Cooking Recipe Patout'S Boiled Crawfish
Recipe Ingredients
FOR THE BOIL
SPRINKLE
Directions
Alex Patout describes Crawfish as "a delicacy made for sharing-- in
fact, in Cajun country, boiling crawfish for only two people counts
as a venial sin." Wash the crawfish well and pick out any fish bones
or other debris. Fill a great big (40-quart) Stockpot a quarter full
of water. Add the salt and peppers and bring to boil. Add the whole
onions, the corn, and the new potatoes (it will be easy to remove
them later if you put them in a cloth sack). Return to boil, cover,
lower heat to medium, and let cook for 8 minutes. Add crawfish,
cover again and raise heat to high. After steam begins to escape from
under the lid, cook 7 minutes more. Remove from heat and let sit for
4 minutes. Do *NOT* remove the lid until this point!
Remove the onions, corn, and potatoes to a bowl and drain the
crawfish. Place the crawfish in a large insulated container (an ce
chest works well, as do the thick waterproof boxes chickens are
shipped in, which your butcher may give you for free). Have your
*SPRINKLE* ready and sprinkle over the crawfish and mix them well to
coat. Cover and let sit for 7 minutes.
Serve immediately with the onions, corn, new potatoes, and lots of
French bread on a large table covered with plenty of paper. When
everyone has eaten his fill, everyone "peels for the house." The
peeled tails can then be used in cold crawfish cocktail or salad or
for Fried Crawfish the next day. Serves 8-10 NOTE: Most of the salt
is not added until after the cooking process because too much salt
added during cooking makes the flesh of the crawfish adhere to the
shell. From Alex Patout's "Cajun Home Cooking" -- Random House