Crawfish Boil With Jimmy Kennedy
There are many great dishes from Louisiana featuring crawfish, such as étouffée, jambalaya, crawfish pie, pasta, stuffing and dressings and many others, but crawfish boils are much more than just cooking and eating a local delicacy. They are a full-on, time-honored tradition, a big part of Louisiana’s incredible food heritage and important social events around the South and especially in southern Louisiana.
Alright, so got our
crawfish in and now we’re just gonna give
him a good risk it all that.
Fresh water off of them.
It’s not a bad thing to do
kind of revives em a little bit too.
Gives a little water.
(Is that salt water?)
This is just regular
water and what we’re going to do
is we will see how the water is kind of.
Kind of dirty, but.
We just gonna open this
thing up over here.
And let that water come out of there.
And we’re gonna keep doing
this until it’s clean.
Water shouldn’t take long.
There we go.
That should do it.
Keep renting them.
Getting a little poke.
Got a burner?
Got a propane.
That sound right there
is the sound of the South
grew up listening this
thing from catfish fries to
making gumbo to stews to crawfish boils.
And if you have ever cooked
outdoors, you probably know that sounded
great back a lot of memories
makes me hungry kinda.
There are so many different dishes,
Louisiana dishes, Cajun Creole dishes,
featuring crawfish like
gumbo etoufee jambalaya,
pasta dressing, stuffing’s
crawfish pie and so on and so on.
But the one thing that comes to
mind when you think
crawfish in Louisiana?
Crawfish boils.
It’s it’s really not
just about cooking and eating good food.
This is like a full on tradition
is an event in Louisiana,
Southern Louisiana.
Lot of parts of the South.
It’s basically a big outdoor event.
Big party for family, friends and
and even whole communities.
And it’s a great tradition and
we’re going to keep it alive here
in Vermont today.
Sharp
Just look at em.
This was a
Daddy’s Day present man.
This thing does not play.
Everything is kind of
like almost not quite bite size.
If you know good and sausage same way.
Onions.
We want to keep these half
like this with the pill on.
Everything goes straight
into the boil like that
and with it like this then you kind of
stayed together and it’s nice and soft.
Super delicious too.
Man sucks up all that good season.
We’re going to put in there.
It’s.
Gonna be tasty.
Same with the garlic man.
Just leave it whole.
This is going good and soft.
Makes for a good look condiment.
Got a rolling boil perfect.
Makes it taste.
Alright, so typically use
red potatoes, but we’ve got these
really beautiful little red
and gold potatoes and they’re small, so
we don’t want to cook long.
You just wanted to get a little soft.
Sausage.
This is Andouille Sausage,
chicken Andouille.
You can use anything you want there.
I like to use andouille
in there, gives them a little
extra spice in there.
And what else?
Corn
Some people add the
corn at the very end after
the crawfish, but I
like to put it in now to
make sure it’s done.
So we added our potatoes
or sausage in our corn.
And we’re going to
just let it be a
slow boil for a little bit, and
we can put the crawfish in next and.
We’re getting closer.
All right, boys?
Ready?
Alright guys, yes Sir.
Second bowlful here into our pot.
This is about 15 pounds of crawfish.
Just so you know on your seasoning.
On your seasoning, you want to do like
one pound for every, like five pounds.
One pound of seasoning, for
five pounds of crawfish.
Now we’re going to let these cook
2 minutes two to three
minutes, and that’s it.
We don’t want to
overcook these, like I said.
What we do is we let him cook
for two minutes, maybe 3
cut the cut the fire off
and let him soak.
This is a kind of an important part.
You want the crawfish to soak
up all that season into the shell.
That’s what makes him so tasty.
Alright, let’s put a
timer on for two minutes.
Alright, so we we did
a rolling boil on the crawfish
for about 2 1/2 three minutes.
I just cut the fire to
him and now we’re gonna
let him soak and this
is when the crawfish soak up.
All that seasoning.
All that flavor into the shell
makes him so delicious.
So we’ll be back here in about.
25, 30 minutes will be ready to eat.
Now we’re just going to drain him.
They smell so good, don’t they?
Looking good.
I say this a lot but, of all the recipes, please feel free to improvise with this one. It seems like everyone has their own slightly different version of what constitutes the perfect boil, with most of the differences involving the timing of when to add certain ingredients. I’ve had the pleasure of attending and cooking many crawfish boils, and the one constant of all the versions is that they are all perfect.
It may seem daunting but it’s easy, lots of fun and very rewarding. While crawfish boils are typically for large crowds, you can do this for just you and the family while at home or camping. For planning purposes, you can figure 3 to 4 pounds of crawfish per person, but leftovers are delicious, too. Have fun and Go Cook Outside!
Ingredients (8 to 10 guests)
30 to 35 pounds live crawfish
4-pound bag of crawfish/crab/seafood boil seasoning
4 ounces of liquid crawfish boil, optional
6 to 8 lemons, halved
6 large onions, quartered but not peeled
6 or 7 heads of garlic, tops trimmed but not peeled
1 bunch of celery, coarsely chopped
5 or 6 pounds of small red potatoes
6 to 8 ears of corn, cut in half or smaller
3 or 4 pounds of sausage, cut into 2-inch to 3-inch pieces
1 pound whole mushrooms
cauliflower, asparagus, artichokes, pineapple, apples (optional)
2 sticks of butter
hot sauce
Directions
Fill a 40-quart pot with a strainer basket half-full with water and bring to a boil. Add the bag of seasoning, garlic, onions, celery and butter and squeeze in the lemons and add the squeezed halves. Stir well, cover and let boil for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Next, add the sausage, corn and potatoes and let cook for another 10 to 15 minutes. Add the crawfish and stir. Let the pot boil for 2 ½ to 3 minutes and turn off the fire and stir again. Add the mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, pineapple, apples or any other vegetables or fruit you like.
Now the crawfish needs to soak for around 30 minutes. Some people like to add ice at this point to keep the crawfish from overcooking, but if I do anything, I will add big chunks of pineapple that I’ve chilled to almost freezing. I feel it doesn’t dilute the boil as much and adds another treat to be eaten.
After the soak, use gloves to carefully remove the strainer basket from the pot and let it drain a little while holding it over the pot. Dump the crawfish down the length of a table covered in butcher paper, newspaper or a plastic tablecloth, and have friends and family line the table and dig in.
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