Pinch the Tail, Suck the Head
From pineapple and guava to fish sauce and turkey necks, bet you can’t guess whose crawfish boil is whose!
We asked New Orleans chefs what they put in their crawfish boil. Can you guess whose boil is whose? Answers can be found AT the bottom OF THE PAGE.
Amanda Alard
of Latin-American pop-up Que Pasta Nola
Meg Bickford
of the New Orleans landmark, Commander’s Palace
Copeland Crews
of Israeli-inspired Saba
Mason Hereford
of zany American concepts, Molly’s Rise & Shine and Turkey & the Wolf
Daren PorRetto
of Saint John, specializing in ‘haute Creole’ cuisine
Richard Horner
of the Chinese-American restaurant, Blue Giant Chinese
Tyler Stuart
of the Indian fast-casual restaurant, Plume Algiers
Amy Mehrtens
of New American wine bar Copper Vine
Josh Williams
of the laid-back French Quarter bar, The Will & The Way
1
“We season the pot with salt, one bag of Kicker Seasoning from Captain Sid’s [Seafood] in Bucktown, fish sauce, sambal, onions, garlic, lemon juice, and bay leaves. Overall, it’s pretty basic, and ends up tasting fairly traditional. We toss the [the crawfish] in clarified butter with lemon pepper, fresh jalapeños, garlic, ginger, basil, and the same seasoning we use for our dry chile chicken. So they end up being fairly spicy, but still quite balanced and very flavorful.”
2
“In my boil, I always use tons of citrus. Pineapple and sweetpotatoes are two of my favorite fruits and vegetables to throw in the pot. They are both naturally so sweet that when they soak up all the spice from the pot, beautiful things happen. I’m a heatseeker when it comes to crawfish, so I like to toss my bugs in butter, hot sauce, citrus, and extra dry spice once they are pulled from the pot. If I’m not sweating, then I didn’t do it right!”
3
“I believe my crawfish boil represents the varied places that I have lived before coming to New Orleans. My poaching liquid has cayenne, kosher salt, black pepper, fish sauce, dried shrimp, dried chiles, Zatarain’s Pro-Boil seasoning, bay leaves, lemon, orange, and fresh thyme. Besides crawfish, I like to add garlic, potatoes, spicy smoked sausages, baby artichokes, corn, pineapple, mushrooms, ramen noodles, and turkey necks.”
4
“We boil the crawfish and potatoes in a spice-infused water. For the pick up, we toss the crawfish and potatoes in a sauce made heavily of chiles, chunky tomatoes, and vinegar. The chiles provide that familiar lip burning tingle that New Orleanians look for in a boil, but I think the killer part of it is the potatoes—you can taste star anise from the boil and get the sauciness of the vinegar and tomato with each bite.”
5
“We like to put guava fruit and chorizo along with the core ingredients that typically go in a boil. We cut the cooking time a little and throw it in a cooler, topping it with a Caribbean-style coconut curry. We shut the lid and let it cook the rest of the way. It's messy but delicious.”
6
“I grew up in South Carolina where we made Low Country Boils, the cousin to the crawfish boils, every time we went to the beach. For me, it's all about allowing the whole garlic, onions, seasoning, and citrus time to boil and build flavor. All the veggies, sausages, and seafood are adding layers of yummy flavors to the poaching liquid, so once the crawfish are added, the broth is just right for their time in the jacuzzi.”
7
“I always use Zatarain’s Crab Boil when boiling crawfish. I also add a specific chile powder (family secret), cayenne pepper, salt, and Crystal hot sauce to the boil. And you can't forget the extras, including fresh lemons and oranges, whole yellow onions, button mushrooms, A LOT of garlic heads, hot sausage, and potatoes. One of my favorite extras to add is fresh pineapple. The crawfish boil seasoning makes it a delicious spicy and sweet treat while you’re sitting around the table, going to town suckin’ the heads and pinchin’ the tails on crawfish.”
8
“I put fish sauce and chile paste into my boil along with the Cajun spices. My not-yet-patented move is to pick up a few varieties of frozen dumplings from the Hong Kong food market. I let them thaw to perfection in the spicy crawfish stock while the crawfish are soaking. They pick up a lot of those good crawfish, cayenne, and lemon flavors from the broth. I use a lot of lemons as well.”
9
“My secret ingredients would be turkey necks or some kind of smoked pork, like ham hocks. It brings a meatiness to the boil. Everybody always puts lots of lemon in their boil, but my family always adds oranges. The sweetness of the oranges really accentuates all the other flavors, bringing out the natural sweetness of the tails and balancing the salty and spiciness. My last trick: while the boil is on its soaking period, I like to shock the boil with some ice—dropping the temperature abruptly causes the crawfish to absorb all the flavors and get extra juicy in the tail.”
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1. Richard Horner
2. Meg Bickford
3. Amy Mehrtens
4. Tyler Stuart
5. Amanda Alard
6. Copeland Crews
7. Daren Porretto
8. Mason Hereford
9. Josh Williams
