Brad Goes Crabbing & Shrimping For A Low Country Boil | It's Alive | Bon Appétit

hey guys today it's alive we're down here in beautiful south carolina hilton head island i'll be teaming up with andrew carmine of hudson's and we're gonna be chasing some shrimp some blue claw crabs maybe a little stone crabs and then getting back on land doing a little low country boil something that's new to me so let's get shrimp [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey guys right here on the boat andrew carmine's owner of hudson's where are we and what are we doing out here we're right here on hilton head island bluffton south carolina right behind us in beautiful southern beaufort county and we're going to catch some white shrimp we're also going to hopefully check some crab pots and have some blue crabs and some stone crabs just seems like a really fertile body of water you know very marshy just like a real it seems like a really like the word ecosystem just kind of like just pops into your mind we're in an amazing nursery for all types of aquatic species blue crabs shrimp oysters clams you said we're going after the white shrimp white shrimp east coast white shrimp in my opinion and i think a lot of people's opinion are the best shrimp yeah yeah people from the gulf are going to get mad at me for saying that but so uh but our shrimp are super sweet they're super firm they cook up just completely opaque white you know they haven't been to a processing facility so they are just as mother nature intended and they are sweet as can be well i hope we can catch them the shrimp tend to ball up and spool up and and that's kind of what we're aiming for is to find those big wads of shrimp in about 30 to 40 feet of water well we don't need many so i mean like well well as long as we get you know let's try to get over a couple dozen two dozen or something on the fifth and goes i don't i i will take one we've been out the last few days and it's been really good so i'm optimistic well let's catch at least one [Music] so this net is a little heavier than the average because we want it to fall quick the trick to the whole thing is just loading the net sure so you start with throwing a piece over your shoulder and then you kind of fling this up on your forearm it seems a lot more complicated than i thought no it's not it's it's it's it's pretty easy all right and then i'm gonna grab this piece with my forefinger and my thumb all right and then all i'm gonna do is just i'm gonna go flying off the boat toss it oh nice throw once it gets down to the bottom i'm going to take out the slack sure and i'm just going to lift up just lift up and down to kind of get that net to start to close okay and when i do that if they're shrimping it i can actually feel the shrimp popping around even though it's 40 feet down so that thing fell open right that's what we're hoping hopefully hypothetically open-ish yeah lands on some over some some shrimp that are buried up and then when you tug it the the weights close in like that like click click click and then we're coming up yep yeah oh yeah yeah like ten jumbos oh yeah look at that man oh yeah not a bad little haul gorgeous see the shrimp in there yeah wow look at that green tail on them yeah that's the cool thing man that's how you can tell shrimp are really fresh and down here wow look at that they got an iridescent green tail these look delicious i do i'm telling you i want to eat the legs i want to eat everything yeah you're just going to coil that in like one or two foot coils and yeah that's absolutely perfect and then you're going to come down here and grab it about thigh high perfect so what you're trying to do is get that net to come out and pancake so you're covering as much water as you possibly can and gentle yeah you're a strong dude i think pancake that'll work that was horrible no it'll let it go let it go it'll open up as it goes down because it's got that we'll do better we'll do better next time 100 i'll do better i like that and then once you get taught you want to kind of tickle it like up and down up and then let it go back down and then up just kind of feel anything mechanism better than the gym [Music] you got one yeah man thank you nice work dude in there more than to release it you just lift yeah left the horn yeah yeah oh i gotta get one he is sweet man first cast give me a break that's a nice one yeah um and then that tape that goes around the outside here grabs the water as the net sinking and keeps the net completely open all the way to the bottom boom not bad not bad better than not that no that could be better but not bad felt better that was awesome [Music] there's a couple of hell yeah all right it's amazing when you open the net up here oh there's a bunch yeah there's a few we got like eight or nine in there oh yeah good work [Music] no all right ma'am i think we did pretty well on uh on these beauties we got a few dozen that's that's more than we're gonna that's more than enough that we're gonna need for our cookout um but you know you were saying before you put a couple traps out we were gonna catch two different types of hopefully two different types of crabs down here what kind of crabs we choose well we have blue crabs um calaneca sapidus which is like the one that you see like a lot of crab cakes are made out of stuff like that and then we also people a lot of people don't know this but we also have stone crabs which are amazing so usually kind of people think stone crabs they usually think florida totally all right well we got the shrimp on ice uh let's go try to catch some crabs let's do it cool [Music] all right so andre i see we got a little buoy up here you said that was gonna be one of our traps where did you guys go ahead and place those out what kind of traps we dealing with we set them up yesterday morning um they've got a little bit of menhaden in them for bait beautiful um the uh idea is there's a rebar on the bottom of the trap there's a door where the tr the crab can come in but it's very difficult for them to get out right well we got a crab trap coming up right in front of us here we're going to let you get i'll pull that one up yeah oh yeah we got a couple in there looking yeah some good-looking crabs man yeah there's a big big big man that's a jumbo right there that's a six seven incher it's like a perfect blue it's like cobalt almost unbelievable so this is that was it spartan spartins spartina or spartina because we have such salty water that's so buoyant and because we have such big tides that are washing keeping things floating right um that spartina grass is able to react with the sun and create phytoplankton and that's why this is such a rich and and bountiful nursery for baby shrimp crabs oysters and clams it really is one of the things that makes this area southern beaufort county super unique so we just set this pot this is more of a stone crab spot because there's more structure on the bottom the stone crabs like shelter oh yeah baby yeah buddy with these you just break off the major claw and then the minor claw becomes the major claw and they regenerate the other claws we'd set them free so you might we might catch the same stone crab four times in its life i would imagine you know from native americans i mean that this bountiful this you know from the crabs of the shrimp must have been such a part of the culture of this area right uh in front of us here is pinkney island national wildlife refuge and there's actually uh shell enclosures it's basically a refuse pile that they think was behind the living quarters so they were right through the show right wow so these are like native uh nomadic uh native americans that used to have civilizations or small communities where they would live on oysters and clams we're just trying to carry on the tradition it's just embedded in the food and the people and and i love that that's right down here what's your preferred way of cooking them up is just to keep it simple and let the ingredients shine like you were saying earlier i mean so um we've got the low country boy we'll do some uh corn some sausage some potatoes the blue crabs and the shrimp all together in one big happy pot i got i also got some went out and picked some local cluster oysters oh man so we'll do those over an open fire with the burlap sacks steam those babies open and eat it all together it's hard to beat that it's gonna be awesome i'm excited i'm starving let's uh let's go man enough work for today on this end i'm on it let's do it cool [Music] all right andrew you're back at your dock every culture and every every region kind of has their own little riff and you know a lot of folks you come down here it's all about that low country boil yeah yeah what's that all about well i'll tell you this you know and and you you can get as fancy as you want with cooking but the whole thing with a low country boil is it's easy the ingredients can go in basically whole let them speak for themselves no chopping no nothing like you get a pot going you get a good seasoning in the pot and you drop the seafood and the vegetables in and you know 25 30 minutes later you got a great dinner that's no fuss right one pot so we just got a little simple kind of turkey fryer a little propane burner you know anything works yeah and uh so what you got there i just got like a homemade um like spicy boil seasoning and where people tend to go wrong with it or struggle is timing you know like i see we got some potatoes um so i'm assuming why you kind of add those first i would say like we'll do potatoes for 15 minutes sure and then we'll come back with blue crabs that's gonna take five six minutes six seven minutes maybe i'm just gonna break these guys in half so they go in a little a little easier here the sausage is already fully smoked so it's bossy it's kabasa it's from a local farm cooper river farms in north carolina it's really good and then when we're ready to drop the shrimp in we'll drop it in and turn the heat off yeah and just let that shrimp poach for six seven minutes in that liquid and then we're we're on the plate i always tell people when i do these is don't worry about the little tiny things like oh well what are my ingredients in my boil if it tastes good to you yeah use it you nailed it man i tell people all the time i'm like you're a better cook than you let yourself yeah you mentioned we've got a bunch you got some some wild clusters of oysters too and yeah i'm assuming we're gonna roast them up on this yeah that's just an old uh like cane syrup or sorghum syrup kettle it's so versatile you know it's a lot more of a thing down here i feel like these wild cluster flowers yeah yeah you know where you're not just getting this this curated you know farmed in a bag deep cut but this is how an an oyster will grow in the wild and that's exactly what this is yeah here the the reality is that one wild oysters reproduce we don't have any bedrock here right we have pluff mud created by the spartina grass that we talked about connected man so when the oysters reproduce they have to find a hard object to attach to to start their life as an oyster to go from a larval oyster to an oyster they have to attach to a hard object in the low country this is hard object a number 10. so they attach to each other there's one two three four five six seven oysters on this one it's amazing yeah and and the reason why we steam those open is because it's really hard to get in there and get these open without cutting yourself the crabs and the oysters and the shrimp that's just part of you know that's just part of the region down here right it's just embedded in the people there's always been this connection to the water into the land and and what the land can provide oystering shrimping clamming throwing the cast net just like we were today yeah throwing the cast net for mullet eating mullets throwing the cats teaching their kids and that was the the the gullah people were here and they brought a lot of recipes from west africa with them and um that is the roots of southern cuisine today so again we got these clusters i got some burlap bag that we got soaking in a little water there yeah and we're just going to dump them right on yeah yeah go yeah that's a blue heron great blue and that egret wants nothing to do with him yeah they got dinosaur all fired up man his head i will peck your face look at him i know i love that oh some nachos he thought about it and just like going um i'd say that fire's hot enough right so oh that's a beautiful thing cooking in their own you know people that their own juices that that oyster liqueur you know exactly this is going to be the purest flavor of oyster that you have cooked oysters yeah so we're just pulling the burlap off and beautiful they are perfect look at that that oyster is perfectly cooked for a little guy not overcooked big ones are good indicator the big ones are going to be a little under and that's perfect i even like them like 50 they're just like not open but poached in their own juices slightly faster yes i agree totally agree so i think shrimp i think shrimp looking good yeah i think they're ready i mean i absolutely but my chef says that they should be a c like instead of being like this right when you steam them or boil them they should look like a c a mission not not a whatever you call that a circle you got a little landing zone right up here yeah right up there yeah that's gorgeous huh man i'm telling you look at those shrimp man that's a hell that's a hell of a spread right there i know and to think that like we caught all of the seafood it's amazing on that platter yeah well i feel like i got to start with with the shrimp yeah so no i mean like if you're heading shrimp basically i just pop the head off with my thumb and forefinger and then i mean just look at how opaque white that is i mean it's just it's so clean you just don't see that like as much anymore and then some people will start having this seasoning out of the head yeah look at that i mean brilliant white meat isn't it almost like almost like mini it's like kind of better than lobster in a way yeah they're it's different but it's got that real sweet the texture is incredible to be honest it's super flavorful you know we basically steamed them in a in a lightly seasoned crab and shrimp stock i mean too much seasoning and all of a sudden you're not going to taste that that's right that essence of the of the salt water that we just got them from you know and then the oysters i mean they're steamed they're poached in their own little liquor the ones that don't that one's like perfect right yeah yeah yeah but like you still you just kind of treat it the same way you would a raw and oysters are basically built where they have that little hinge there right on the back you just want to go in and kind of just do a little pop and wiggle these ones you can break apart too yeah when you get ones that are really hard to get at in its own liquor that's that's poached this is perfect it's pretty perfect all that juice is there is its own juices you don't have to go scrambling it up you know like what you want to do is just kind of slide it off give it a little push off of it oh look at that thing look at this one this one's for you perfect andrew some people like to do the cracker approach is this little this thing have a name that we're doing it's called a carolina rooster what do you do first things first is just a little dab of horseradish all right i can get in there on the cracker yes sir okay so then we're gonna do a little thin sliced jalapeno okay okay on top of that oh meow and we're going to take a little topper just a little topper this looks good and you can even go like a dash of hot sauce on top of that basket we should probably put lemon on there it's just a little squeeze i'm not wrong with that squeeze cheers cheers cheers to you pretty good i mean real good yeah i said we gotta try the crabs i need to see the technique i'm gonna go along with you i kind of came up with this with lobsters and i think it'll transfer with crabs because it's kind of like i call it like a a crab or a lobster shooter and we'll see how it works usually they're loaded with their own juice right right so i'll put that in my mouth and then you crack the pincher like kind of like shock on a beer oh really and you get that like real nice like crab stock oh i got a nice little pinch there you've done this before claws are a little higher in in flavor they have they're fat they've got a little more oil a lot more going on um i think they're just absolutely i think probably the best bite on it i mean from there i don't know what people's problem is we're just dealing with just a little meat wagon here i mean this is just loaded with some of the best crab meat you could honestly eat in my opinion yeah yeah all right don't need nothing but if you've got a little butter look at that oh my god it's so good hey what kind of bird is that man which one that white one there egret hey is that a white hair or snowy egret snow egret you got it eating him bunker he loves the manhattan huh oh yeah he ain't flying anywhere with that thing in his gullet [Music] oh he did he didn't want some seagulls seagulls look at him well andrew thank you again man for you know just inviting me down here and you know for my first low country boil just you know blown away you know from the the quality of the ingredients to going out and catching them to what you built here this passionate kind of restaurant scene and culture down here in hilton head island yeah it's just been my honor and i learned something i hope everyone else did and thank you again man thank you yeah it was my pleasure so i'm so amazing meeting you man oh thank you dinosaur showed up it's just amazing this place guys got one foot we ain't complaining guys still kicking ass boat life bro salt like that [Music] you

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 631,395

Keywords: alive, andrew carmines, bon app, bon appetit, bon appetit brad, brad, brad bon appetit, brad it's alive, brad leone, brad leone 2019, brad leone 2021, brad makes, food, hilton head fishing, hilton head island, hilton head island sc, how to shuck oyster, hudsons seafood south carolina, hudson’s seafood house on the docks, it's alive, it's alive bon appetit, its alive, low country boil, low country boil recipe, make low country boil

Id: PBzgSnLHleQ

Length: 18min 31sec (1111 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/fuzzymumbochops]

Is it just me or is this like the 4th or 5th time Brad's done pretty much this episode? Like, ya, crabbing and fishing is great. But the episodes are starting to feel the same: on boat, catch something, cook it very simply. Dunno—liked it the first couple times, but now it's just feeling old.

[u/cy1763]

I live in Bluffton! Awesome to see the Lowcountry pop up in one of the videos.

[u/[deleted]]

Hope to see more of Brad outside of BA. He is my favorite chef to watch. But wrote off BA a while back. Hated to do it but did not support their choices.

Brad should just start his own thing. Him and Vin. Like old times.

[u/MurphShoots]

Couple-a big boys