7/8/2017 – At the farm – Bought 3 lbs, of 20-30 count, head-on, frozen, Royal Reds at Bayou Produce and Seafood for $6.50/lb. Owner said they were authentic from 1000 feet deep in a trench in Florida. We told him we had them recently that had come from Argentina. He said those would have been farm raised and not as good.

Brought to a boil a 6″ deep, wide aluminum fry pot with a little more than 1C homemade crab boil and turned it off. Let it steep for an hour then brought back to a rolling boil and dumped in the cold, headless shrimp.  Note we did not add salt as the owner said they are salty enough having come from so deep where the salinity is high.

Very pleased with the crab boil as it had the carport smelling like old time crab boil with strong full aromas. The shrimp had the flavor but not overpowering.

Owner said to add them to boiling water and as it reheated leave them in for no more than 3 minutes. Using Mary’s phone counting down from a 3-minute setting, when it timed out the first shrimp floated. As the pot had a strainer basket they all were removed from the boil at the same time. Dumped them into a bowl with ice.

Results – They:

• sorta had a lobster taste as we were told to anticipate. Perhaps the crab boil masked it some;
• were firm and a bit crunchy – definitely not overdone. Seemed like they are firmer meat than the typical shrimp;
• did have a good shrimp taste that was more mild than typical;
• were a nice change but not work paying a lot more which we did not do today as there were no cheaper fresh shrimp due to fresh water has pushed the shrimp offshore. Only thing available was frozen and all expensive by Bayou La Batre pricing.