Seafood Boil

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A seafood boil is a great summertime party food that’s as much fun to make as it is to eat. All the prep is done in advance and then all that’s left is the cooking. My family – especially my dad – absolutely loves this meal. Here’s a good base, but it’s easy to change up the seafood or the veggies to whatever your family likes. The amounts of seafood I have here should feed up to 4 people. Here’s what I use for the seasoning part, and you can adjust the amounts or leave them out based on how spicy you want your boil to be.

• This is about a medium heat range, depending now how hot your spices are:
• 1/3+ cup of seafood seasoning
• 1 1/2 tbs. salt
• 1 tbs. blackening seasoning
• 1 tsp. cayenne
• 1 tsp. paprika
• black pepper/bay leaves
• 2-3 lemons quartered
• 1-2 yellow onions sliced
• 4-6 cloves of garlic
• water and one beer of your choice (optional)

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Mix the spices together and quarter/slice the lemons and onions. You can do all this ahead of time and keep the spices covered and the rest stashed in the fridge until you are ready.

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I tend to like smaller shrimp for a boil (the size would be like 21-30 per lb.). They seem to taste better to me. I also like to find deveined, easy peel shrimp that you can usually find frozen – yes frozen are fine for this but I defrost them in the fridge before hand. I live in the middle of the country so my choices are limited and good quality frozen shrimp are great. I really prefer my shrimp deveined, but you can use whatever shell status or size shrimp you prefer. It’s your food after all. 🙂 I do cut the lobster tails in half just to make them easier to pull out of the shell after they are cooked. Nothing else to do to them or the crab legs. I just make sure they are mostly defrosted and rinsed off.

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Traditionally a boil contains a sausage, corn and some sort of potato. I use a local sausage that I like (smoked) and sweet corn that I shuck and break in half. Wash the potatoes and you are ready to go.

The reason I like to do these is because you can have your guest around and participate if making this meal. We do this outside on the driveway in a huge pot with a strainer inside. Just use caution and follow your manufacturer’s directions.

Start the boil with about 3 quarts of water and the beer over medium high heat. Add the dry seasoning mix and the lemons, onion and garlic. Let this come up to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. This builds the base for the rest of the ingredients.

You will need add the rest of the meal in stages, starting with thing things that take the longest to cook. Potatoes first. Try to find some that are all the same size so they cook evenly. I don’t like to cut them so I just buy smaller ones and throw them right in whole. I give the potatoes about a 10 minute head start, depending on their size, but you should check them to be about 1/2 done before you add anything else.

Corn and sausage are next. I give them about 5-10 minutes before I add the lobster tails and shrimp. Overcooked seafood will be very rubbery and not yummy so keep an eye on things here. The crab needs the least amount of time so those are last to go in the pot. When the tails turn red and the shrimp turn pink and start to curl they are done.

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If you don’t have this type of pan set up, remove the seafood and veggies using tongs and a slotted soon. Careful – this stuff is hot!! I like to throw all this stuff in a large foil pan so that everyone can just dig into it. It makes things easier to clean up too.

Other things I like to serve along side are:

• cocktail sauce – see note at the end of this post for recipe
• melted salted butter
• extra lemon wedges
• corn bread
• rolls of paper towels
• lots of paper plates for your guest and some bowls for disposing of the shells
• a paper table cloth – also for easier clean up

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Cocktail sauce – I like my own cocktail sauce, most of the time, but you can certainly buy good quality sauces. You can either start with one of those and add horseradish, lemon and Worcestershire sauce to taste, or you can start with a ketchup base and add all those things plus salt and pepper to your taste. Mix all those things together and chill for a few hours before serving. Enjoy!

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