Quote:
Originally Posted by primereefaquatics
I do the same thing except I do boiled shrimp. When we were growing up and being since there were 7 children of us instead of each of us having a birthday party we would just have a great big shrimp boil meal in the month of our birthday. I think I am the only one in the family which keeps u[ the tradition. (I guess it's because all my brothers and sisters are so cheap they don't want to buy the shrimp lol). Anyway, we did go crawdad fishing all the time but we couldn't stomach eating the whole crawdad. We just ate the TAILS!!!
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Well, I don't suck the heads either. I guess I lived up north too long.
I am only 75% Cajun, so I had to draw the line somewhere. I have tried it and it and depending on who cooks them, it can be extremely hot, because there is a lot of seasoning in there. You have to almost over season crawfish to get the seasoning to the meat in the tail.
It has almost gotten cheaper to buy them already boiled nowadays. That's how we get them anyway. We have drive through crawfish places where you just drive up tell them how many pounds you want and you are on your way home to eat them in minutes. Hard to beat getting them that way. I used to boil them all the time, but since these drive in places started popping up, it is just simpler to go get them already prepared - and you don't have as big of a mess.
There isn't really that much to it. The secret is seasoning the water to start off with. I use rock salt, lemons, lemon juice, sometimes even oranges, onions, cayenne pepper, crab boil (either liquid or the sacks) - and a stick of butter. The butter helps the tail meat squeeze out when you pinch the tail. Doesn't take long to boil them - only a few minutes until the shells turn red. You don't want to boil them too long, because the they get tough and difficult to peel. If you cook them right, you should be able to pull off the head and just pinch the end of the tail and the meat will pop out. More labor intensive if you over boil them.
After you get them out of the pot, just dump them out on a picnic table on some newspaper and sprinkle them pretty heavily with Tony's Creole Seasoning. The seasoning gets on your fingers and is just an added punch when you eat them.
Don't forget the corn on the cob and the new (red) potatoes. They are really best done before the seasoning is added to the crawfish pot or in a separate pot. You can easily over season them in the crawfish water - primarily with salt. Man, I am getting hungry for crawfish all of a sudden.