A few months ago, my family and I wanted to try somewhere new to eat. We usually stick to the same old restaurants but it was near Mother's Day and we wanted to take mom somewhere special. We landed at
Big Mike's Crab Shack & Pizza in Nixa, MO.
I'm a sucker for shrimp and when I was younger the Chinese buffets and Golden Corral had boiled shrimp that I spent all of my time on. However, these places no longer put boiled shrimp on their buffets and I can only assume that it's due to health rules. At Big Mike's, you can get a 1/2 pound or 1 pound helping of big honkin' huge boiled shrimp. I got the half pound which came with corn on the cob (which was very spicy and my dad couldn't even eat it!), boiled potatoes with great flavor without the butter, and juicy sweet shrimp. Hands down, it was the best boiled shrimp that I have ever had. I crave this meal on a weekly basis! We haven't had the time to go down to Nixa so I set out to figure how they made that deliciousness!
I learned that "boils" are a southern thing which is why I had never heard of them. I also learned that the less spicy versions come from the Carolina's and are often called "low country boils." So then, I plowed through Google searching for a recipe to match my needs. I needed something with a little heat but certainly not too much and it had to contain shrimp. Nearly every recipe I found contained crab or link sausage and I'm not a fan of either so I decided to just go off of a few recipes and throw out the gross (in my opinion, of course) stuff. Anyways, the following is a mesh of two recipes which can be found on
FoodNetwork and
Epicurious. Also below is a recipe for homemade cocktail sauce which was adapted from
Chaos in the Kitchen. This is the recipe that we did for our family of 3. Adjust it so that you have enough of everything, especially the shrimp.
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| Delicious Low Country Boil w/ Homemade Cocktail Sauce- Edited on Instagram |
Low Country Shrimp Boil
3 Tbs Old Bay seasoning (We used 2 T but it wasn't enough and wasn't spicy at all. Next time we'll try 3 T)
1 Tbs Cayenne
1/2 cup Salt
1 Onion, quartered
2-3 Red Potatoes per person (2 was plenty for us)
1 ear of corn per person, halved
4 cloves of garlic
2 bags of shrimp (not peeled)
Fill a large pot with water. Bring the water to a boil. Add in the Old Bay, cayenne, and onion. Let it boil for 5 minutes. Clean potatoes and stab with fork a few times. Add the potatoes and garlic into the boiling water and allow them to cook for 20 minutes. Place the corn into the water and cook about 10 minutes. Now, throw in (not literally) the shrimp and allow them to cook until they are nice and opaque. They should be done when they are curled.
Note: We used peeled and deveined shrimp when we did this. They cooked almost immediately but I feel that it would have taken them a little bit longer had they been the correct shrimp. Still, they were good.
Homemade Cocktail Sauce
1 cup Ketchup
1.5 Tbs Dijon Mustard
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 Tbs Lime Juice
1 tsp Worchestershire Sauce
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cayenne
Mix all of the above until smooth and add more of anything if you feel is needed.
This made more sauce than expected and quite a bit more than we actually needed. It's a definite substitute and we probably won't go back to the jarred stuff if we can avoid it! Tasty! Also, I used the dijon mustard because we didn't have horseradish and it tasted very similar to regular cocktail sauce.
While this didn't totally mask my hankering for Big Mike's, it came close until we're able to go again. I'm just learning that it's okay to tweek a recipe as you go instead of having to follow it to a T. I'm sure that I'll tweek these recipes more (especially the amount of Old Bay) until we can find a better match. This is something that we'll be trying again!
