Since my smoker was stolen last week (I know...it is a real loss. A $30 smoker...nothing surprises me anymore) we had to think outside of the box and our usual smoked ribs and be creative. I am always one for the dramatic. If it involves cooking, it has to be exciting and different. No roasting a turkey for hours in the oven, you need 3 gallons of 285 degree oil over a large blue propane flame. Or for ribs, you need a good rub, let em soak in it for a day, mesquite wood chips and slow smoke for 6 hours. It is the drama that really brings out the flavor. Since the smoker is out of the question, frying a turkey is out of season, so we did a large shrimp boil. To make it dramatic, I used the turkey fryer to boil our feast. I love that blue flame coming up the side of the pot ;-) Back to the task at hand: It is not a hard as you would think. Again, this is going to remind you of the movie, The Wizard of Oz, where Dorthy looks behind the curtain and realizes that the wizard is not that magical afterall. This may seem like a huge amazing feast, but it is really easy to do. Here you go:
Ingredients: Shrimp, red potatoes, corn, Zatarain's Crab Boil bags, Lemons, Salt, and Cocktail sauce.
Just for reference on how much shrimp to get: There was 9 of us, and we had 6 lbs of shrimp.
Instructions: Clean potatoes and cut in half or fourths. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and drop the Crab boil bags in there, plenty of salt and a lemon cut into 4 pieces. Once boiling well, drop in your potatoes. Let those go for about 15 min. Then add the corn. Let those go about 10 min. Then add the shrimp. Let it go for about 5 min (the shrimp should float to the top and turn pink). Kill the heat, drain the water, toss out the boil bags, and serve. We just put down a bunch of newspaper and paper plates and had our feast. The nice thing is, all you have to do to clean up is to clean the pot and toss the newspaper, paper plates, and napkins. (If Illinois ever implemented recycling, we would be less wasteful too! A little addition from the Californian!!) What a great day!
