During the 1980s, my uncle Thao regularly gifted our family with crawfish that he caught near his home in Southern California. He'd bring plastic grocery bags filled with pre-cooked crawfish. We’d never seen the tiny lobster-like creatures but were undaunted: Viet people adore picking through piles of shellfish and crustaceans to savor the bits of flesh with muối tiêu chanh (salt, pepper, and lime dipping sauce). It’s a fun way to nosh, fueled by conversation and beer. (A lager-style beer is what I prefer.)
Decades later, I found myself researching Viet-Cajun crawfish boils for the Southern Foodways Alliance. These popular boils entailed coating the cooked components in a heady sauce of spices, garlic, and butter or margarine. When I interviewed Dada Ngo, the co-owner of Boiling Crab, a successful chain founded in California with roots in Houston and the Texas Gulf fishing community, she didn’t share her sauce recipe but offered this: Flavor your boil however you want—what’s key is using the best seafood possible in your locale. Live crawfish is rare where I live, so I use shrimp and mussels for my California take on a culinary mash-up that could only happen in America.
Boils are easy; you just add the various components to the pot at intervals so they don’t overcook. Add a lightly dressed green salad for a balanced meal.
Viet Cajun Seafood Boil History
Is this a New Orleans thing? Where did it come from? I've done some digging around over the years:
2010: My round up of Viet Cajun articles about how it all got started.
2023: A podcast mini-series I co-produced and reported for the Oxford American about Viet Cajun in New Orleans. There are two parts:
Viet Cajun Seafood Boil Recipe Notes
This recipe was originally published in my cookbook, Vietnamese Food Any Day. The photo was taken by Aubrie Pick and styled by Karen Shinto.
For more tips, check out my Viet-Cajun Seafood Boil Bonanza newsletter dispatch at Pass the Fish Sauce! (Subscribe to not miss a beat/beet!).
Viet-Cajun Seafood Boil Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound small “new” potatoes
- 1 head garlic, papery skin removed if there is a thick layer of it
- 12 cups water
- 2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning or your favorite seafood boil seasoning blend, plus 1 ¼ teaspoons
- Fine sea salt
- 1 medium orange or lemon
- 3 medium ears corn, each husked and cut crosswise into 4 sections
- 8 ounces andouille or kielbasa sausage, cut into 1 ½- to 2-inch chunks
- 1 ⅓ pounds extra-large or jumbo shrimp, snipped along the back of the shell with scissors and deveined
- 10 ounces mussels
- 6 tablespoons butter
- ¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¾ teaspoon recently ground black pepper or white pepper
- 1 or 2 limes, cut into wedges
Instructions
- In an 8-quart stockpot, combine the potatoes, garlic, water, 2 tablespoons Old Bay, and 1 teaspoon salt and set over high heat.
- Finely grate the orange zest directly into a small saucepan. Set aside.
- Halve the zested citrus, then squeeze the juice directly into the stockpot. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Uncover and boil for 8 to 10 minutes, until the potatoes are halfway cooked (a knife tip easily penetrates ½ inch before meeting resistance). Set the corn, sausage, shrimp, and mussels nearby.
- Remove the head of garlic from the pot, transfer to a plate, and let cool for a few minutes. Add the corn to the pot, return the water to a boil, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until the potatoes are tender (easily pierced with a knife to the center).
- Meanwhile, trim the root end from the garlic and slip the skins off the cloves; it’s okay if they’re not totally tender. Put the garlic through a press (or chop and mash with a knife) and let the results fall into the saucepan with the zest. Add the butter, cayenne, and remaining 1 ¼ teaspoons Old Bay and cook over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes to melt the butter and meld flavors; the garlic should be distinct but not raw and strong. Set aside to cool.
- After the corn and potatoes are cooked through, add the sausage and shrimp to the boil, then top with the mussels. Cover the pot and let the shellfish poach for 2 minutes (there’s no need to bring to a boil), until the mussels have opened and the shrimp have curled and turned pink. Remove the pot from the heat, uncover, and stir 2 to 3 tablespoons of the cooking liquid into the garlic butter.
- Set a large colander in the sink, then pour the pot of boiled ingredients into it to drain. Return half of the boiled ingredients to the pot, pour in half of the garlic butter, stir with a large spoon to coat, and then dump onto a rimmed baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the boil. Combine the black pepper and 1 teaspoon salt and divide among individual small dishes.
- Bring the boil to the table to serve. Invite diners to make their own sauce by squeezing lime juice over the salt and pepper and stirring it together. Don’t forget paper towels for easy cleanup.
