Crawfishing May/Spring 2012- present (Spring 2013): Part III continued: How to Steam your crawfish!

One of my best friends Bryan Schetele, another Cajun like me, taught me how to STEAM crawfish. This is much like Yankees do with their clams and lobsters, and how some folks along the Atlantic seaboard steam oysters. We steamed 60 pounds of crawfish last year and again this year, and it is fast!

1. You put about 4-5 inches of water into your steaming pot.

2. Get it to a rolling boil with the lid on top and it starts to steam—the lid starts to try to pop off.

3. Add the vegetables (corn, potatoes) to get steamed with some spices.

4. Let them boil/steam for about 5 minutes, remove the corn/sausage/onions.

5. Then add the crawfish with some Vinegar and some Lemons.

6. Wait until that begins to steam with the lid on top.

7. Once steaming process is evident, then you steam them (crawfish, lemons, vinegar) for 5 minutes.

8. Pull them out, dump them in an ice chest, add seasoning on top of them and stir them around; close the lid on the ice chest so that the steam/heat and spice goes through them.

9. So, the process of steaming and boiling is very much similar, but you don’t have to use as much water! They come out just as soft, spicy, and warm as if you boiled them. Yummy!

Two very large metal baskets holding live crawfish: about 25 pounds each.

Here is a large Steaming pot as well as a metal basket filled with live crawfish...soon to be steamed.

This is my friend that is stirring the freshly steam-cooked crawfish with a metal paddle. We add Cajun and Creole seasonings to the steamed crawfish and have to stir it in there with a strong, metal paddle.

My best friend showing the Cajun way of stirring a huge pot of 25 pounds of steamed crawfish with spices.

Here I am showing off some of my crawfish that we steamed late that night after we purged and washed them. They were great!

The ultimate Cajuns: Bryan Schetele and myself. Expert makers of Seafood Gumbos, Catfish courtbouillions, Squirrel and Rabbit fricassees, boiled and steamed crawfish and shrimp, Fried Catfish, Fried Alligator, barbecued Boudin, barbecued Deer/venison, etc...