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Crawfish Boil

4045 Views 25 Replies 16 Participants Last post by  massmanute
Wanted to do my first crawfish boil this weekend and looked up a few recipes. Most call for Seafood Boil powder and/or liquid concentrate. I can't find either locally. Was going to add taters, corn, lemon, onions, garlic but now I'm not so sure on where to go. Any suggestions?
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Wanted to do my first crawfish boil this weekend and looked up a few recipes. Most call for Seafood Boil powder and/or liquid concentrate. I can't find either locally. Was going to add taters, corn, lemon, onions, garlic but now I'm not so sure on where to go. Any suggestions?
What's a crawfish boil? Do you have a walmart around? Go to the spices. Get a package or bottle of Zatarains boil mix, get a package of Tony's Cajun Seasoning and you're set to go.

Taters and corn will be good. How many pounds of live or tails will you be boiling? Yeah I've done it once or twice. ;-)
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Skip forward to the 8 minute mark. They use a crab boil seasoning also, but might give you an idea to start.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1112&sid=35776199

Oh, and what time is dinner?

edit-- I have seen the Zatarain's Crab Boil at Walmart. I also like Old Bay-- you can buy a very large bottle from Costco for $10-13.
If you have a Smiths nearby, they carry a Kroger brand "crayfish and seafood boil" in their spices section that has always worked well for me. It comes in a small box and the box contains enough ingredients to do a good sized batch of crawdads. Just drop the bag in boiling water as directed and have at it.
you doing them whole or just the tails? I hate utah's reg here, but I doubt people follow it. just be sure to purge those suckers in some salt water to clean them up.
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I will make a deal with you, since you're in Cedar Fort I could probably come over from Sarytoger Sprangs here and cook them for you if you have enough. Just as an FYI a 40 pound sack of live crawfish will feed about 4 cajuns. Since I am a little bigger than the average cajun I will need about 15 pounds of live ones just for me. The Walmart right there in Saratoga at the crossroads has the Zatarains and the Tony's as well.
I used this recipe (with crawfish instead of shrimp) about a month ago and everybody raved over it:

http://www.skiptomylou.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/how-to-host-a-shrimp-boil1.pdf

You can find the Zatarain's in the spices section at Walmart.
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Old Bay.

Virtually everything I do when it comes to wild game is the lazy man's way. Crawfish are always the same:

1) Catch em on a chicken leg on a string until you have 20+ per person.

2) Start boiling water sufficent to cover at least 3/4 of the bugs in a stock pot.

3) Dump em in a 5 gallon bucket, sprinkle about a half cup of salt per gallon of water + crawfish in the bucket (I always use non-iodized Mortons for seafood, but the cheapest you can get is best.) Mudbugs will start freaking out, wait 20-30 minutes for them to poop themselves out.

4) Dice 3-4 cloves of garlic, pile up a stack of 1/4 cobs of corn from frozen package, open a bag of baby red potatoes and wash them if need be. Dump everything and 1 tbsp of Old Bay per gallon into the boiling water. Let boil for 10-12 minutes.

4) Stir the bugs together in the bucket with tongs or a large wooden spoon to allow them to scrub each other, really turn them over a few times but try not to damage them. Rinse bugs several times until the water runs clear, dump water. Dump the bugs into the boiling water.

5) Let boil another 10-15 minutes.

6) Check the potatoes, remove from heat when the potatoes will easily accept a fork all the way through and the bugs are bright red.
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Here is my crawdad meal.

Boil in Old Bay Cajun Seasoning (even Walmart has this stuff) with potatoes and corn. Boil potatoes and corn until just about ready to serve.

Grill up some sausage (andoille is awesome, but spicy so some people may not like it) and throw slices in the boil toward the end.

Throw crawdads in for the last 5 min or so.

Drain water, and throw in a stick of butter and a little more Old Bay Cajun seasoning for good measure.

Serve with dirty rice.

Mmmmmmmm..... Im actually doing the same thing this weekend with my daughter. She is 7 and can eat more crawdads than I can!

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Also, regarding purging the crawdads:

I personally believe this is only necessary IF you are eating the heads. If you are just going to eat the tails, then tear the tail off while the crawdad is still alive and devein the tail by rocking the middle fin to both sides and then pull it out. All the poop should come right along with it.

here is a great video on how its done:

My mind is going a million miles a minute on this right now.

Walmart should have this as well:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/10293254?reviews_limit=7&

This will work in place of the Old Bay
This was great timing for this thread as me the wife and my bro are loading up my kids and my niece and nephew and headed for lost creek on saturday specifically to target these critters to snack on :)
I noticed Winco has Zatarain Crabboil in their bulk bins the other day.
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Thanks guys, now Im hungry and probably have to go home and eat Raman.:sad:
When we moved out here 25 years ago you couldn't get Tony's much less crab boil out here. We used to bring back a years supply when we would go back to Louisiana or if we ran out have a family member go buy some and ship it to us...my how times have changed here in Utah.
I like sausage in my crawfish boil.

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I like sausage in my crawfish boil.

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Wanna jazz up cooking hot dogs....cook em in crawfish boil....mmmmmm
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All this crawdad talk has got me curious. I attended a crayfish boil earlier this summer, and thought they were OK. I have been wondering if they would be better if they were caught locally and cooked a bit fresher than the ones shipped in from Loozeeanna. Where would one go to catch some of these, preferably in or near Utah county, and what accoutrements are necessary?
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Strawberry, but really any reservoir where crawfish are present and bass are not. Bass eat them more than anything, places where there are no bass and better yet only trout have larger, more plentiful crawfish.

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