I'm going crawfish diving, need recipes.

[dreamwrx]

BOIL THEY!!!!!! Heaven forbid.
Remove the tails with the shell on, split the shell on top most of the way down then place them on a charcoal (no gas please) fire and baste with garlic butter until just done.

That's too much work for crawfish... I do this for Lobsters though..

 

[bushog01]

Eric,
I am from Nawlins' and in Carson City until september or so. I brought my dive gear with me (advanced open water w/ PADI) to dive Tahoe. Anyway, I have yet to dive out this way and would love to snag some crawfish if you are good with that. My dive buddy is also here for the same time frame. Here is my email so let me know something and we can have one hell of a party. geauxasv33@gmail.com. My name is Ben. Thanks GEAUX TIGERS!!!

 

[cb5150]

I grew up in Port Aransas, Texas, so personally I'm a shrimp guy not a crawfish guy. However, I seem to have found myself in Houston for the last few years, surrounded by a bunch of Katrina refugees who love to talk about eating crawfish and cheering for LSU. They are truly a strange and ugly bunch of folks, but they do seem friendly enough.

Anyway...I noticed that none of the above posters mention "purging" the crawfish before boiling. All of these crazy cajuns I'm surrounded by make a big deal out of "purging" those damn bugs. Just sayin'

Anyway, ya'll enjoy your bugs. I'll stick to fried shrimp and cold beer.

 

[Darkforeboding]

BOIL THEY!!!!!! Heaven forbid.
Remove the tails with the shell on, split the shell on top most of the way down then place them on a charcoal (no gas please) fire and baste with garlic butter until just done.

I agree with herman! Best ones I remember were caught by hand and done over a campfire as a Boy Scout!

DFB

 

[briankinley2004]

Boiling them is great but they are also good fried on a poboy, cooked in an e'touffe or made into a cream sauce and served over grilled fish, etc. I grew up on what we called a bisque. My grand dad would mix the tail meat with bread crumbs, green onions and other spices and stuff into the cleaned heads. Much like a stuffed crab. he would then pan fry and make a "gravy" to serve with them. Rice is a must.

 

[sawfish]

I grew up in Port Aransas, Texas, so personally I'm a shrimp guy not a crawfish guy. However, I seem to have found myself in Houston for the last few years, surrounded by a bunch of Katrina refugees who love to talk about eating crawfish and cheering for LSU. They are truly a strange and ugly bunch of folks, but they do seem friendly enough.

Anyway...I noticed that none of the above posters mention "purging" the crawfish before boiling. All of these crazy cajuns I'm surrounded by make a big deal out of "purging" those damn bugs. Just sayin'

Anyway, ya'll enjoy your bugs. I'll stick to fried shrimp and cold beer.

ABSOLUTELY! Unless you like eating mud. Wash the live crawfish in clean water. Change the water and add two boxes of salt. This forces the crawfish to regurgitate the mud in their gills. In many cases, the purge water will be black with mud. Wash the crawfish again and repeat the process until the water is clear, then boil as usual. This is for a sack of crawfish (about forty pounds). Those Lake Tahoe crawfish will probably need only one purging.

 

[Peter_C]

I don't know anyone that purges Tahoe crawfish, but I don't eat crawfish so what do I know. Most of the places they are pulled from are gravel bottoms not mud. The water is clean enough to drink too.

There is a way to remove the tail, and pull the entrails out at the same time though. My mom has it down to a science.

So did you already go to Tahoe Eric? It should have been or will be easy to collect 100 of the little critters, especially if you use a trap.

Bruce and Keith grabbed a bunch on one of the NCD trips.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I don't know anyone that purges Tahoe crawfish, but I don't eat crawfish so what do I know. Most of the places they are pulled from are gravel bottoms not mud. The water is clean enough to drink too.

There is a way to remove the tail, and pull the entrails out at the same time though. My mom has it down to a science.

So did you already go to Tahoe Eric? It should have been or will be easy to collect 100 of the little critters, especially if you use a trap.

Bruce and Keith grabbed a bunch on one of the NCD trips.

View attachment 189133

I'm going up this weekend.
I got hold of an old Swedish recipe which I remember from when I was a kid. My Swedish mother used to cook them this way. Unfortunately the Swedes wiped out all their crawdads to extinction, so we used to have huge crawfish feasts when my grandparents visited from Sweden because they missed them so much.
They were boiled with fresh dill and salt with a few other things, very simple. We just peeled and ate. I don't remember any sauces or other foofy ways to prepare them.

Yes Tahoe crawfish are very clean and don't stink.
I got one of those collapsible traps that turns into a cylinder. I'm going to set it with liver then run a float up that's submerged about 10 feet below the surface. I'll mark it with a hand held GPS. I'll also be using my kayak. Next day I'll locate it and freedive down to get it.
I'm also bringing a bunch of tanks and I have a canvas lobster goody bag and a small hand net to catch them. So while the trap is working somewhere I'm grabbin em somewhere else. I'm hoping to fill a 5 gal bucket about 1/2 way, shouldn't be hard.

 

[Zznola]

This is one of my specialties. I live in Arkansas and work about 6 months out of the year in Baton Rouge LA, and have a lot of co workers from Mississippi and Louisiana and we do big crawfish boils a lot, I have cooked around 200 lbs just this year so far. I don't know how big of a pot you have but I usually use between a 100 or 120 quart pot to boil a whole 35 lb. sack at a time. I use 4.5 lbs bag of Louisiana powder and 6-8 oz. of liquid boil, 1 stick of butter, 1/2 cup veg oil, about half a jar of minced garlic and about 3 or 4 sliced lemons. I fill my pot about half full of water add all ingredients except crawfish and bring to a rolling boil for about 15 minutes and then shut it off and let it sit for about 20 minutes. This gives all of the seasoning time to mingle and let the water absorb all of the salts and seasonings. Also stir it with a small paddle a few times during and after the boiling process.

It makes a big difference when you do this for the first batch. While I am getting my water ready I start prepping my other veggies to put in it. You can add what you like but here are things I put in it. Baby red potatoes (poke a fork in the side to help it cook faster and take in seasoning), smokes sausage ( cut into 2-3in. pieces ), hot dogs for the kids, corn on the cob, mushrooms (the corn and mushrooms with be very spicey and soak up a lot of the heat). Also have put broccoli florets and onion quartered up that is really good for those who like it.

After you let the seasonings mingle fire up your burner and get it to a rolling boil and add all the extras in before the crawfish and boil for 5 minutes then add your crawfish ( this would also be the time to add the broccoli because it cooks fast and gets soggy). Once you have added the mud bugs bring to a rapid boil and boil for 4 minutes then shut off your fire keep the lid on and let it soak for 15 to 25 minutes Note: your crawfish will still be cooking during the soak time and that is why the boil time is so short.

Be sure you start your timer after the crawfish start boiling real good and at 4 min. it should be floating pretty high in the pot, then you soak them until they sink ( that is when they have absorbed all of the juice.) The longer the soak the hotter (spicier) they get. If you want them to be real juicy you can boil them for 5 min. instead of 4 min. and add a bag of ice to the pot as soon as you shut it off and that will make them stop cooking and suck the juice in faster and reduce the soak time.

This is what I know about boiling crawfish Cajun style and there is a hundred ways to do it but this works well for me and my 40 man crew. I will start another post next on what to do with leftovers!

Hope this may help.

---------- Post added June 17th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ----------

When I have a lot of left overs from a boil I peel the remaining tails and keep them chilled. My favorite thing to do with them is, make crawfish etouffee (Ay-two-Fay).


Ingredients


1lbs peeled crawfish tails

one tsp black pepper

one table spoon of creole seasoning (I like Tony Chachere)

one large onion chopped

one large bell pepper chopped

Two sticks of butter

three stalks of green onion chopped

two tablespoons of minced garlic

about 1/2 cup of flour give or take

one can cream of mushroom soup


In a stock pot melt your butter and add onion and bell pepper and bring to a simmer stirring frequently. When the bell pepper starts to get a little softer add your minced garlic and green onion and continue to simmer until the onion and bell pepper starts to brown and then start slowly adding flour, stirring with a wisk until it starts to thicken and soaks up all of the butter. keep adding flour until it gets to thick to stir easy and then add about 3 cups of water to thin it back down.

Next add your cream of mushroom soup and stir well if it is to thick slowly add water until it has a desired consistency, it should be about like a gravy, next add your crawfish tails and about a teaspoon of black pepper, a tablespoon of creole seasoning and simmer for 10 minutes. Now you are done, Serve over rice!

Note: You are making a blonde roux with the flour so you are not trying to really brown it to much.

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---------- Post added August 3rd, 2014 at 09:44 PM ----------

Excellent method and description!..exactly the way I would do it. I don't always let it come all the way to the boil though. Although some say its important to.


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