Crab Boil

Saturday was a big event at my sister's house: a crab boil. It consisted of 30 pounds of live and ornery blue crab, corn, two types of Cajun sausage, artichokes, and potatoes. For perspective, 30 pounds of crab roughly translates to 80-110 crabs in total. I probably consumed 20 crabs myself easily. Most people have a crab or two, get tired, and move on to snacks. To this point, I think Brooke had 2, maybe, three crabs. Crabs are much more complicated to De-shell than crawfish and, so the tendency is to get bored and move on to the immediate finger food. I guess you really have to enjoy crab to eat in the double figure range.

Crab boils are really uncomplicated and, as long as you can find live blue crabs, all the ingredients are easy to acquire. First step in the preparation is the one-bag-does-all crab boil seasoning. You can find the liquid stuff or the powder in the store, but I heard from a couple of sources that the powder is better. We happened to have the powder, so we went with that. The crab boil seasoning is basically a spicy Cajun blend with about 75% Cayenne pepper, copious amounts of salt, MSG, and other savory flavoring. When you use the crab boil seasoning you are cooking in the Louisiana Cajun style. This is very popular here in East Texas. In fact, when we first moved to Houston, I was surprised by the omnipresence of Cajun restaurants in the area. We just don't get that much Cajun cuisine in Florida. Being that Houston is only a couple hours from Louisiana, I guess it makes sense. Needless to say, I am loving it.

Instead of Louisiana Cajun style crab, you may have heard of Maryland crabs, or cooking crabs "Maryland Style." Maryland crabs are also the same blue crabs used in Cajun inspired boils. This common crustacean, the Callinectes sapidus (Beautiful Swimmer crab) is found along the entire East Coast of the United States and into the Gulf of Mexico. When we lived in Orange city, we used to go crabbing for these same "blues" with hand traps in Merritt Island, FL. They really are pretty creatures, bright blue-green with red accents on the claws. They are pretty feisty too.

Anyway, with the crabs being the same species, the main difference between a Louisiana crab boil and a Maryland style crab is the type of spice and the fact that most people from Maryland prefer to steam their crabs, not boil. The Maryland style uses exclusively the spice brand Old Bay which, although spicy, isn't quite as spicy as the Louisiana Cajun version which leans heavily on the Cayenne pepper as its main ingredient. Instead, Old Bay has a very distinctive celery salt flavor. So, having enjoyed both steamed and boiled crabs, my opinion is that the crab meat comes out more pristine when you steam. Conversely, when you boil, the spice will tend to permeate the meat further. To sum it up, if you like hot spice than you probably will enjoy the Cajun style slightly better. I personally think both are good. You see...I just came for the crab.

So, anyway, back to the boil. So, we just mixed the crab boil seasoning into the pot which is already heating on the fire. Next, we cut lemons, limes, peel and halve onions and entire heads of garlic, and toss them into the pot. Once the pot begins to boil, we put the crabs, one-by-one, into the water with tongs. Don't worry, the crabs expire fairly instantly once they hit the boiling water. Besides they're crustaceans, being somewhat related to insects, so no one really cares if they suffer, well, besides PETA. So, rule number one, don't invite PETA to your crab boil to avoid protest and general awkwardness. Lastly, once you boil the crabs for a bit, we throw in all the other assorted food into the pot like the sausage, corn, etc to soak up the flavor of the spice. After the crabs are done cooking, we let them sit for up to an hour in the pot to, yes, soak up some more spice. Just remember to put some ice into the pot to bring the temperature down a tad to stop the cooking process. Feel free to add Old Bay, or additional Cajun spice to the crabs once you pull them out of the pot.

So, all-in-all, crab boils are pretty easy. For me though, the really neat thing about crab boils (just like crawfish boils), is that it is a very social event. You just pour the cooked crabs and other assorted goodies onto a long outdoor table (covered in newspaper, of course) and have at it. Crabs, even more so than crawfish, take longer to peel, so you spend a lot of time trying to get the meat out, while drinking beer, listening to music, and talking to your neighbor(s). It is great fun. If you haven't ever had the chance to do your own crab boil, I highly recommend it. Besides, its almost summer and they're in season. Crab Boil: More than just a meal, a summer social event.