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Back when I did my review of Cajun Grocer’s Turducken in November, Charlie asked me if I would like to do a review of their Live Louisiana Crawfish when the season came around. Hmm…live Louisiana crawfish, for free? Let me think about it…..just kidding, of course!
Thanks a million to Charlie and the folks at Cajun Grocer for sending such a generous portion of a superior product, and all I had to do was just write about it, which I do for fun anyway!
I contacted Charlie from Cajun Grocer last week and he asked me when I planned on boiling them and I said Saturday, he suggested shipping them Thursday for Friday and keeping them someplace cool with a bag of ice on them until I was ready to boil on Saturday, this worked out perfectly. The crawfish arrived early Friday morning and I promptly did as he said, hosed them down in the sack, and placed them into a cooler with a bag of ice over them. I peeked around through the purple sack in awe of the size of some of the little devils, as their beady little eyes watched me as well.
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When Saturday rolled around I hosed them down again and placed them back into the cooler, again covered with ice. I invited my brother Brad and his girlfriend Heather over for a boil, the 15 lbs would be more than enough for the four of us, you see, up in Michigan folks don’t crush the 5-8 pounds that can be standard in Louisiana.
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I got my liquid boiling away (my crawfish boil recipe) in the afternoon in a 30 quart Turkey Fryer with a basket insert at the ready. I cut my onions, lemons, garlic, corn, washed the new potatoes and headed out to cut the sack open and sort through the critters to remove any casualties from travel and time, and I was pleased to find that there were very few dead ones, and in fact the majority were extremely feisty.
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Even more impressive than than how feisty they were, was their size, varying from medium to gargantuan like this one.
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I picked through them one by, sorting them in my 2 1/2 year old daughters wading pool, as she watched in horror. “In my poool!!! in my pool!!”
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After I got them sorted I washed them several times by first hosing them down, then leaving them in the basket and placing it into a large pot, filling it with water, draining, filling with water, draining, until the remaining water was eventually clean, about 3-4 times. Clean and ready for the boil!
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Coming next, the Crawfish Boil Recipe using Cajun Grocer’s Crawfish!
Related Posts:
Preview Pic!
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Be sure to check out my ever growing Index of Creole & Cajun Recipes whick links to every recipe featured on Nola Cuisine!
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Hey there! I am so happy I stumbled on your site a couple months ago. I grew up in Mobile, AL and made several annual pilgrimages to NOLA. I love that city! I haven’t been back in about 5 years, so I haven’t seen post-Katrina New Orleans. Your posts are so much fun, and I can’t wait to try out some of your recipes and recommendations! Thanks and keep up the good work!
15lbs is just about enough for me… in one sitting 🙂 I know… I lurve me some crawfish. I’m dying to try this, but nobody else in my family will eat mud bugs… I guess I need to make a few new friends.
That is one big crawfish! This looks great, I’m seriously thinking about having a crawfish boil, if only to blow some Ohioans minds!
I just got back from New Orleans, Cochon was amazing, as was Lukes.
We’ll be having crawfish this Saturday. We’ve done it the Saturday before Easter for about 20 years now.
Oh man, we ordered Cajun Grocer’s crawfish last summer and weren’t disappointed either. We’ve already planned an even bigger order for this summer! Looking forward to the second half of your tale. 🙂
i’ve ordered from LA Crawfish Company last year and the year before, and I will again this year. LA Crawfish gives you the option of having them shipped to a local airport for cheaper than the FedEx rate. In 2007, i chose this option, since i was getting 60lbs (i think i ended up paying $2.95/lb — shipping is included in all prices. Crawfish get bigger and cheaper the later you get in the season which starts around January and ends around July, I do a memorial day boil). You tell them which airport, and if its one that they ship it to, they’ll do it. only problem is, say you want them to ship them on friday for a saturday boil — your airport might not be open on saturday! You have to make the calls to make sure of that — in the ny area, its best to use newark, which is open 24/7 — i had requested laguardia before i figured this all out, and it was a pain to re-route it)
last year i just had 15lbs FedEx’d to me. both times the crawfish were huge and I didn’t find a single dead one — except for one that was crushed under the weight of 60lbs of his compatriots.
Amazing post Danno, your pics are supreme. Went by Butcher to get Link’s book, he wasn’t there and I wanted it autographed personally, so I’ll go back. I did see it though… amazing. Dem mudbugs sho’ am look good!
We just had in the paper a couple of months ago where someone had released some of these crawdads into some ponds in Wisconsin. They were treated as an invasive species and poisoned out. I wish they would have told me before hand, cause I would have trapped as many as I could.
Hi, I would like permission to use one or two of these photos for a painting. I don’t want to have to wait a year for crawfish season to take the photos myself! The composition of some of these are exquisite and they fit very well with a series of Cajun food paintings that I am focusing on right now.