Intro:

Louisiana is blessed with a bounty of delicious seafood, and we love getting together to enjoy it – and to swap boiling secrets! There are as many ways to boil seafood as there are cooks around here. Whether you’re boiling crawfish, shrimp or crab – or all three – the best boils start with Louisiana Fish Fry. Here are some of our secrets to help make your seafood boil special!

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Step by step

Step 1

Start with a 35-lb sack of live crawfish.

Step 2

Rinse the crawfish several times until rinse water becomes clear.

Step 3

Fill a 120-qt pot about halfway with water. Place over a high flame and bring the water to a boil.

Step 4

Add 1 large bag of Louisiana Fish Fry Boil Seasoning and 1 Louisiana Fish Fry Seed Bag.

Step 5

For added heat add 1 bottle of Louisiana Fish Fry concentrated boil and half a jar of Louisiana Fish Fry Cayenne Pepper (or to taste).

Step 6

Prepare additives: Cut up celery, halve lemons and onions, and chop off tops and bottoms of garlic bulbs. Cut sausage into pieces. Potatoes can be added whole, right in the bag.

Step 7

Once the water has come to a rolling boil, add the crawfish.

Step 8

Let the crawfish boil for about 4 minutes, then turn off the heat.

Step 9

Add 2 bags of ice to the mixture to help the flavor set.

Step 10

For less spicy crawfish, continue to soak for no more than 10-12 minutes.

Step 11

For very spicy crawfish, continue to soak for at least 20 minutes.

Step 12

Drain the crawfish and pour onto a newspaper-covered table.

Pro Tips

Clean Crawfish

Before boiling crawfish, rinse away any mud or debris, and discard any dead or inactive mudbugs. (Some say that a flat tail after cooking indicates a crawfish cooked dead, but Louisiana State University has declared this a myth!) Some cooks swear by “purging” their crawfish in a bath of salt water, but it’s not truly necessary.

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Boil, Crustaceans

Boil Crawfish

Learn to boil crawfish like a pro in this how-to video:

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Boil, Crustaceans

Custom Boil Ingredients

People get wild with add-ons to their seafood boil, from pineapples to sweet potato to artichoke. Cook each according to its density. Put delicate veggies in a laundry bag and pull them out as soon as they’re cooked.

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Boil, Crustaceans

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