Recipe - Patouts Boiled Crawfish

FOR THE BOIL
40 pound Live crawfish
One half cup Ground white pepper
One half cup Ground black pepper
12 Ears of corn, shucked
1 cup Salt
One half cup Ground red pepper
5 pound Small white onions
5 pound Small new potatoes

SPRINKLE
One half cup Ground white pepper
One half cup Ground black pepper
One half cup Ground red pepper
2 cup Salt

Alex Patout describes Crawfish as "a delicacy made for sharing
in fact, in Cajun country, boiling crawfish for only two people
counts as a venial sin."
Wash the crawfish well and pick out any fish bones or other
debris. Fill a great big (40quart) Stockpot a quarter full of
water. Add the salt and peppers and bring to boil. Add the whole
onions, the corn, and the new potatoes (it will be easy to remove
them later if you put them in a cloth sack). Return to boil, cover,
lower heat to medium, and let cook for 8 minutes. Add crawfish,
cover again and raise heat to high. After steam begins to escape
from under the lid, cook 7 minutes more. Remove from heat and
let sit for 4 minutes. Do *NOT* remove the lid until this point!
Remove the onions, corn, and potatoes to a bowl and drain the
crawfish. Place the crawfish in a large insulated container (an
ce chest works well, as do the thick waterproof boxes chickens
are shipped in, which your butcher may give you for free). Have
your *SPRINKLE* ready and sprinkle over the crawfish and mix them
well to coat. Cover and let sit for 7 minutes.
Serve immediately with the onions, corn, new potatoes, and
lots of French bread on a large table covered with plenty of
paper. When everyone has eaten his fill, everyone "peels for
the house." The peeled tails can then be used in cold crawfish
cocktail or salad or for Fried Crawfish the next day.
Serves 810
NOTE: Most of the salt is not added until after the cooking
process because too much salt added during cooking makes the
flesh of the crawfish adhere to the shell.
From Alex Patout's "Cajun Home Cooking" Random House

File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/cajun.zip