It’s crawfish time, boys and girls
This weekend I’ll be doing my 3rd annual Texas MudBug Jamboree, otherwise known as my crawfish boil. It’s a blast and I thought I would share the recipe I use, handed down to me by a crawdad king from New Orleans. It’s Scott’s Swamp Bugs:
Scott’s Swamp Bugs
This is written for someone boiling 3 sacks of crawfish. Really now, if you’re doin’ less than that, you’re not doing something right.
Ingredients
- 18 stalks of celery cut into thirds
- 9 yellow onions cut into halves
- 9 green bell peppers cut into quarters
- 27 heads of garlic
- 36 small (smallest ones you can find) red, new potatoes
- 1 flagon of liquid boil
- 3 bag of swamp boil powdered mix
- 3 large canisters of salt
- 21 lemons cut in halves
- 6 pounds lil’ smokies or sausage
- 3 packages button mushrooms
- 30 small frozen corns ears
- ¾ cup Chinese red pepper mix
- 1 gallon white vinegar
- ice
Fill your pot(s) halfway or a bit more with water. Bring to a boil.
Once at rolling boil - add the celery, onions, bell peppers, garlic, potatoes
When water comes back to boil, let it go for about 5-6 minutes.
Following that, remove all veggies to a picking tray or large platter.
Put your cleaned crawfish into the cooking basket now, return basket to the water - and put all the veggies atop the crawfish. stir to mix up, and cover.
Check to watch when steam starts rising from the pot. at that point, your crawfish are starting to cook, and the boiling time is about to begin.
As it comes to a rolling boil add 1/3 flagon of liquid boil, then add 1 bag of swamp boil powdered mix. Stir, and set cover back on. Boil for 2-3 more minutes.
At this point, add 1/2 or more of 1 large canister of salt. Cut the fire, then add the lemons, lil’ smokies, mushrooms and corn.
Stir, and spike with a 1/4 cup of powdered chinese red pepper mix.
Now, add 1/4 of a flagon of regular, white vinegar, AND, top it all off with a few big scoops of ice. This along with the frozen corn, and refrigerated sausages all help lower
the water temp, and stop the cooking. Return the cover and let soak.
Check taste at 20 minutes. Add salt or additional spice to taste, and you’ll probably want to let soak longer. Taste again in 10-15 minutes. They’re probably done now, but let taste judge.
When you think they’re ready. pull em out, and let them sit in basket on the side on the pot for a sec to cool a bit and so the excess juice will run back to the pot, saving your table from the juice onslaught.
Save the water. You can use this for at least one more boil, probably 2.
For your second boil (if using the same pot):
Bring water to boil, repeat process with veggies, boil 5-6 minutes, add crawdads, return to boil, boil for 5 minutes, you’ll want to add more liquid boil - perhaps 1/4 of a flagon, maybe another 1/2 bag of swampfire, and salt to taste - best bet is to sip the water (let it cool first fellas, just scoop some into a cup, let it cool and dip some french bread in it to taste, or take a sip). If too salty, don’t add anymore.
Again, add lemons, sausage, shrooms, frozen corns, ice at the end. Cover and let soak. Repeat for a 3rd boil.
Have plenty of whole milk unsalted butter on the tables, plenty of saltine crackers - use this as a lil butter, a smack of smashed garlic, a crawfish tail - and bask in the delight of that lil creation of a dish.
Now you might ask, what do you use to actually do the boil? You need a large pot, a basket, and some heat.
My setup is the King Kooker 80 qt aluminum pot with basket. For the flame, I use their jet burner and propane for fuel. It’ll boil 50 quarts of water in 15 minutes easy.
You’ll want a metal washtub and a plastic basket with holes for washing off the bugs. A large laundry basket works well, as does something like a 60 quart plastic basket with holes in it. Dump the sack of crawfish into the basket, submerge most of them in the plastic tub and rock it back and forth to rinse them off. After they’re mostly clean, and you’ve removed any dead ones or non-crawfish items, you’re ready to cook ‘em.
