We at ThunderCast Online love tailgating. Chances are, so do you! This is a series about tailgating: specific meals or items; specific styles of cooking before a game; specific setups in parking lots around Marshall’s stadium; and more. If you tailgate like a professional, you will enjoy reading and viewing these articles and pictures. Maybe you will even want to get your tailgate featured.
For me, it is hard to beat a Low Country Boil for a tailgate or an outdoor gathering. No plates or utensils are needed if you want to keep it simple. Everyone just stands around a table and eats as much as they can handle. It’s hot and fresh, and very filling on a fall football day. Of course, if you want to be less barbaric, there is nothing wrong with grabbing a plate and loading it up with tongs from the table. Hey, we don’t judge. Still, you are going to be doing a lot of eating with your hands and talking to friends between bites. What is not to love about that?
Before we get into how to make a Low Country Boil, let’s talk about what it is. It never fails that in my discussions about tailgating or an outdoor party and I bring up a Low Country Boil, someone shyly asks, “Um. . .what is a Low Country Boil?” The Low Country (or Lowcountry) Boil is a one-pot seafood boil originating from the “lowcountry” area of South Carolina. The seafood abundantly available in the area was shrimp, and it was paired with meat (andouille sausage) and vegetables (corn and potatoes) with a bunch of different seasonings. Traditionally, the four main ingredients remain the same, although smokes sausage or kielbasa is often substituted for the andouille, and many people will tell you that other main ingredients are a must in a Low Country Boil. Basically, it is just like anything else handed down over the years, you make it your own and no one is going to tell you differently. My Boil is not 100% traditional, and I am quick to tell people that.
When considering your Boil, you’ll first want to make sure you have a boil pot and basket large enough to feed your crowd. Go big is my advice. Get the largest pot you can handle and store, and you can always cook smaller Boils in it. You just do not want to limit yourself or run out of food in minutes because your crowd got a little bigger. I personally have a a 102 quart stainless tell boil pot with strainer basket. The basket has a little “kickstand” on the bottom that raises the basket up a few inches if you want to do any steaming. You won’t need that for a Low Country Boil, but it is a nice feature when you are doing other seafood cooks. One of the things that you will find is that once you hit a certain size boil pot, they are basically the same circumference and getting a bigger pot just means a taller pot. But believe me when I tell you the 102 quart pot is very large. You need a large and sturdy outdoor propane burner to support such a monster of a boil pot.
The basket is all but necessary. Trust me. You want to be able to lift the solid ingredients and spices out of the water and let all the liquid drain off in the pot below. Otherwise, you would spend an hour or more trying to spoon out all the food. Another necessity for me is the lifting bar. It is solid steel and holds a lot of weight and that carefully placed bend in the center of the bar keeps the handle of your strainer basket from easily sliding back and forth. It is well worth your investment to purchase this accessory.
Now for the good stuff. Let’s talk about how you make a Low Country Boil. This is a timing dish and as long as you have the specific ingredients in the boiling water for the specific amount of time, everything will turn out just right for texture and flavor. I feel like I have mine down to a science, which I will discuss more as we go along. First you want to get your propane burner and pot set up and get the water heating up as quickly as you can. The larger your boil pot, the longer it will take to get your water to a rolling boil. Fret not, though; you have plenty to do to keep yourself busy if you want to do your prep work at your tailgate. I fill the pot about halfway full with water, and at my tailgate i do that with gallon jugs of water. If you have not done the math yet, a 102 quart pot is 25.5 gallons. So I bring 13 gallon jugs of water with me. If you have access to a hose and water source, you won’t need to do that. I have found that I need to plan for at least one hour for the water to get to a rolling boil.
As the water is coming to a boil, you need to season it. This is probably the first time you will see people argue, disagree, and fight about what seasonings to throw in. Mine are almost always the same: four to six lemons, quartered; two to four peeled onions, quartered; two to three bags of Zatarain’s Crab Boil in a Bag; and a whole mess of Old Bay Seasoning. Remember, this is not a crawfish boil, or a Cajun seafood boil. You can get it as spicy as your taste buds desire but this is not traditionally a Cajun boil. The reason for the variations on amounts above is due to the size of the crowd and sheer poundage of ingredients. “Everybody in the pool” as they say with those seasonings and let the flavors marry while the water heats up.
You can prep your sausage and potatoes while the water is heating up to if you like. I have done it both ways: prep this before packing up to go to your tailgate or cut everything up on site. If you are not busy recording a ThunderCast LIVE pre-game tailgate show (shameless plug), you may enjoy doing all this prep work with your guests so they truly see everything getting cut up and put in as you go. To me, that adds to the experience of the Low Country Boil and first-timers of the dish have seemed to enjoy it in my experience. It does take away from your drinking and socializing, and adds to your clean up on-site. Make sure to pack a good cutting board and chef’s knife, and plenty of paper towels or kitchen towels for cleaning. As for the sausage, I most often use smoked sausage instead of andouille for two main reasons. I love andouille sausage. But not everyone does, and when you are cooking for a large group, it is sometimes better to go for a safer baseline. I have also found that smoked sausage is more readily available in large quantities over andouille. Mix and match them if you like and your guests can decide which they like best and easily distinguish them if the andouille is too hot for them. For this recipe, we are going with five pounds, and we are slicing them in 1.5″ sections. Grab a five pound bag of red potatoes and quarter them, further slicing overly large potatoes as needed to keep all the chunks roughly the same size.
When the well-seasoned water is at a rolling boil, drop in your sausage and potatoes and let them boil for about 20 minutes. Adding the ingredients makes the water cool a bit, so it takes a few minutes for it to get back to a rolling boil. That is expected and is factored into the 20 minutes here. You can now cut up your corn or have it cut up already if you want. This is best with removing the husks and chopping the cobs into thirds, and you will want 12 to 16 ears of corn total. As a very last resort, you can buy frozen corn cobettes and thaw them out prior to your boil, but you can’t beat corn straight from a good produce source.
When the 20 minutes is up on the sausage and potatoes, dump in the corn for another 20 minutes. Same as before, the water temp will lower for a couple of minutes and that is expected. I have been know to occasionally toss some butter into the pot during this step. It is great with or without, but it is rare that you add butter to something and make it worse. Your call.
Once that 20 minutes is up, you turn off the heat and add five pounds of raw, shell on shrimp. I use large or jumbo and often a mix of the two. It doesn’t take long to cook the shrimp, only about two minutes total. They will be white and pink in no time.
Now it is time to grab your lifting bar and use it to lift the strainer basket so the water can drain from your glorious boil. As soon as the water is drained, you and your favorite friends can use oven mitts, potholders, towels, and whatever you can find to transport the basket to your table. It is best to have one person holding each side of the lifting bar and holding it steady while one or two others tilt the basket and start dumping. Onto what, you say? you can line a table with newspaper or contractor paper, but I like to use the aluminum steam table pans often seen in catering. It helps prevent wasting food rolling off the table and is ready to have a lid thrown on at the start of the game and also to transport home when the tailgate is over. Trust me, it works great. Use tongs, ladles, or gloved hands to even out the different items so each pan has the same ratio if you like.
I always keep one pan empty or have a couple of trash cans close by if everyone is eating from the table without plates. That way you can throw your cobs and shells away right there. If everyone wants to fill a little more civilized or the crowd is too large to fit everyone around your tables, just have them load up a plate and work their way around to talk to everyone.
Thick, rustic breads from a bakery sliced up is always good to have on hand, and you need a big tub of butter for the bread and corn at a minimum to run through. Some like cocktail sauce and I have been known to whip up some freshly made if the crowd demands it. But the best thing to go with your Low Country Boil? Ice cold beer and fellowship with your favorite friends.
Enjoy your boils, my friends! Don’t forget to invite me!
