Shrimp Boil

I saw a photo spread of a shrimp boil (or “low country boil” as they are often called) in a Martha Stewart Living magazine years ago and, since this was before the days of Pinterest, had carefully torn it out and saved it and sworn one day I was going to do it.

So when we were meal planning for the beach trip and Anne said “Let’s do a shrimp boil!” I said “IN!!!” What better place to do it then where fresh shrimp is abundant!

Fortunately for us, Locke’s family had done them before so we decided he was going to be the head chef and then we loosely consulted another expert on all-things-Southern-cooking to refresh ourselves on the timing and order of ingredients into the pot. (I’ve always sworn I’d never use a Paula Deen recipe, but there’s an exception to every rule!)

It ended up being the yummiest, easiest, crowd-pleasing meal ever. The crab boil, listed in the Paula Deen recipe, was easy enough to find at the grocery store – it was a pack of herbs & spices basically in kind of little mesh bag like a tea bag that floated in the boiling water to flavor everything and then was easily scooped out. And then of course, we had Old Bay to put on the table to liberally shake on to everything. Using Old Bay always takes me back to Baltimore and makes me feel a teensy bit nostalgic!

Technically, if you’re going to do this authentically, you’re supposed to dump everything out on to newspapers on a table and just dig in – but since the table at our rental house looked like maybe it wouldn’t appreciate a couple pounds of steaming shrimp, corn and sausage poured on to it, we opted for bowls.  And then we indeed dug in!

Easiest recipe ever. Make it, eat it, share with happy guests.