Who You Calling Shrimp?

Over the past year we have perfected the art of the shrimp boil.  Getting to this point; however, was really a happy accident.  Last summer Jason and I had a discussion about crawfish and how delicious they are which lead to him telling me that there were crawfish in the river behind our house and traps in our garage.  We took a trip through the weeds that are as tall as me to the river which was much farther from the house than I remembered.  We set the traps and let them sit for a couple days.  In the meantime I found a crawfish boil recipe and bought all the other ingredients and we invited Ryan, Steph and the kids over for our first crawfish boil.  Luckily the recipe called for shrimp too because when we went back to collect the traps that I thought would be chuck full of crawfish, we were very disappointed to see that after three days of soaking we had only trapped six crawfish.  Our first boil was delicious despite the lack of crawfish and it has become something we do year round now.

The best thing about this boil is that it requires less than 20 minutes of prep time and all you have to do while it's cooking is sit outside, drink, socialize and add another bowl of ingredients to the pot once in a while.

Crawfish Boil (adapted from an Emeril recipe on foodnetwork.com)
Stock
3 gallons water
2/3 cup salt
1 Tbs whole peppercorns
2 packages dry crab boil seasoning
1 cup liquid crab boil seasoning (this is hard to find in GB so I have made it without this if I can't find it)
1/4 cup Old Bay seasoning
4 bay leaves

Meat and Veggies
12 baby red potatoes cut in half or quarters depending on their size
5 ears of corn cut in half
2 packages andouille sausage cut in thirds (can use sweet Italian if you want less spice)
3 lemons cut into quarters
2 vidallia onions peeled and quartered
2 heads of garlic peeled and cloves smashed
3 pounds crawfish (if you can get it, I have also used crab or crab legs or lobster claws)
3 pounds shrimp (I use 16/24 size peeled and deveined, but anything will work)
1 pound asparagus
melted butter, cocktail sauce and french bread as accompaniment

Everything in this dish goes in stages; potatoes and corn, sausage, lemon, onion and garlic, crawfish and shrimp and lastly asparagus.  I prep everything by getting it cut if needed and into bowls for each stage so when it comes time to cook I don't have to put forth much effort. 

When it's time to start the boil, add all the stock ingredients to the pot (we use a big turkey fryer pot) and bring it to a boil.  Once the stock boils add the bowl of potatoes and corn and bring the pot back to a boil for five minutes.  Add the next bowl of sausage, lemon, onion and garlic and bring back to a boil for another five minutes.  After the five minutes, turn off the heat and add the shrimp and crawfish (or whatever seafood you are using), cover the pot and let steep for 10 minutes.  Add the asparagus and continue to steep until all vegetables are tender and seafood is cooked through, 5-15 minutes.  Drain the water and dump the food unto a newspaper lined table.  Dig in!