I was fortunate enough to marry some nice man from New Orleans 4 years ago. One of the things that becomes tradition once summer hits is our crawfish boils.
To start
Go to your local fishmart and buy a sack of crawfish - that's about 30 lbs. Don't forget to pick up a big bag of boil - about a 1lb r two. This makes about 3 or 4 pots of crawfish... enough to feed 20 or so folks. This may not look like a huge amount, but when you add beer, corn, and potatoes, it's just the perfect amount for a crowd. Make sure you have an OUTDOOR boiler and basket. For the love of all that is holy, don't ever do this inside. Take a table outside and either cover with a plastic table cloth that you are not at all fond of, or about 10 old copies of the Houston press.
Ingredients
1 sack crawfish
2 lbs butter (bout 8 sticks)
10 heads of garlic
5+ lbs of red potatoes. Get the SMALLEST ones you can find (they cook faster)
20+ half ears of corn
at least 6 lemons, cut into 8ths
salt. lots of salt.
a plastic baby pool
a broom handle
some potholders
newspaper
a large country crock container or something of the like (unless you are brave and plan to scoop crawfish with your hands)
extras - anouille 5 or so links cut into 2" pieces (or any sausage really), baby carrots (2 lbs), mushrooms (at least 2 lbs...) everyone eats them! I've also known people to toss in baby corn, onion (halved- about 1 per batch), and whatever else could be boiled.
set up. This is best to do on a driveway or someplace you can hose off. Set up a large table (or a card table), cover with newspaper or tablecloth. We hold everything down with our beer till the first batch of corn and potatoes are done. Take your time... to do this right and boil the whole sack will take a couple of hours. Manning the boiler is hot! Set up a couple of trash cans around the table for people to toss the heads into. I know some people will use foam takeout boxes to divide the trash if there are more people than table space.
First - purge the crawfish. Hose of the sack pretty well. Cut open your sack, and dump crawfish into the plastic baby pool. Dump lots and lots of salt onto the crawfish, and fill baby pool with water. take your hand and stir the crawfish. be brave, as long as you are moving, noone will pinch you. take a moment to pick out any dead crawfish... you don't want to eat them! Let the crawfish sit for about 20 minutes, and dump most of the water out. repeat while first batch of water is boiling.
the first boil
fill the pot about halfway with water. toss the potatoes in the basket along with 2 sticks butter, and 2 heads garlic (broken up). Bring the pot to boil on the propane burner (this takes about 20 or so minutes), put in about 1/3 the bag of seasoning, 1/3 of the corn, and put the lid back on. boil for about 10-20 minutes, bring up the basket. keep checking every 10 minutes till the potatoes are done. pull basket with broom handle and a potholder, shake corn and potatoes onto the table. Don't be too aggressive or the goodies will end up on the floor.
Batch 1
set basket on the ground. add more corn to the basket and 1/3 of your extras (mmmm mushrooms and andouille!). add another couple heads of garlic and about 2 lemons worth of wedges. Scoop enough angry crawfish into the basket to fill it 1/3 of the way, and top with a couple sticks of butter. submerge basket and put on lid... crawfish should be done in 10-15 minutes. pull basket, let it drip for a sec, and then dump basket contents onto table.
repeat till all the crawfish are gone! add a little more seasoning if you can bear it after the second load. If you made the first batch so hot noone can stand it, go dump out half of your water into the drain of your annoying neighbors (or the grate in the middle of your parking lot - it will seriously flush the drain!), and fill back up to half water. add butter and lemons and everything again.
The leftovers. There are always leftovers at a good boil. This is not your fault, but it is better to have too much than too little. Pick a friend that is too full, and shuck as many crawfish as you can into a bag. Use these leftover tails in soups, in omlettes, or in etoufee. HOWEVER, if you wait till tomorrow and try to shuck, it won't work as well. Crawfish are OK as leftovers all together, but you cant really do much besides eat them traditionally. Its a pain to do the day after... its easier to do when your face and hands are already burning.
The leftover garlic. This stuff is not to be underestimated! Press about a head of the leftover garlic into a small tupperware. add a little paprika, cayenne, and about 1.5 c mayo. VOILA! Spicy garlic mayo that tastes incredible on leftover crawfish po'boys.
The leftover potatoes. Whip up with a few cloves of the boiled garlic and onion for some killer garlic mashed potatoes.
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