Filhiol's Famous Boiled Crawdad's


This is the recipe for my boiled crawfish that I make every year for the 81st Medical Group Picnic, and other functions in our unit. The recipe has changed very little over the years, except to get better. This is for one sack (about 40 pounds) of crawf sh. They should be bought live, from a reputable dealer, and kept refrigerated or on ice until ready to purge. You will need a large pot, at least 80 quart size, and a good propane burner to fire it. You will also need a large tub/washtub to purge the crawfish in.
Purging is an important step. Depending on where your crawfish came from, they will probably have mud, dirt, leaves, sticks, etc., mixed in the sack with them. It is also a good chance to pick out the dead ones. To purge your crawfish, cut the sack ope into the tub. If your pot came with a strainer basket, put the basket into the tub, and cut the sack open into the basket--this will make the entire operation much easier. Rinse them with fresh water, and mix them around. They will dirty up the water, so change it out a few times. Once the water is staying pretty clean, you're halfway done--they are clean on the outside. To clean them out on the inside, you need to add a box of salt to their water and mix it up. Let them soak in the salt water for 3 minutes to an hour.
Now you need to set up your burner and pot. Fill the pot up halfway with water (about 10 gallons). Add the following items to spice the water:
2 boxes of salt
1 pound ground cayenne pepper
3 bags of teabag crab boil
2 cups liquid crab boil
6 oranges, sliced
6 lemons, sliced
For Deluxe crawfish, also add the following:
3 or 4 big yellow onions
6 to 12 heads of garlic
6 to 12 sticks of celery
handful bay leaves
anything else you like that will taste good with crawfish
The items above will make a nice, sweet, hot batch of tourist grade crawfish. For really hot crawdads, also add the following:
large jar of sliced jalapenos
can of Chinese Red Pepper
any other nice, hot peppers you can get your hands on (homegrown, fresh cayennes are really nice.)
Stir the ingredients up real good. The ground cayenne has a tendency to settle to the bottom if its not dissolved real good, and it wont do you any good down there. Start the burner, and bring the pot to a rolling boil.
To round out the boil, you can add the following ingredients right on top of the crawdads:
3 to 5 pounds red potatoes (buy the smallest ones you can so they will cook through)
12 to 24 ears of corn (the frozen minis work just fine)
3 to 5 pounds endless smoked sausage or kielbasa, cut into bite-size pieces
2 or 3 pounds fresh mushrooms (get the small ones)>br> a pound or two of those little peeled carrots
anything else that would taste good boiled with the crawfish
If your pot has a strainer basket, you can leave the crawfish in it, out of the tub, and let the purging water drain out of them while the pot is boiling. You can put your corn, potatoes, etc., on top of the crawdads while they wait for the pot to boil ( hey wont eat much). When the pot comes to a full, rolling, sudsy boil, its time to add the crawfish and everything else, and put the lid on the pot. Leave the burner going full blast, and wait for the water to come back to a full boil. As soon as its b iling full tilt, shut it off and remove the lid. The crawdads will be floating, and you should let them soak until they take in all the spices. This should take anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes, but you can test them periodically. Care should be taken--ev n though the fire is not on, the crawdads are still cooking. You don't want to over cook the crawdads, because the meat will stick to the shell.
When the crawdads are done, you can dump them out on a picnic table, and the guests can have at'em. Keep that big pot of hot, spicy water handy. If any of the goodies get cold, you can dunk them for a few minutes, and they will be right out of the pot f esh.

*** Paul G. Filhiol Click here to send a message