Southern Seafood Boil. Dixie Style.

Jeepster47 said:

Nice snack!

Quick question ... your seafood boil process is different than any I've seen 'cuz you boiled to time and then pulled the food.  Up until today, every one I've participated in kept the food in the water ... you simply dipped and plated the food.  Some words of enlightenment please.

No sir, I do not pull up the seafood. It's a timing issue of when to add what. Let me try to explain my friend. Start with your 7 gallons (or whatever amount) of water. Add all the spices/seasoning: salt, cayenne, lemons, liquid/powdered crab boil, onions and celery. Let this boil for a few minutes to mix well.  Once mixed well start adding the grub. The key is to first add what has to boil the longest and keep up with how long it has been boiling so you know when to add what next. The trick is to add it so it all finishes at the same time. In my case it's the potatoes that take the longest so they go in first. Knowing how long it takes each ingriedant to cook takes the guess work out of it. The adding order will look like this
Add potatoes and boil for 8 minutes. 
Add crab at this point. The potatoes have had a 8 minute head start in the boil. So by looking at this, you can see that when the crabs have been boiling for 5 minutes, that the potatoes have been boiling for 13 minutes. And you just keep doing this with all ingriedants according to how long each takes. That way it's all in the pot together and finishes at the very same time. I do this because once the boil is complete, I leave all the food soaking in the water for about a hour to pick up the spice. So here is the order of how long it goes in and how long it boils before the next ingriedant is added:

Potatoes: Boil 8 minutes then add:
Crabs: Boil 5 minutes then add:
Mushrooms: Boil 3 minutes then add:
Shrimp: Boil 2 minutes and everything is done at the same time. 
Looking at the above, you can see that the potatoes boiled for a total of 18 minutes, the crabs for 10 minutes, the mushrooms 5 minutes and then shrimp for 2 minutes. It was all boiled in the same pot and came out at the same time. It was all just added at a different time according to how long it takes to cook. If this doesn't answer your question, let me know and I will gladly try again my friend.  

EGGjlmh said:

Wow, SGH needs to open a restaurant.

If I was a younger man I would really like to. Now that I'm older I don't think that I could hold up to the demands. I have considered opening one for my sons to run, but they are retards. Without constant supervision, it would be a disaster waiting to happen. They took from their mothers side. They have no sense at all. I have considered that once I retire from the oil industry, maybe hiring on somewhere as a part time cook. Either in seafood or Q. Just something to keep me moving along and busy.