New Orleans Crawfish Boil

Instructions

1. Pour the sack of live crawfish in a plastic children’s pool, large tub, or a large ice chest.
2. If using live craw fish Purge in saltwater for 1 day and change water a couple hours before, thoroughly wash the crawfish before boiling them.
3. Pour 1/2 bx. box salt over the top of the crawfish.
4. Add water to just cover the crawfish.
5. Gently stir with a large paddle to mix the salt and the water, then rinse crawfish.
6. Be careful not to let them purge too long.
7. You do not want them to be dead when you add them to the boil.
8. Throw away all crawfish that have already died
9. (the dead crawfish should float to the top).
10. Boiling Crawfish:
11. In a large (60- to 80-gallon) pot over high heat,
12. add enough water to fill a little more than halfway.
13. Squeeze the juice out of the lemon halves into the water and
14. throw the lemon halves into the water.
15. Add cayenne pepper and crawfish boil seasoning. Bring mixture to a boil 2 to 3 minutes to allow the spices to mix well.
16. place bay leaves, potatoes, onions, mushrooms and garlic.
17. In the basket in the boiling water, and boil these vegetables and seasonings for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
18. Add crawfish to the wire basket, stirring them a bit.
19. Once the water starts a rolling boil again, boil 5 minutes. Regulate the burner so the rolling boil is maintained, but where the pot does not boil over. Turn the burner off,
20. add corn and smoked or andouille sausage,
21. stir, and keep covered for 5-20 minutes.
22. and let the crawfish soak for 20 to 30 minutes.
23. The longer the crawfish are left to stand like this (in excess of 5 minutes), the more seasoned and spicy they will be.
24. Start sampling (tasting) the crawfish after 5 minutes (of standing) to achieve the desired taste and consistency.
25. Personally, I recommend that you let the crawfish stand covered until they begin to sink,
26. Remove from pot. Serve up on newspaper for all to dig in.