Planning a Crawfish Boil

D

DoubleMaduro

25+ Posts
Need Help.
Been to 'em, but never prepped one. It's for about
30 people. I've ordered 60 lbs of the bugs and 3 dozen blue shell crab. Other than the obvious corn on cob and red potatoes with slices of lemon and boil seasoning, what am Imissing?
Thannks for the help.
DM
 
if those 30 poeple are all hungry adults, i'd throw some sausages on the grill -- that doesn't sound like enough food to me. or, get some shrimp and throw that in too. if there are kids, i always throw some hot dogs on the grill as some of the young ones turn their noses up at the bugs.

good luck. tell us how it turns out.
 
Get your water ready and boiling for a good bit in advance. The water needs the following things in it:

-- boil seasoning (liquid, bags, powder, whatever -- but it needs to be in the water).
-- salt. And plenty of it.
-- lemons -- squeeze them out, then put the whole thing in there.
-- a buncha crushed garlic cloves
-- quarter an onion or two
-- toss in an extra few bay leaves if you've got em.

Once you get things stewing together, taste your water. You'll want it to be both saltier and a bit spicier than you would want to taste on its own -- remember, it's imparting flavor to the crawfish, but they won't soak it ALL up.

When we did ours a couple of weeks ago (39 lb sack, 8 people, and I hardly have enough leftover to make a pot of etouffee on memorial day), we added corn, taters (which I later mashed the leftovers with some of the boiled garlic -- allsome), hot dogs, and some hunks of smoked sausage.

One thing to remember -- even quartered, the taters take longer to cook than anything else. I toss them in first, let them cook for 10 mins or so, then add the rest of the goodies.

You might want to cook the crab first, as they should be cleaner than the crawfish, and you don't want to muck up their taste with all the schmutz that will end up in the water from the crawfish.

You've got 2 lbs of crawfish per person. I usually go with about 4 lbs, but then, my friends and I include some serious eaters (we knock down 6 lbs or so each), which evens out with the folks who eat only 1-2 lbs. If you've got some folks who will hit the crawfish hard, you will need to make sure there's enough other stuff (corn taters etc.) to fill bellies.

Oh, and you might oughta have a cold beer or two around.

I'm just sayin'.
 
Thanks for all the fast/informative replies.
I should probably expound (sp) on the event. We're having
a springfestival at our high school. The fare chosen (not by me) was hot dogs and hamburgers for the students. Whenever I grill at school, I always have some "grill snacks" for whomever wanders near the burnt offerings....things like
chicken wings or cut up boston butts (country style ribs) in freshly toasted tortillas and sausage. Since we're going lowkey on the grill (we're gasgrilling), I thought it'd be fun to do a boil. Most of the teachers are of the female variety, whom I'm assuming won't be too keen on the bugs. So these are mostly for "grill snacks" not necessarily a full meal.
I think I may still up the anty with 40 lbs more of dads, just to be safe.
DM
 
You need to purge them first. Put them in a large ice chest, plastic wading pool, etc and fill with water. Put in a bunch of salt and the crawfish will belch up their stomach contents, ie mud, food etc., and then rinse. This prevents them from being gritty.

I am having a graduation party for my daughter tommorrow, (she is entering UT this fall) and I am figuring 3.5 lbs per person, including young kids, old folks etc. I am figuring 3 ears of corn and 2 potatoes per person.
 
I was gonna say to purge them too. Some use salt, some don't, but either way it will at least clean them up and let you pick out the dead ones; you don't want to cook the dead ones, much less eat one.
 
30 people and only 60 lbs? Wow. Must be my Louisiana blood, but we had 16 people take out about 90 lbs a few weeks ago. Granted, half were from Louisiana...but there were like 5 college aged girls there that didn't put away that many.

We kept it limited to Corn, Onions, and Potatoes with the Crawfish.

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I usually purge several times also. Until they quit making the water dirty. As long as they die refrigerated, there is no reason to throw them out if they have been purged.
 
the "trick" that alot of people don't do, that really makes a difference is also something restaurants cannot do.

after boiling, turn heat off and let the bugs "soak: for a while. I mean 15-25 minutes. as they cool some, the flavor really does seep into them.

you won't believe the difference it makes. my coonass friend taught me this and it changed my entire crawfish reality.
 
Lots of good advice in here. I'm surprised at only a single mention of mushrooms. They are a must. Just throw them in with the potatoes, corn, sausage, etc. Also, adding a lot of butter to your water is important.
 
MUSHROOMS?? ARTICHOKES???[/I WTF?

I mean, I'm all for artichokes & 'shrooms... but not in my bug water.

Really; I can dig through a jar of arties all by myself & I add mushrooms to just about anything I can find.

But I just can't see 'em in my mudbug water.

This Shreveporter is aghast...

BTW, since the 'smoker invitational' got fizzed, I thought I might ask if anyone is up for another attempt? We can throw down some bugs as well.

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another poster and i had our 9th annual yesterday in houston and went through roughly 400 lbs of selects, 45 lbs of potatoes, about 40 lbs of corn, and YES mushrooms - those are great.

today's recovery really sucks, but i did see shane battier sing "family tradition" at a karaoke bar later that night. that was interesting.

depending on where you are, sam's has almost everything you need. large jars of zatarain's that are sufficient for one sack, large bottles of red sauce, black pepper, salt, packs of tony sachere's, and produce.
 
I cooked up 100# of crawfish on NFL draft day a few weeks ago. I followed the recipe at the bottom of this page and they came out great. Link I was really suprised at how much seasoning ended up in the pot.

I picked up the crawfish the day before. They can live in the bag for a few days, but you need to keep them cold and wet.

Bernard
 
I'm from Shreveport and I've seen mushrooms in pots plenty of times. But then again from what I've heard, anything north of I-10 is yankee.

Also, crawfish is pretty hard to mess up, but if you get scared just make the first batch hot as hell. That way nobody will be able to taste them or the following batches.
 
How long do you typically let the bugs soak while purging. I have let them purge for around 10 min in the cooler, changing the water 2 or 3 times. I still ocasionally have some come out a little dirtier than I would like.

Also, for 30# what size cooker/ pot are you using?
 
The first time I heard someone mention mushrooms I was like WTF? Then I tried them. I will always put them in from now on. I also throw a couple tubs of butter in the water.
 
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