Pacific Northwest Seafood Boil
(Photo: The Restaurant Project for Alaskan King Crab)
One of the great things about a seafood boil is that it’s completely adaptable and also generally pretty forgivable, which is the dream combination when it comes to cooking. There are a lot of ways to achieve this meal and we want to give you the full confidence to alter it to your heart’s content. The following is our favorite way to go about it, gleaned from a lot of trial and error, and we’ve thrown in some of our favorite substitutions, as well, but you do you!
If you have a favorite approach or tip we would love it if you would share them with us in the comments!
Tips + Things to Keep in Mind:
Fresh, local seafood is always best. If crabbing season is open grab a crab pot and give it a whirl! There are also plenty of places around the Sound to gather your own clams, fish for your own squid and even catch your own spot prawns if you hit the right window of time when the fishery is open. If you’d rather let someone else do that part of it, take a trip to one of our many incredible shellfisheries + fish mongers around the Sound. We like to make a general list of what we want to include, but we also leave it open ended so we can substitute with whatever looks best + fresh when we’re at the market.
Give red rock crabs a chance: We know Dungeness are the star crab around the Pacific, but don’t sleep on the red rock crabs. They’re sweet, delicious, and their numbers are thriving, so it makes them the more sustainable choice. Speaking of sustainability, you can only keep male Dungeness while crabbing. Even though you’re allowed to keep both male and female red rock crabs we make it a practice to let the females go to help sustain and protect the fishery.
Cleaning your crab before cooking or after: We’re, admittedly, a little bit divided on this one.
The argument for cooking the crab whole, and live, is that it’s freshest and retains more of the flavor. The downsides are that it retains the flavor because you haven’t cleaned the crab butter out yet, which is what retains the highest levels of contaminants. We love our wild Puget Sound, of course, but also can’t overlook that we live in a very urban area and the Sound can have some questionable water quality at times, so make sure you check the advisories and make a judgment call depending on the current outlook.
If you decide to go this route, add your crab to the pot right when your water starts boiling instead of waiting the 8 minutes while the potatoes start cooking.
The argument for cleaning your crab first is that it gets it out of the way earlier, it fits in the pot a lot easier, it’s faster to serve and you’ve already culled the animal before it hits the boiling water so it feels at least a little more humane. This is what we generally do and we tend to use this method of cleaning them.
Stock pot size: We tend to use a 20-40 quart pot, depending on how much we’re making. The larger the pot the easier, by far, so generally pull out the biggest one you can find.
Water: Saltwater is always ideal for a boil, but if you use freshwater just make sure to salt it generously. You can also sub 1 or 2 cups of water for white wine.
Boil Ingredients:
Seasoning
You have some options here for the seasoning base:
Light on the seasoning — stick with saltwater + lemon
Traditional Cajun-style seasoning — we like to use 3-4 Tbsp of Creole Spice from World Spice Merchants, but you could also use 1/2 cup of Old Bay or a bag of Zatarain’s.
Your own mix — go nuts and experiment with your favorite flavors
In addition to our seasoning base we also like to add:
3-4 bay leaves
1 Tbsp black peppercorns, crushed
Salt — see our note about water above
Cayenne Pepper — to taste, depending on heat preferences
3-4 lemons, quartered
1 1/2 lbs of potatoes, halved or quartered — red potatoes are the traditional choice, but we also like fingerlings, Yukon gold and have even thrown in sweet potatoes
4 Dungeness or Red Rock Crabs — we usually plan for 1/2 of a crab per person
1 pound of Clams — we generally harvest littlenecks the morning or night before the boil
1 pound of Shrimp or Prawns — the bigger the better in a boil
4 Corn Cobs, shucked and halved (or quartered! It’s your boil, you do you!)
4 Andouille Sausages, sliced diagonally into 1-inch pieces — we like a spicier sausage in this, but you can also use kielbasa to tone it down
Parsley, for garnish
Garlic Butter Ingredients:
3 TB butter, melted
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of reserved seafood stock from the boil
Instructions:
Add potatoes, seasoning and half of the quartered lemon wedges in a large stock pot and fill it ~ half full with water
Add potatoes and bring to a boil (if you’re using whole live crab add them now, as well) — cook for 8 minutes
Add crabs if you’re using cleaned, half crab — cook for 5 minutes
Add clams and corn (and squid, if using) — cook for 5 minutes
Add shrimp and sausage — cook for 2-3 minutes
Turn off heat. At this point we like to pull the crab from the pot with tongs and plunge them into an ice bath to stop the cooking
If you’re making the garlic butter:
Retain 1 cup of the seafood broth
Whisk melted butter and minced garlic into the broth
We also like to taste a shrimp or clam from the boil and add more seasoning to the garlic butter mixture if we feel like it needs it
Drain remaining broth from boil, discard the bay leaves and spread your feast (don’t forget the crab!) across baking sheets/a table cloth/newspaper/a roasting pan/anything big enough to hold it all
Pour the butter sauce over the top of the seafood and mix it in so it’s fully coated
Garnish with remaining lemon wedges + parsley
Serve immediately
