Anybody ever done a crab boil?

[shroomgirl]

I thought you guys realized that a crab boil is an event.....the longer the seasoned water boils the more flavor the spices impart.....In southern Louisiana we would plan on several hours.....drinking beer all the while of course. Shoot I figure that's why there are so many men boiling/cooking whole pigs....it's a beer bonding experience.
Let the crabs/shrimp/crawfish absorb alot of the seasonings.....ummm and make alot of B potatoes, the potato salad you'll make the next day with these spicy numbers is incredible!!!!!
J

[MikeLM]

Of course a turkey fryer - it's just a big pot - will boil the **** out of crabs. It's usually over a 70,000 btu burner. It's a lot safer filled with spiced water rather than with boiling oil for the turkeys.

I've boiled crabs in Boston, in tidewater Virginia, in Houston, in California, and in Seattle. (The last three using Dungeness crab, which make the famed East Coast Blue Crab seem anorexic.) Go to Asian markets for reasonably-priced Dungeness. Since discovering the Dungeness, I've said you can sit down to a bushel of cooked Blue Crabs and starve to death while you're trying to get at the meat!

Actually the best crab "boil" was worked out in Houston by my son, using the Asian-market Dungeness: he euthanizes the crabs in the turkey fryer pot in water spiced to your taste, but does not cook them fully. He then lets them cool enough to clean, and takes them apart, thoroughly cracks the legs and body parts, and slathers these with a slurry of butter/olive oil and LOTS of fresh garlic all ground up in a food processor. Don't forget some Cayenne pepper.

Massage the slurry over the cracked crab parts so as much as possible gets through the broken shell into the meat. Finish for a few minutes on the BBQ grill. A little smoke is nice- we liked pecan wood.

Serve with the usual accompniaments- tossed green salad and crusty bread toasted with the same garlic slurry, and lots of paper towels.

Mike

[jenni belle]

I have a question about the shrimp boil. I'd like to do one for my family as it's something they have never nor will ever do. It's not something that happens in Colorado very often! Getting good quality ingredients will be difficult for me, but I'll see what I can do!

Anyway, to my question! I have never participated in such a fantastic sounding event, and would like to know if your non-seafood items end up tasting 'fishy' as they all cook together. There are a few members of my family that do not like seafood, but would scarf down the sausages, potatoes & corn as long as they didn't taste fishy! Can someone help me out?

[panini]

JB,
The shrimp only takes minutes. Cook the other items first, pull some for the non shrimp guests, and cook the shrimp.
We have annual mudbug and shrimp boils. We have two large pots. I do the others items first, put into pans leaving a well in the center. Cover and then the shrimp, dump in the middle and add the last FIRE spice

[MikeLM]

Jenni...

"There are a few members of my family that do not like seafood, but would scarf down the sausages, potatoes & corn as long as they didn't taste fishy! Can someone help me out?"

Crabs are not, after all, fish. They don't seem to impart much of their flavor to the accompniments (sp?) since the spices and flavorings are pretty strong. I think you could try this on your benighted relatives without much danger of offending them. You can eat the good stuff - the crabs - and they can have the trimmings.

Who knows? They could get used to one kind of sea-dweller and maybe move on to some others!

Mike

[SushiGaijin]

wow, it seems like a lot of people here are overcooking their crabs(IMO). An average pot of boiling water, filled with an average amount of blue crabs (not overcrowded) will be cooked in about 8 minutes after the crabs hit the water. Any longer is overcooked. In our 60q stock pots, three dozen cook in 8 minutes. usually the water does not return to a boil, our wolf black iron simply does not pump out enough BTUs to boil the water again. Dungeness are finished in 10 minutes. lobsters are finished in 10 minutes. Again, the water does not usually return to a boil.

as far as flavoring goes, nothign that you add to the water can effect the flavor of the lobster/crab/crayfish, since they are a closed system and flavor neither escapes or enters. HOWEVER, the spices etc added to the water DO effect the flavor of the corn or potatoes that are cooked in the same water.

my advice: get a turkey frier up to a boil and cook the crabs in reasonable batches for 8 minutes each. Be warned: with blue crabs you DO sit down hungry and get up tired.

good luck!!

Erik.