Tonight on the menu - Low Country Boil

I always think it is fun to have a group effort when you cook with friends.  It is great to get everyone involved.  This past weekend we had several friends over so for dinner on Friday night we did a Low Country Boil.  It was so fun and soooooo good!

Here's the scoop... the Low Country Boil purist do it all in a single pot, but ours was not big enough so we had to split things up a bit.

We started with a large (very large) pot - we used a gas turkey deep fryer.  Our good friends Lee & Penny brought 3 really big Dungeness crabs and 3 lbs. fresh clams.  I had 2 lbs Kelisba, 6 ears of fresh corn, 6 medium red potatoes and 2 lbs of 16 to 21 count shrimp

In the backyard we filled the fryer pot about 3/4 of the way with water (about 6 gals).  After about 20 to 25 minutes the water was boiling.  We then added 2 pks of crab boil season packets, 4 bay leaves, a handful of whole pepper corns and 1 lemon cut into quarters.  The trick to this is timing when you add the various ingredients because some things cook quickly and others take a bit more time.

Now that the water was boiling and the spices had been added it was time to add the live crabs.  They take about 20 minutes so after 15 to 17 minutes in a separate pot in the kitchen (because the turkey pot was not big enough) we put the potatoes and kelisba into low boiling water.  After 20 minutes the crab came out and we placed the clams and corn in the crab pat.  I broke the corn in thirds.  In the meantime Lee let the crab cool for a few minutes then began cleaning it.  After having the corn and clams in for 3 to 5 minutes we added the shrimp to the pot.  These all cooked together for the last 2 or 3 minutes.   I served crusty bread with this feast.  It was great fun and very, very tasty.

Enjoy