Cookin' ATVS Style: Shrimp Boil

What sort of spins do you put on your boils?

AND

You need BOTH.

I also recommend adding onion, garlic and lemon to the pot cut in half. Then if you have mushroom, artichoke etc lovers, throw those in the pot as well…

You’re in Chicago and if I would hazard a guess, cooking in a condo or apt so outdoor space is non existent. Also, I would guess that good shrimp is sky high expensive in bulk. So that recipe sounds good. I’d have to try it, but I’m skeptical of all the beer and other stuff. Mine is pretty simple. But I bet my skepticism would turn to fandom since it looks good.

And I make remoulade for the next day cold shrimp.

per 5-7pounds of head on fresh Gulf shrimp:

One bag of this:

It says on the back it’s good for 10 or 15 lbs but screw that, there’s barely any taste. I guess yankees may find it too much but one whole small bag per 5-7 lbs of shrimp is awesome. Feel free to use the big bag and just portion it out and save the rest (you’ll probably have another boil in the same season so it keeps, trust me). The liquid boil is nice to add as well, as seen above, the little Zatarain’s jar.

One bag of lemons. That’s about 12 or 15 at Albertson’s. Maybe your grocer is different, but that many. Potatoes, onions and some garlic to you or your audiences taste.

Fill your pot with water about 3/5ths full. Not half but more towards 3/4. An important rule of thumb here, if you’re cooking with a burner, pot and basket, don’t get the water level near the top of the basket. Once everything is in, if your level is higher than the basket, you start to lose goodies into the pot and you gotta fish em out. let the basket do your work for you.

So you got your water, pour in the bag of seasoning. Roll, cut and squeeze your lemons into the water and then throw em in. Add your potatoes. Have your fire going to get that water up to boiling. Add your corn, garlic and onions pretty soon. Potatoes take longer but you gotta cook those veggies nice and tender and let em soak up that seasoning.

Have a beer and talk with buddies or watch some football or whatnot, water can take a while to boil. So will potatoes.

When the water is a rolling boil, throw in your shrimp. Boil for five minutes or until many shrimp have risen to float on the top of the water. The shrimp should’ve gone from that grey to that wonderful nice pink and white colour. Feel free to snatch one and try it.
 
Again, five minutes/most of your shrimp floating is all it takes. Now remove it. Have a table with newspaper spread out. Have someone give you a hand with lifting the basket.
Lift the basket to the edge of the pot and let it drain for a bit and then dump it out on the table.

Final touch, throw some ice on them and mix it in with your hands. This should quench the cooking and keep the shrimp at that perfect point and stop them from cooking till tough and hard to peel.

so, like yourself, i go with the beer boiling approach if forced to do it inside the confines of a kitchen.

Garlic.

I’m also part Italian so I add garlic to everything as well. But especially to my boils & gumbos.

Try shipping anything fresh up to Alaska. I looked into trying to ship andouille & boudin up here to Anchorage & they wanted almost $100 just to ship alone b/c everything has to be overnighted (even though just about everything “overnight” to Alaska is 2 or 3 actual days).