Party On the Backyard

Go out and get the following ingredients:
1 sack crawfish
9 cups table salt, divided
3/4 cup granulated garlic
3/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
1-3/8 cup cayenne pepper
6 tbsp dried thyme
6 tbsp dried basil
6 tbsp dried oregano
1 cup paprika
9 tbsp powdered onion
2 cups whole black peppercorn
1 cup mustard seeds
15 bay leaves
12 lemons, sliced
12 heads garlic, peeled
3 pounds new potatoes, scrubbed
12 ears corn, shucked and halved

It helps a lot at this point if you have some friends. I’m antisocial, so I relied mainly on relatives and J’s friends. As long as you have a decent amount of people around for this, you’ll be okay. 12 to 15 is a good number if they’re all adults . Throw in a couple of chilluns if you have some available. A few dogs underfoot makes the scene complete.

Next get a big cooler and purge your crawfish. Use 2 cups of the salt. Drain the water off after 30 minutes and refill, and add 2 cups of the salt again. Repeat, and drain off and fill with fresh water to keep your mudbugs alive until cooking time.

Now you get a big propane burner and a big pot. Fill up the pot about halfway with water. Take the remaining 3 cups of the salt and the rest of the spices and throw them in the water. I find it helps if you bag up the peppercorns and mustard seeds in cheesecloth. Start the water to boiling.

Throw in half of the lemons, half of the potatoes, and half of the garlic in the water when the water boils and give them five minutes. Throw half the corn in and give everything another five minutes. Now fill your pot up with crawfish and let it rip for 10 minutes. Dump it all out on a table. Repeat the whole process. Eat up.

It helps to have a whole bunch of beer. It also helps, since this pretty much has to be done outside, to do it under cover. Or at least if you don’t do it under cover, be smarter than me and put some sunscreen on so you don’t get burned. Anyhow, that’s pretty much how we spent Sunday.