Thirty pounds of live crawfish make a sound. I didn't know that until Saturday morning, when Matt set the mesh sack down on our patio and it started rustling like a pile of dry leaves with opinions. Biscuit barked at it for ten solid minutes, then lay down in front of it like he'd been hired to guard it.
It was our first crawfish boil, and we didn't start small: sixteen people, thirty pounds of crawfish, and a borrowed pot. Here's how it went, what I'd change, and what it cost, which was $236.
The boil was Dan's idea. Dan works with Matt, and he and Erin have been at every cookout we've thrown for years. Dan has been to more crawfish boils than I worked weddings, and he owns the equipment: an 80-quart pot with a strainer basket, a propane burner and a wooden paddle that belongs on a canoe. He lent us all three and stayed to run the pot, which was the real gift.
The guest list: the five of us, Tuan and Lisa Nguyen and their two girls from across the street, Kristen and Ryan with Cody and Avery, Dan and Erin, and Mrs. Patterson from next door, who told me she was coming "for the potatoes."
Buying thirty pounds of something alive
I ordered a sack from a seafood market about twenty minutes away, and Matt picked it up Saturday at ten: just about 30 pounds at $5.49 a pound, $164.70. The man at the counter told him to keep them cool and damp, and not to dump them in standing water, because they'll use up the oxygen and drown. So the sack sat in the shade of the live oak under a wet towel until three.
Right before cooking, Dan and Wyatt rinsed them in a big storage tub with the hose, changing the water until it ran mostly clear, and picked out the few that weren't moving. Dan doesn't purge with salt. He says it mostly stresses everybody out, and I wasn't about to argue with the man holding the paddle.
The boil
We cooked two batches of about 15 pounds each, roughly like this:
- Fill the pot a little over halfway and add half the seasoning, four halved lemons, three heads of garlic and two quartered onions. Bring it to a hard boil, about 25 minutes.
- Potatoes first, five pounds of small red ones, for 15 minutes.
- Corn and sausage next: four ears snapped in half and two pounds of smoked sausage in chunks, for 5 minutes.
- Crawfish in. Back to a boil, 3 minutes, then cut the flame.
- Soak, which is where the flavor goes in. Dan threw in a few scoops of ice to stop the cooking and pulled one out every five minutes to taste.
- Drain, and pour it all down the middle of the table.
The table was two folding tables pushed together and covered in brown H-E-B paper bags, split open and taped down, because I'd forgotten to buy butcher paper. They were perfect: thick, absorbent and free. I've saved those bags for two years for no particular reason, and on Saturday they finally had one.
What I'd change
The first batch was underseasoned. We'd filled the pot too full, which spread the seasoning thin, and Dan cut the soak short because a dozen people were standing around the table staring at him. For the second batch he added seasoning and let it soak a full 25 minutes, and it was spicy, garlicky and hot enough that Ryan went looking for the lemonade. Next time I'll buy more seasoning than the bag suggests and let the crowd wait.
I'd also boil a separate pot of plain corn and potatoes for the kids from the start. Eli wouldn't touch a crawfish. He looked one in the eye for a long time, named it Kevin, and asked if Kevin could live in the tub. He ate a hot dog off the kettle, and Rosie ate plain corn from a pot I boiled in the kitchen once I tasted the first batch.
Dan taught Wyatt to peel: pinch, twist off the tail, squeeze. Wyatt tried the head once, made a face, and did it again. Cody ate what Ryan estimated was five pounds by himself. The Nguyen girls held a peeling race. Mrs. Patterson ate three crawfish to be polite and a plate of potatoes because she meant it.
What it cost
- 30 pounds of live crawfish at $5.49: $164.70
- Ten pounds of red potatoes, eight ears of corn, four pounds of smoked sausage, six heads of garlic, eight lemons, three pounds of onions and a 4.5-pound bag of boil seasoning: $46.30
- Three bags of ice and a propane refill: $25.00
That's $236, about $14.75 a person, for a party that ran until the porch light came on. Kristen brought drinks, Erin brought banana pudding, Lisa brought cut fruit, and Mrs. Patterson brought her lemon pound cake, as always.
The shells went to the curb in doubled contractor bags, Dan's pot went home scrubbed, and the yard smelled like cayenne until Sunday night's storms. On Sunday morning Matt asked what a pot like Dan's costs. I told him our pot costs a dozen cookies delivered to Dan every time we borrow it, and that it's the best-priced line in the whole spreadsheet.
