Let's talk crawfish

[Jerry World]

I recently acquired an 80 qt pot for the primary purpose of cooking crawfish. This past weekend I had the first good size boil of about 70 lbs. All in all things went well and the crowd was pleased. I was curious to some other folks methods when it comes to their boil.

How long does everyone soak the crawfish after they have cooked (I went 15 mins)?

For the soaking method is ice used or do you put the pot in water and cool from the outside (I went with the putting the pot in water)?

Thoughts on the mix? I went with the tea bags, salt, Cayenne, concentrated hliquid boil, onions and lemons.

 

[NickDanger]

How were they? I was told that they were going to be a late crop because of the rainy winter. I have no idea why that would mean a late crop. I'd like to have a BIG boil, but was warned off that prices were really high and quality low a few weeks ago.

 

[NB_LONGHORN]

The little guys stay in the mud when it is too cool and there is no sun overhead. the farmers have to "pump" them out and that drives the price up. the warmer weather and lack of rain lately will mean much cheaper crawfish by the middle of the month and very cheap crawfish by May.

 

[NickDanger]

I'll buy that. Thanks.

 

[Jerry World]

Believe it or not, we bought the crawfish from Brookshire's in East Texas. They were $2.99 however the crawfish were great. Very good size and very few dead one's.

Everyone was very happy/

 

[Y Sanchez]

My "secret" for boiling a proper crawdad is to let them soak in salted water for a few minutes before going to the cooker with them.

Letting them "purge" themselves of the wee nasty bits sure helps with the quality of the finished product.

 

[NickDanger]

Alton Brown just did a show on them. He basically said purging was pretty much a waste of time and for sure not in salt water (go figure). If you do purge, he said it takes 24 hours and you need an aerated tank to do it or they will die. He let them soak for 10 minutes I believe. He also gave his own recipe for the spices which was pretty simple and sounded a lot like all the other dry spice concoctions out there (nothing exotic). I'm sure you can google the recipe from him.

 

[UTEE]

No need to google, every recipe in a show on Food Newtwork ends up on their website. Here's Alton's:

The Link

 

[pike]

no need to purge them but you should rinse them throughly before cooking them. Most of the time they are pretty muddy directly from the store. Boil them till they float then soak for 20 minutes has always been what I go by. I normally have two pots going alternately so I don't have a long wait in between batches.
Pike

 

[BurntOrangeOnly]

The purging discussion is interesting and frankly very surprising. I've eaten crawfish that have not been purged and they literally tasted like mud. I always purge my crawfish - twice to be certain of cleanliness (Alton's taste buds must be very different than mine) - and I can't imagine NOT doing so. Once again, to each his own.....

 

[NickDanger]

What he was saying was that purging is fairly irrelevant, but that RINSING was extremely important. There is a reason why they are called mudbugs and if they aren't rinsed thoroughly, I would imagine they would taste pretty muddy.

I should have been more clear when referencing AB's comments. He gave a whole lot of attention to purging techniques for those who wish to do it. He just said he didn't think it was necessary, but that salting the purge water was of no use whatsoever.