A “seafood boil†is the generic term for a wide range of social events centered around cooking and consuming shellfish. Shrimp, crab and crawfish boils are Louisiana Cajun traditions and today are popular not only in Louisiana but all along the Southern USA Coasts. The “crawfish boil†is most closely associated with Louisiana.
Frogmore Stew and its History
Frogmore Stew is considered a classic South Carolina Low Country dish. This dish is now more popularly known as Low-Country Boil or Beaufort Stew. The dish gets its original name from a place (town?) that had only a post office on one side of the road and a two-story white country store on the other.
Frogmore Stew is a one-pot wonder created about 1965 by a National Guardsman, Richard Gay, when he needed to cook a meal for about 100 soldiers in Beaufort, SC. Â Richard Gay had learned the recipe from his family. Â The dish was first called Frogmore Stew by the guardsmen who teased Richard about the town where he was from. The postal service eliminated the postal address, Frogmore, and this popular dish then became Low Country Boil.
This dish is a combination of shellfish, sausage, vegetables, and potatoes. It’s easy to fix for a crowd.  Having a removable drain basket makes cooking easier and serving on newspaper makes for easy clean up. The rule of thumb is the bigger the crowd, the bigger the pot. The ingredients below are sized for a turkey fryer and serves 10-12 people.
Ingredients:
- 2 12oz Cans of beer
- 2 Heads of garlic, chopped
- 3 Lemons, quartered
- 1 Large bag, to taste, of shrimp and crab boil
- ¼ cup (2 fl oz) Hot pepper sauce or to taste
- 4 Fresh bay leaves
- 2 Tbs Sea salt
- 2 Large Vidalia onions, quartered
- 2 lbs Spicy smoked link sausage cut in 2†lengths
- 3 lbs Small new potatoes, halved if large
- 6 Ears of corn, husked and cut into 3†lengths
- 2 ½ lbs Littleneck clams
- 4 lbs Large white shrimp, peeled and deveined with tails intact
- 2 lbs Crawfish, cleaned, purged in salt and rinsed
- ¼ cup Old Bay Seasoning or to taste
- Corn bread or crusty bread
- ½ lb Melted butter for corn/bread
- Cocktail sauce
Fill a large pot (turkey fryer) half full with water and bring to a boil. Stir in the beer, garlic, lemons, crab boil, hot pepper sauce, bay leaves, salt, and onions.
Add the sausage and potatoes, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are tender, takes about 10-15 minutes.
Return to a boil and add the corn, cover and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the clams, discarding any that are not closed and cook 5-7 minutes until the clams have opened.
Add the shrimp and crawfish and cook 3-4 minutes until the shrimp have turned light pink.
Total cooking time is less than 30 minutes. Using the sieve drain off the liquid and spill the boil on a table covered with newspaper or restaurant paper. Discard any clams that have not opened. Â Sprinkle with Old Bay Seasoning and serve with bread, cornbread and cocktail sauce.
RO 8/22/16
