 10 minutes then shut it off. Give it about 5 minutes then throw in a sack of ice to chill the water some. Let them soak for 20 minutes. Serve onto a picnic table outside covered in news paper. We use beer flats for trays because you just roll them up and throw them away when your through. Your welcome. |
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I do it just a little differently from Pangea. BTW, I am from the heart of Cajun country, there are dozens of crawfish farms around here, and this is one of the best seasons in a long time. I personally like my crawfish fairly hot, generally in addition to the bottle of Zatarains liquid seafood boil, I put a bag or two of their shrimp boil in. It's a bag of different seasonings. I also put in at least one full box of table salt, which I think is one pound. To me, crawfish need plenty salt to taste right. Bring water to a rolling boil. Dump the crawfish in, keep the flame on until they start to boil again, then reduce heat if it starts to boil over. Just be sure the crawfish come to a boil. Total time from putting the crawfish in the pot, till you take 'em out, is exactly 18 minutes. If you are going to be cooking a bunch of crawfish but don't have a large boiler, simply put the boiled crawfish in an old icechest lined with newspaper. It also helps to throw a little powdered seasoning in, it soaks into the crawfish. Don't use a new icechest, the heat will definitely warp and/or ruin it. You want to use an old one that is not much good for keeping things cool anymore. Or you can just buy a cheap styrofoam one. The ice chest will keep the crawfish hot while you are cooking more. I hate it when boiled crawfish are served cold. I like potatos and onions, but I am not much of a fan of corn and sausage. Beer is a necessity. |
| Chill them with ice???? Never done that. That just sounds weird. Oh, don't forget it has to be Abita beer. This is a recipe standard in St. Tammany Parish.Zats And look, you can order Zataran's from the same site. I wish I could send you som Abita Amber or Turbodog. If you never heard of Abita click here Have fun!!!!!!!! |
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Before you cook them, you need to purge them. That is a critical step most people don't do. If you have ever bitten into a crawfish and tasted some grit, they were not purged properly. How to from www.cookinglouisiana.com: 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. If I were a freshwater crawfish and someone put me in a tank of salt water I think I'd just close my mouth... how about you? I've been purging with fresh water for years and it works just fine. 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. |
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Well, I don't think any of the Louisiana crawfish wholesalers deliver that far out west. One local guy here delivers crawfish by the truckload to Atlanta, GA during the season. I think he probably makes stops along the way in Mississippi and Alabama. Lots of them deliver to Dallas, TX, etc. There are plenty of crawfish farmers around the Houston/Beaumont area, probably some in Arkansas and Mississippi as well. |
The ice is to chill the water from the 220+ degrees to stop the cooking and let the soaking start. When I say chill I mean to reduce the temp to about 150ish. That's still hot enough to not be gross cold crawfish. |
Sure they do. I buy mine from www.lacrawfish.com/. They've got about the best prices including delivery (Fedex overnight). Not cheap like in Louisiana, though....its a bit under $5/lb. You can also order sacks and pick them up at the airport if you want a minimum of 40 lbs: (shipping included) 40 - 60 lbs. $3.49/lb 60 - 90 lbs. $2.79/lb 90+ lbs. $2.49/lb Good stuff, been ordering there for years, and have very few dead ones when they get here. |
| In a pinch, the louisianna brand crawfish boil is really good. Remember to add lots of salt. The longer you let them sit after you boil, the more spice they soak up and the spicier they get. No matter what method you choose, have lots of good COLD beer handy. Damn Im hungry. We boil crawfish and shrimp around here about twice a month, or more, when the season is right. |
+1 On the Purge !  Edit to add I used to use the Bath tub
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Yup, we always purge ours. Got a big ole tub to do it, it's larger than a #10 tub, it's more oblong, kinda like a trough you would feed horses in. We always use salt in the water, as stated before, I don't know if it helps, but is sure can't hurt. Makes the mudbugs smell nicer too before boiling em. |
wehn i went to LA, they told me most of their crawfish came from CA... i thought they were just messing with me, but a lot of people i sopke to said the same thing. anyway, this thread made me REALLY hungry! i was thinking of making tacos for dinner, but for some reason, i want crawfish! |
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I kinda doubt that, Kalifornia. In Southwest Louisiana, and Southeast TX, most of the farmers grow at least some rice. Rice farming is particularly suitable for crawfish farming, as it requires the same things; land, water, and machinery. Farmers lay out their levees, etc. for crawfishing the same as rice farming. You have to have lots of water to flood the fields for both, and the only people with that infrastructure in place are rice farmers. Some will rotate their fields from year to year for each, others will do their crawfishing early, then convert the field over to rice. Many a farmer in Southwest Louisiana has been saved by the crawfish crop when prices for rice were no good. |
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thee12nv: The rule of thumb we use is about 6-8 pounds of crawfish per person, if they are known as experienced eaters. For most people who have never eaten crawfish before, the rule is about 4-5 pounds at most. Crawfish are somewhat tricky to peel and eat if you have never done it before. Some people pick up on it quickly, others just get tired of trying to peel them. Usually for them we make a pot of crawfish etoufee. |
Depends....if you're in an area where most people aren't used to crawfish, it's a paltry couple of pounds per person. I can buy 20 lbs crawfish and have quite a party in CO - the women won't touch them, I'll eat 4-5lbs and the rest of the (drunken) guys will eat a couple pounds apiece. In Louisiana, the food just starts as an appetizer at 3 lbs per person. Generally, if the people you are inviting actually like mudbugs from previous experience, estimate 3-5lbs per person...increase that number the further south you get. Remember, the farther north you get, the consumption etc will increase in comparison to the number of crawfish eaten. Here in Western CO, I figure the number of people invited x 2 for the pounds to order, plus 4-5 lbs for myself. Also have a shrimp boil - there are those that refuse to eat crawfish. Every mudbug party that we've held has been a huge success. We didn't have one last year due to work demands, and we got a lot of people thinking that they weren't invited for some reason, and they missed out.....we got a lot of people ticked at us since we idn't hold our annual bash! |