New Orleans BOILED CRAWFISH Recipe

30 pounds live crawfish 
15 ounces cayenne pepper, plus 5 ounces additional Lagniappe 
2 ounces Tabasco sauce 
20 cloves garlic, cut cloves in half, do not peel or crush ng
3 dozen lemons, sliced in half 
1 cup olive oil 
20 bay leaves 
4 ounces Louisiana hot sauce 
2 pounds salt 
10 bags of Zatarain's crab boil, or 10 recipes seafood boil seasoning down below:

"Place all ingredients but the crawfish in the biggest pot that you can get your hands on and bring to a good boil for about 15 minutes. As all comes to a boil, put you face over the steam and take 10 deep breaths, as the boiling cayenne, garlic and lemon mist is good for your soul - being careful to breathe only throughyou nose.
"In the meantime, the crawfish should have been soaking in cold fresh water, with a couple of boxes of salt emptied into it as to allow "mud bugs" to be spitting out the mud.

"Put crawfish in boiling water. After water comes to boil again, add 10 ears freshly peeled corn of the cob and 20 small potatoes. Allow 8-10 minutes cooking time. Remove and add a bag or two of ice to cool the crawfish water, and allow the crawfish to soak in the pot for another 10 minutes after turning off the boiling water. Strain and serve the crawfish hot with the garlic cloves, potatoes and corn." (Alternate method: Remove the hot crawfish from the boiling pot and layer in ice chests with sprinkled Tony Chachere's seasoning.)

Some people also like throwing anything from andouille sausages to whole heads of garlic to hot dogs into the boil ... be creative, but not foolish!

For a great seafood dipping sauce, take some ketchup, add horseradish and Tabasco to taste, and finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice (never use that swill out of the bottle). Mix and dip. That's how we do it in Louisiana.

Eating instructions:  Find the biggest crawfish in the pile. Break the tail off of the crawfish, and slurp all the good juice and fat out of the head (optional). Peel off the first section of the crawfish tail shell, pinch the bottom of the tail, and the meat pops right out. Eat. Drink. Repeat. (Some people save time by pinching the tail and removing the tail meat with their teeth and eating it immediately, rather than wasting a few precious seconds getting the meat out with their hands. 
As one hardcore native crawfish eater once put it, "That way I could eat four crawfish to maybe y'all's one."


Crawfish, Shrimp and CRAB BOIL Seasoning Recipe

4 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds 
3 tablespoons coriander seeds 
2 tablespoons whole allspice 
2 tablespoons dill seeds 
1 teaspoon whole cloves 
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper 
8 bay leaves 
Salt and cayenne pepper (or liquid hot sauce) to taste 

Combine all dry ingredients thoroughly. Place in a square of muslin or cheesecloth and tie securely with string, like a large sachet d'épices. Add salt and cayenne or hot sauce to the water to taste, then bring to a boil.
When water for seafood is boiling, add the bag and boil for several minutes, until the boiling liquid is tinted and seasoned, then add vegetables and/or shellfish and cook until done, depending on what you're using.

Yield: Enough crab boil seasoning for 5 pounds of seafood.