Food Network: Crawfish Boil Recipe for 40 to 45 Pounds of Crawfish

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Crawfish Boil Recipe for 40 to 45 Pounds of Crawfish
Recipe courtesy Jay Francis

Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 (4.5 pound) bag Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil
5 pounds of #1 red potatoes, cleaned but not peeled
40 to 45 pounds live crawfish, cleaned
24 ears of corn, shucked and cut into halves

Special Equipment:
A 20-gallon crawfish pot with basket and lid, or equivalent pot used for frying
turkeys
A lifting hook to lower the basket into the cooking pot
Propane burner

Heavy duty rubber kitchen gloves to protect against burns and spices
Heavy duty apron
2 large ice chests with drain plug

Cook's Notes:
Exercise extreme care when handling hot liquids and spices.

Instructions
Leaving the crawfish in the broth for a longer time
results in more spiciness. Sprinkling additional spice mixture on the crawfish
after draining also will increase the spiciness.

Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil: There are many manufacturers to choose from. This
is a spice blend of salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, lemon

juice, and additional spices. Typically a bag of spice mix costs about $5.00. The
brand used for the show was Lousiana Fish Fry Products Crawfish Crab and Shrimp
Boil.

Instructions:
Place the cooking pot with its basket on the propane burner and fill with 11
gallons of water, about halfway. This should be about the right amount of water to
protect against spillage when the potatoes or crawfish are added later. Add the 2
sticks of butter and 2/3 of the bag of Crawfish Crab and Shrimp Boil, and the 5
pounds of red potatoes. Cover and bring to a boil. Cook potatoes for 15 minutes
and, while the potatoes are cooking, rinse the crawfish.

Place the bag of crawfish in 1 of the coolers, or, on the ground and hose down the
bag until the water runs clear, about 5 minutes. Open the bag and pour the live

crawfish into 1 of the coolers. With the drain of the cooler open, continue to
rinse the crawfish for 5 minutes or until the water runs clear.

After the potatoes have cooked for 15 minutes, add the corn and continue cooking
the corn and the potatoes for 15 minutes more. Remove a potato and test for
doneness, continuing to cook, if needed. Remove the basket and dump the corn and
potatoes into 1 of the coolers. Close the cooler in order to keep the corn and
potatoes warm.

Pour the crawfish into the cooking basket and lower the basket into the pot. Bring
to a boil and cook the crawfish for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and allow the
crawfish to simmer in the liquid for an additional 15 minutes.

Remove the crawfish and serve with the potatoes and corn. Traditionally, the

crawfish is dumped onto a newspaper covered table (we used a door on 2 sawhorses).
Additional spice mix can be sprinkled on the crawfish, if desired.

Variation: Some cooks add 1 to 2 pounds of sweet onions, peeled and cut in wedges,
and/or the juice from 1 dozen lemons to the cooking liquid.

Variation: With proper ventilation, several pounds of shrimp could be cooked with
approximately 1/2 to 1 cup of the spice mixture indoors. However, without proper
ventilation the spice mixture fumes will overwhelm the typical house.