Mariner's Low-Country Boil

Some years ago, my Honey and I decided to be spontaneous, and on the spur of the moment hit the road to spend the weekend in Savannah, Georgia - without having made hotel reservations! Big mistake...

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We arrived at about 2:00 PM, having driven for nearly four hours, to find that there were three, count'em, three, massive conventions in town; and that the nearest available hotel rooms in Georgia were in Brunswick - 69 miles away!

That sort of put a crimp in my tail, and I told my Honey that we would never ever again attempt to visit that city without having confirmed and guaranteed hotel reservations! So, we gave up on Savannah, opting to try Charleston, South Carolina, instead.

Back on Interstate 95, just North of the state line, we noted a sign indicating an exit for Beaufort, South Carolina, supposedly only a few miles away. Now Beaufort is well-known as sailing town, but not so much of a tourist destination (we thought!), and since we were sailors, we decided that we would try to find lodging and adventure there.

After leaving the Interstate, we found ourselves on a narrow, two-lane road, with large, moss-draped trees arching over us, completely obliterating the sky. The road went on for miles. And miles. And more miles. We couldn't see the sun for the trees, but it must have gone down, because it started getting darker and darker. It felt as if we had entered the Twilight Zone (you youngsters will have to look that one up!), but after an interminable period of time and immeasurable distance traveled, we finally came upon a crossroads, showing some sign of human life, and followed the road signs into Beaufort.

To this day, I have no idea why, but nearly every hotel room in Beaufort was also booked that day. We finally found an available room at a hotel which was nowhere near the water, and even then the cost was rapacious. Tired and desperate as we were, however, we took the room for two nights.

The world looked a little brighter the next morning, and we spent some time looking around the historic waterfront, even having a shrimp-and-grits breakfast at one of the local eateries. The highlight of the trip, however, was a visit to Hunting Island State Park, followed closely by our partaking of a delicacy locally known as Frogmore Stew.

Without delving into much detail about the origin and composition of Frogmore Stew, let me just say that it is a classic Low-Country Boil, and we loved it. Since that time we have had Low-Country Boil at other venues as well, all of which were pretty good.

Now when I find someone making a dish that I really like, it is my habit to try to emulate that dish in my own way, and that is what has happened with Low-Country Boil. The classic recipes tend to be aimed at feeding a large crowd, so they make far too much food for most home kitchens, so what follows is a rather scaled-down, although generous, version, just for two people.

I originally included separate directions for the time-challenged preparer, using a slow-cooker, but those have turned out to be less than useful.

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Suggested Equipment:

• Sauce pan, 2 quart
  
• Knife
  
• Cutting board
  
• Tongs
  
• Common kitchen measures and tools
  

Ingredients:

1. This is two (approximate) 4 oz servings. If usin jumbo shrimp, you only need about 16.
   
2. For a spicier boil, substitute andouille for some or all of the sausage.
   
3. About 12 oz. Use a kitchen scale if unsure of the weight of your potatoes.
   
4. If you simply must use half-ears from the store freezer or pre-packaged stuff, use at least four.
   
5. Old Bay®, Zatarains®, or your own favorite commercial mix. Or make your own: try this recipe.
   
6. Optional. You can leave this out, and it'll still be a legitimate Low Country Boil.
   
7. For a prettier stew, substitute several pearl onions.
   

Item		Amount
Raw shrimp	Fresh or frozen, headed, medium	24	ea1
Sausage	Smoked, pork or beef2	8	oz
Red "New" potato	Whole, small, about 1-1½" diameter	4	ea3
Sweet corn	Whole ear, husked and cleaned	2	ear4
Bay leaf	Whole	3	ea
Spice mix5	For seafood boil	1	Tbs
Salt	Common	1	tsp
Water	To cover	4	cup
Carrot6	Fresh, peeled	1-2	ea
Onion6,7	Fresh, small, peeled	1	ea
Celery6	Fresh, stalk	1	ea

Directions:

The original version of this recipe offered thoughts on using a slow cooker (crock pot) to perform the cooking, on the supposition that low-temperature cooking would allow for longer cooking and less immediate attention from the cook. For many recipes, that works well, but apparently not this one. The previous slow-cooker directions here frequently resulted in overcooked food, so we no longer recommend or offer the slow cooker recipe.

1. If the seafood is frozen, it should be completely thawed before starting this recipe. Keep the thawed seafood in a covered bowl in your refrigerator, until you are ready to cook them.

2. Add the water, boil seasoning mix, bay leaves,and salt to your sauce pan.

3. Prepare your vegetables. If your potatoes are larger than about 1” in the long dimension, cut them into pieces as necessary. Cut each corn cob into two approximately equal pieces.

4. Prepare your sausage. I like to cut my links into pieces about 2" long

5. Apply heat to the sauce pan and bring the contents to a boil.

6. With the sauce pan having achieved a rolling boil, add the potatoes and sausage, and any optional vegetables. After the water returns to a boil, cook for 5 to 7 minutes.

7. Add the corn, and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.

8. Add the shrimp, and cook for yet another 2 to3 minutes. If you use any seafood other than shrimp, you will likely have to either pre-cook, or start cooking the seafood much earlier in this process. Cook times for other seafoods (as recommended by other websites) can be found on here.

9. By this time the potatoes and other veggies should be tender. If not, remove the shrimp and corn - using tongs or a slotted spoon- to a platter, and continue cooking the vegetables until tenderness is achieved. Usually this is only a matter of a very few minutes.

10. When the vegetables are tender, remove the remaining contents of your cooking vessel - again, using tongs or a slotted spoon - to the platter. Turn off the heat, and discard the bay leaf and the boil water.

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Extras:

Home-mixed boil spice mix

If you happen to be out of your favorite commercial boil spice mix, you don't necessarily need to drop everything and run to the store. Instead, you can combine equal amounts (about ½ tsp each for this recipe) of the following herbs and spices, and have a perfectly acceptable spice mix:

• black pepper
• yellow mustard
• dill
• cloves
• ginger
• cayenne
• cilantro
• turmeric
• garlic
• celery salt

Change this list to meet your personal preferences, adding or subtracting individual spices, or just changing the proportions; but keep a record of what you did: you may want to repeat (or avoid!) it.

Cook Times for Other Seafoods

One could substitute crab, lobster, mussels, even crayfish, with longer cook times. If you elect to use crawfish, be aware that some seafood species can harbor parasites or other disease-causing organisms. Two cases in point are crayfish and crab, which are known to host the parasitic worm (lung fluke) which cause a disease called paragonimiasis. The principle, and only known cause is consumption of undercooked crustaceans.

Using the search string "how long to boil seafood" in your web browser will return articles with cook (boiling) times equal or similar to those below, from most search engines:

* Also known as crawfish, crawdads, and mudbugs

Seafood Type	Minimum Time (minutes)
crayfish*	10
mussels	15
Crab	15-20
lobster	15

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We have enjoyed this recipe with some or all of the optional ingredients many times. I hope you can too.