crawfish boil

WhatIWore: Last night we did something really fun - a crawfish boil! My coastal readers might have these every weekend, but believe it or not, this was my first time!! We are in the middle of the Midwest afterall! I asked our host to tell me more about how he put it together, so here’s the scoop!

crawfish boil

First things first, you need live crawfish, which you can order online. I did a little looking around and saw the huge batch David had came from Louisiana Crawfish. Next you need some BIG pots and a heat source for boiling everything. Along with the crawfish, our boil had corn on the cob, potatoes, cauliflower, mushrooms and aligator sausage. The real key though is the seasoning! I couldn’t put my finger (or tastebuds?) on the specific spices, but take my word for it - it’s delicious! David told me that you need both ‘boil oil’ and seasoning (not too little, not too much) because it’s all about the spice (which also gives the veggies amazing flavor!)

The actual cooking is something like this - boil the batch for 11 minutes and then let cool and absorb more of the spices for another 20 minutes. You want the water to come down to 150 degrees and our cook used ice to speed up the process.

crawfish boil

When time to serve, set up some big tables, spread out newspapers and pour the drained goodness on top! We sat on haystacks and dug in! Luckily other guests knew what they were doing and gave the rest of us lessons on how to get the meat out of the shell (an easy to learn, yet complicated combination of twist, squeeze, slurp, squeeze, etc).

crawfish boil