The 2 Pieces Of Cookware You Need For An At-Home Crawfish Boil

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A crawfish boil, while great fun, is not an endeavor to be taken on lightly. It's true that the feast is casual, meant to be eaten over newspapers with plenty of paper towels — no fancy china or napkins here, and certainly no fancy manners or dress. But you'll want to plan for 2 to 5 pounds of whole crawdads per person, plus potatoes, corn, and maybe sausages, not to mention the liquid to boil it all in, and that calls for a big pot. 

Our seafood expert, Chef Johnnie Gale from Chef Guidry's Catfish and Ocean Select Seafood ,gave us a great tip for how to pick the right cookware. "Use a 60-quart pot for cooking 30 pounds of crawfish," she says. "Try using a boil basket as well, so you can easily remove the crawfish when they're done." A boil basket is a large strainer that sits inside your pot during the cooking process, and then the whole mass of steamy hot crawfish and fixings can be lifted out of the hot cooking liquid all at once. 

Restaurant pros look for lighter weight aluminum pots, like this 60-quart pot from Winco available on Amazon, when dealing with this large size because they'll be heavy enough when full. They certainly won't fit on most home stovetops, so chances are you'll be boiling your crawfish outside, on a propane burner of some kind. You might want to buy your pot, boil basket, and burner as a set like this one from Gas One, then you'll be sure they all fit together well, with no tipping or instability. Lifting a heavy pot of hot seafood would be quite a dangerous chore, which is why these burners should be low to the ground, as they are in a well made seafood boil set. 

You'll also want to find a long paddle or spoon to stir through the bubbling pot once or twice to ensure the ingredients are all cooking evenly. Once you've got the right sized pot, the boil basket for lifting everything out of it, and a good heat source to cook over, the next step is to find a good source for your crawfish, the right recipe for your seafood boil, and you'll be all set to host a great party.