I'm going crawfish diving, need recipes.

I'm going up to Lake Tahoe in July and there is a ton of great crawfish in that lake that the authorities would love for people to remove. The lake is 6200 ft elevation and fairly clear - 75' vis average. As far as I know by looking at the regs there is nbo season and no limit. The bugs are clean and good, and big.
There are millions of them.
I plan to make a day out of setting traps and also grabbing as many as I can get while scuba diving off my kayak.
I'll bring the biggest pot I have and my burner to boil them. We're going to have one hell of a crawdad eatin and beer drinkin fest after.
My question is, are there any Louisiana (New Orleans - Creole's - or Southerners in general) around here that might have a really great crawdad boil recipe they'd be willing to share?
I have some Zatarain's crab and crawfish boil, but I don't know if somebody might have an old family recipe that's home made that's better.
Or maybe I should do something else with them? Like a sautee' with white wine garlic butter, or crawfish omelette?

P.S. The trade is if you ever come out this way, I take you abalone diving and we have an abalone feast afterward on the beach...with the best micro brew or wine the region has to offer...and that is about the best in the world.

Crawfish Boil Recipe : Alton Brown : Food Network

Take a little of the water out and add a nice hoppy beer.

Everyone's Taste is different so Alter to Taste.

Boiling Soup
5 TBS Butter
1 Large whole white or yellow Onion Sliced or Diced
4 cloves of garlic minced
1lb Louisiana Crawfish Boil Powder
1-2 Gallon of Tampico Citrus Juice (Sweetened orange juice can be used)
4 whole Oranges sliced
½ - 1 cup of Sugar

In a medium boil pot, melt 2 TBS of butter, add ½ of pre sliced/diced onion and 1 clove of garlic minced and sauté till clear and aromatic. Add 2TBS of Sugar, 2 TSP of Crawfish Boil Powder. Give it a quick stir a few times. Add ½ gallon of Tampico. Add Orange slices and bring to boil. Add live crawfish and boil until cooked.

I typically don’t like to boil in huge amounts as the bottom will be overcooked by the time everything is cooked so my pots are about 10-12 quarts. This is about enough for about 3lbs at a time. I cook in batches which keeps Crawfish hot.

Sauce Mix

In a medium sauce pan, melt 3 TBS of butter, add ½ of pre sliced/diced onion and 4 cloves of minced garlic and sauté till clear and aromatic. Add 2TBS of Sugar, 4 TSP of Crawfish Boil Powder. Add about 1 cup of Tampico and boil. Add more sugar or crawfish boil to taste depending on if you like it really sweet or really salty & spicy. Add Cayenne pepper if you want more spicy but not salty as the crawfish boil is typically a lot of salt.
Pour this mixture on top of crawfish when you take them out of boiler and put it in a tray. Shake up and eat up. This makes it sweet and spicy.

---------- Post added June 17th, 2014 at 02:51 PM ----------

Personally I don't like just boiling it in Zataran's or other crawfish boils as its just too salty. The orange juice/oranges helps take away the odor that crawfish has.

White wine garlic butter sounds good too. However its light in tastes which may or may not kill the muddy smell of the crawfish..

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.

Well, being born and raised here in South Louisiana I figured I'd throw in my version for what it's worth, which may not be much...

Personally, I think most people dump way too much crap in a crawfish boil.

- I usually steer clear of anything Zatarans due to their overuse of MSG in everything they produce. Many cajun seasoning brands rely to heavily on MSG IMO. If you need MSG, you don't know how to cook.
- I don't like butter or oils in the boil, too greasy.
- Salting the boil water too heavily will make the meat and peeling a bit more tough (this is not scientifically proven, just seem to notice this personally).
- I like a short boil with not too much seasoning in the water, then put in ice chest (cooler) and dust the crawfish with seasoning to finish and let steam. There are a few methods, I have settled on this one because the meat does not get over cooked and tends to be more tender. Keeps them warm for a long time. If you can find a seasoning that is ground finer that is better, it will melt down into the crawfish easier. We finally started making our own seasoning on occasion, oh and dark beer too . Defalco's rocks! Anyway, don't have a good documented recipe, seems like pot luck each time. Need to work on that. So use what you have I guess.

Steps:
1. Put crawfish in basket (we use big pots with baskets).
2. Put the basket in the pot then fill with water up around the top of the crawfish, a little lower no big deal, don't go higher than the fish.
3. Pull basket and bring to boil, adding initial low amount of seasoning to water.
4. When water gets to rolling boil, dunk the crawdads (cover your ears if you have a weak stomach, they scream a lot).
5. The water will cease to boil, but keep the heat on full until it gets to a boil again.
6. Once it is boiling again, time for 3 minutes and then pull the basket out.
7. Dump a thin layer (3-4") of crawfish from the basket into the cooler and dust and squeeze a lemon or two on top, then add another layer and dust, and lemon until all crawfish are in the cooler.
8. Close the cooler and shake it up, shake it two or three time during the steam process.
9. After 20 min of steaming in the cooler server em up.
10. Repeat until you are out of fish.

Your second and third batches will get more seasoned due to the build up of fluid and seasoning in the cooler as you add batches. Serve the pansies first, the macho men last.
As far as all the veggies etc, we throw them in the sack the fish came in and boil them lightly in that, then steam with the fish. In my experience this can include anything from onion, lemon, artichoke, sausage, potatoes, carrots, shoes, tires, mask, snorkel etc.... It can get really out of hand.
My favorite dip is plain horse radish and ketchup about 50/50 (did I mention I love wasabi), I'm not a big fan of mayo personally. Sometimes add a little worcestershire.

Dreamwrx's version sounds interesting.


Edit:
I was typing when Nogoslow posted. That is some good info

Yeah Scubadude, I add the butter and oil because it helps them come out of the shell easier and 1stick of butter and half cup of veg oil, to around ten gallons of water in a pot is not enough to make it greasy. I have friends that pour the seasoning on top while in the cooler but I never really prefer that method cause I like to suck the juice out of the bugs and don't like having outer lips and face full of seasonings. I guess it would make more sense to use a finer powder though. I also don't add salt because the powder has plenty of it already. I also do not care for the boil in bag seasonings except for shrimp occasionally but that is just my preference.

---------- Post added June 18th, 2014 at 08:07 AM ----------

It is pretty hard to mess up a good crawfish boil and I will eat it any way it is cooked.

Very simple------catch 'em, boil 'em, then eat 'em by sucking the heads.........btw, crawfish season is OVA in south Louisiana.......

I'll have to print all this stuff out.
Lot's of GREAT info.

I know crawfish is almost a religion in the south and I'd get some great stuff.

If you print it all out your are opening a Pandora's Box of indecision.
In the end, it's just like diving, it's just like Gumbo. Do what works for you without killing yourself

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.