Brad Goes Crabbing & Shrimping For A Low Country Boil

Hey guys! Today on It's Alive,

we're down here in beautiful South Carolina,

Hilton Head Island.

And we're 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 shrimping.

[coughs]

Let's get shrimping.

[playful instrumental music]

Hey guys, so we're out here on the boat

with Andrew Carmines, 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,

and beautiful southern Beaufort County,

and we're gonna catch some white shrimp.

We're also gonna hopefully check some crab pots,

and have some blue crabs and some stone crabs.

[Brad] Just seems like a very fertile body of water,

like a very marshy, the word ecosystem just pops into mind.

Yeah, we're in an amazing nursery

for all types of aquatic species,

blue crab, 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

around here, are the best shrimp.

Stir the pot.

Yeah, yeah, people from the Gulf are gonna get mad at me

for saying that, but our shrimp are super sweet,

they are super firm,

they cook up just completely opaque white.

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 some.

The shrimp tend to ball up and school up.

And that's kinda 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 as long as we get,

let's try to get a couple dozen, two dozen,

or something, right something to cook.

We'll see how it goes.

I'll 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!

[twangy guitar music]

So, this net is a little heavier than the average

'cause we want it to fall quick.

[Brad] Uh uh.

The trick to the whole thing is just loading the net.

[Brad] Sure.

So you start with throwing a piece over your shoulder

and then you kind of fling this up on your forearm, like so.

Seems a lot more complicated than I thought.

No, it's not.

It's pretty easy.

And then I'm gonna grab this piece

with my forefinger and my thumb.

[Brad] 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,

[phone alert ping]

I'm gonna take out the slack,

Sure.

and I'm just gonna lift up and down

to kinda get that net to start to close.

[Brad] Okay.

And when I do that, if there's shrimp in it,

I can actually feel the shrimp popping around

even though it's 40 feet down there.

So that thing fell open, right?

That's what we're hoping,

hopefully, hypothetically, open-ish.

Yeah.

Lands over some shrimp,

That are buried up, on the bottom.

And then when you tug it, the weights close in like that.

Like click, click, click and then we're coming up.

Yeah.

[Brad] Come on!

Oh, yeah.

Yeah?

Like ten.

Jumbos!

Oh yeah, look at that, man.

[Andrew] Oh yeah, not a bad little haul.

[Brad] Gorgeous!

[Andrew] See the shrimp in there?

[Brad] Yeah.

[net weights rattle]

Wow look at that green tail on him.

[Andrew] Yeah, that's the cool thing.

And that's how you can tell shrimp are really fresh

and down here.

[Brad] Wow! Look at that.

They got iridescent green tail.

[Brad] These look delicious.

[Andrew] Dude, I'm telling you.

[Brad] I wanna eat the legs, I wanna eat everything.

Yeah.

You're just going to coil that

in like one or two foot coils.

Yeah, that's absolutely perfect.

And then you're gonna 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 possibly can.

And gentle, you're a strong dude.

[Brad] Well, that didn't pancake.

[Andrew] That'll work. That'll work.

[Brad] That was horrible.

No, let it go. Let it go.

It'll open up as it goes down cause it's got that tape on.

[Brad] We'll do better.

We'll do better next time.

[Andrew] You 100% will do better.

[Brad] I like this.

[Andrew] Now, once you get taut,

you wanna kinda tickle it like up and down.

Up and then let it go back down, and then up.

Just kinda work that closing mechanism.

[Andrew] You feeling anything?

Better than the gym.

There's our shrimp.

Ah ha ha ha ha! You got one!

Yeah, man, thank you.

Nice work, dude.

You got two.

Doubling it.

You got more than one.

Oh, and then to release it,

you just lift up the horn.

Yeah, you lift the horn. Yep.

Yeah.

Oh I gotta get one of these.

That is sweet man.

First cast, give me a break.

[Brad] That's a nice one!

Yeah, and then that tape

that goes around the outside here,

grabs the water as the nets sinking

and keeps the net completely open all the way to the bottom.

[Brad] Boom!

Not bad. Not bad.

Better than not bad, come on.

Could be better but not bad, felt better.

That was awesome.

Yeah!

[Brad] There's a couple in there.

[Andrew] Yeah, all right. It's amazing

when you open the net up. Oh! There's a bunch.

[Brad] Yeah, there's a few in there.

[Andrew] Probably like eight or nine in there.

[net weights rattle]

[Brad] Oh yeah!

[Andrew] Good work.

[classical music begins]

[chuckles]

[Brad] He goes nope.

All right, man, well I think we did pretty well

on these beauties, huh?

Pretty amazing.

We got a few dozen, that's more than enough

that we're gonna need for our cookout.

But, you were saying before you put a couple traps out,

we we're gonna catch two different types of, hopefully,

two different types of crabs down here.

What kinda crabs are we chasing?

Well we have blue crabs, Callinectes 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, a lot of people don't know this,

but we also have stone crabs.

Oh, amazing, so usually, kinda people think

stone crabs, they usually think Florida, right?

Totally.

All right, well we got the shrimp on ice.

Let's go try to catch some crabs.

Let's do it.

Cool.

[country music begins]

All right, so Andrew I see we got a little buoy

up here you said that was going to be one of our traps.

Where did you guys go ahead and place those out?

What kind of traps are we dealing with.

We set them up yesterday morning.

They've got a little bit of menhaden in them for bait.

[Brad] Beautiful.

The idea is there is a rebar on the bottom

of the trap.

There's a door where the crab can

come in but it's very difficult for them to get out.

Well we got a crab trap coming up right in front

of us here why don't we-

I'm gonna let you get this one.

All right I'll pull that one up.

Yeah.

[wind whooshing]

Oh yeah, we got a couple in there.

[Andrew] How's it looking?

Yeah, some good looking crabs, man.

[Andrew] Oh yeah! There's a big, big males in there.

[Brad] Beauties, that's a jumbo right there.

That's a six-, seven- incher.

It's like a perfect blue.

[Man] It's like cobalt almost or something.

[Brad] It's unbelievable so, this is that,

what is this spartini?

Spartinae 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.

[Brad] Right.

That spartinae grass is able to react with the sun

and create phytoplankton and that's why

this is such a rich 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 cause there's more structure

on the bottom.

The stone crabs like shelter.

Oh yeah, baby.

Yeah buddy!

[Andrew] With these you just break off

the major claw and then the minor claw becomes

the major claw and they regenerate the other claw.

[Brad] Unbelievable

[Andrew] So we'd set them free so we might catch

the same stone crab four times in its life.

[Brad] I'd imagine, you know, from Native Americans,

this bountiful, from the crab to the shrimp,

must have been such a part of the culture of this area.

Right, in front of us here is Pinckney Island

National Wildlife Refuge and there's actually

shell enclosures.

It's basically a refuse pile

that they think was behind the living quarters-

[Brad] Where they threw their shells.

[Andrew] The shells, right.

Oh wow, really?

And so these are like native nomadic,

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.

[Brad] It's just embedded in the food, in the people,

and I love that.

[Andrew] That's right.

[Brad] Down here, what's your preferred way

of cooking them up?

It's just to keep it simple and let

the ingredients shine, like you were saying earlier.

I mean, so, we've got the low country boil.

We'll do some corn, some sausage, some potatoes,

the blue crabs, and the shrimp.

All together in one big happy pot.

I also got, went out and picked some local cluster oysters.

Amazing.

So we'll do those over an open fire

with the burlap sacks, steam those babies open,

and eat it all together.

Hard to beat that.

It's gonna be awesome.

I'm excited, I'm starving, let's go, man.

Enough work for today on this end.

I'm on it, let's do it.

Cool.

[rock guitar begins]

[Brad] All right, Andrew so we're back

at your dock.

Every culture and every region kinda

has their own little riff and a lot of folks

who come down here, it's all about that low country boil.

Yeah.

What's that all about?

Well, I'll tell you this, you know, 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

[Brad] Let them speak for themselves.

You don't have to, no chopping, no nothing,

you get a pot going, you get a good seasoning

in the pot, and you drop the seafood and the vegetables in

and 25, 30 minutes later,

you got a great dinner that's no fuss.

Right.

One pot.

So here we just got a simple turkey fryer,

a little propane burner, anything works.

So what ya got there?

I just got a homemade, spicy boil seasoning.

[Brad] Where people tend to go wrong with it

or struggle is timing.

You know? Like I see we got some potatoes.

So I'm assuming, what you kinda add those first.

[Andrew] I would say we'll do potatoes

for 15 minutes and then we'll come back

with blue crabs, that's gonna take five, six,

seven minutes maybe.

Now I'm just gonna break these guys in half

so they go in a little easier here.

The sausage is already fully smoked.

Kielbasa.

[Andrew] Yeah, it's kielbasa, 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.

[Brad] Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew] And just let that shrimp poach

for six, seven minutes in that liquid and then

we're on the plate.

I always tell people when I do these,

don't worry about the little tiny things

like Oh well what are my ingredients in my boil.

If it tastes good to you, use it.

Yeah, you nailed it, man.

I tell people all the time, you're a better cook

than you let yourself think.

Now you mentioned you got some wild clusters

of oysters to-

Yeah.

And I'm assuming we're gonna roast them up on this.

Yeah, that's just an old cane syrup

or sorghum syrup kettle.

It's so versatile.

[Brad] You know it's been a lot more of a thing

down here, I feel like, these wild cluster flats.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, where you're not just getting this

curated, farmed in a bag, deep cup.

But this is how an oyster would grow in the wild

and that's exactly what this is.

Yeah, here the reality is that when wild oysters

reproduce we don't have any bedrock here.

We have [incoherent] created by the spartina grass

that we talked about earlier.

It's all connected, man.

[Andrew] 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 one.

That's it [indistinct] flats.

So they attach to each other.

There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven oysters

on this one cluster.

[Brad] It's amazing, yeah.

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 the region down here, right?

It's just embedded in the people.

There's always been this connection to the water

and to the land and what the land can provide.

Oystering, shrimping, clamming, throwing the cast net,

just like we were today.

Throwing the cast net for mullet,

eating mullet, throwing the, teaching their kids.

And that was the Gullah people were here

and they brought a lot of recipes from west Africa

with them and 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.

And we're just going to dump them right on, yeah?

Yeah, go, yeah.

That's a blue heron.

Great blue.

That egret wants nothing to do with him.

[Brad] Yeah they got dinosaur dude.

[Andrew] Look at him he's all fired up, man.

[Brad] His head all flared up. He's like

'I will peck your face.' Look at his, I know,

I love that. Oh! Some Nat Geo [beep], Kev.

[Man] He thought about it and he was like

hmm hmm

[Brad] Going.

[seafood sizzling]

[Andrew] I'd say that fire's hot enough.

[Brad] I think so, huh?

[seafood sizzling]

[Andrew] Now watch your hands, I'm gonna

[Brad] Yup, yeah. Wow, that's a beautiful thing.

Cooking them in their own juices,

that oyster liquor.

[crosstalk]

Exactly, exactly. This is gonna be the purest

flavor of oyster, cooked oyster-

It's the best.

That you can get.

[Andrew] So we're just pulling the burlap off

and they are perfect.

That oyster is perfectly cooked for a little guy.

[Brad] Not overcooked, good indicator.

[Andrew] The big ones are gonna be a little under

and that's perfect.

I even like them like 50% where they're not open

but poached in their own juices.

[Andrew] Firm. Slightly firm.

[Brad] The best.

[Andrew] Yes, I agree. Totally agree.

[Brad] So I think shrimp are looking good, yeah?

[Andrew] I think they're ready.

My chef says that they should be a 'C' like instead of being

like this, when you steam them or boil them,

they should look like a 'C'.

[Brad] Mission accomplished.

[Andrew] And not a whatever you call that, a circle.

Got a little landing zone, right up here.

Yeah right up there.

Yeah, that's gorgeous, huh?

Man, I'm telling ya.

[Brad] Look at those shrimp, man.

That's a hell of a spread right there.

[Andrew] I know and to think that we caught all

of the seafood on that platter.

Well I feel like I gotta start 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.

[Brad] So clean looking.

[Andrew] You just don't see that as much anymore.

And then some people will suck some of the seasoning

out of the head.

Yeah I mean look at that, I mean brilliant white meat.

[Andrew] Isn't it?

[Brad] Almost like mini, kinda better than lobster

in a way.

Yeah, it's different.

Man, man that's so good.

It's got that real sweet flavor to it.

That texture is incredible.

To be honest, it's super flavorful, we basically

steamed them in a lightly seasoned

crab and shrimp stock.

I mean too much seasoning

and all of a sudden you're not gonna taste that,

that essence of the saltwater that we just

got them from, you know?

[Andrew] That's right, yeah.

[Brad] And then the oysters, I mean,

they're steamed, they're poached in their own

little liquor.

The ones that, that one's like perfect.

[Andrew] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Still you just kinda 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 and you just wanna go in

and kinda just do a little pop and wiggle.

[Andrew] These ones you can break apart too.

[Brad] Oh wow. You can de-cluster them.

[Andrew] When you get ones that are really hard

to get at.

[Brad] In its own liquor.

[Andrew] That's pretty perfect.

[Brad] Poached. This is perfect. Perfect.

All that juice is there. That's its own juices.

You don't have to go scrambling it up,

all you wanna do is just kinda slide it off.

Give it a push off of it.

Oh look at that thing.

Look at this one, this one's for you bro.

Mmh they're perfect, Andrew.

Some people like to do the cracker approach.

Does this thing have a name that we're doing?

It's called a 'Carolina Rooster.

So what do you do, what's the move?

First things first is just a little dab

of horseradish-

[Brad] All right, I can get into this.

[Andrew] On the cracker.

[Brad] Yes sir.

So then we're gonna do a little thin sliced jalapeno-

[Brad] Okay, okay.

On top of that.

[Brad] Oh meow.

[Andrew] Then we're gonna take

[Brad] A little topper.

[Andrew] Just a little topper.

This looks good!

And you can even go like dash of hot sauce,

on top of that.

Little tabasc-y on top.

[Andrew] You can do that.

We should probably put lemon on there.

Just a little squeeze, nothing wrong with that.

Just a little squeeze. Cheers. Cheers to you.

Cheers, bud!

Pretty good I mean...

RealLy good.

Yeah.

Well I say we gotta try the crabs.

I need to see the technique,

I'm gonna go along with ya.

I kinda came up with this with lobsters

and I think it'll transfer with crabs.

This is kind of like.

I call it like a crab or a lobster chute.

Usually, they're loaded with their own juice, right?

So I'll put that end in my mouth, and then you

crack the pincher kinda like you shotgun a beer.

Oh really?

And you get that real nice like crab stock.

Oh I got a nice little pinch there.

You've done this before.

Claws are a little higher in flavor.

[Brad] And fat too I think.

[Andrew] They got a little more oil to them.

[Brad] There's a lot more going on.

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 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.

[Andrew] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It don't need nothing but if you got a little butter.

[Andrew] Look at that, look at that.

Oh my lord.

Perfect. It's so good.

Hey, what kind of bird is that, man?

Which one?

That white one there, Egret? Is it Egret?

Hey is that a white haired or snowy egret?

[Man] Snowy egret.

Snowy egret, you got it

[Brad] Eating them bunker. He loves a menhaden, huh?

[Andrew] He ain't flying anywhere with that thing

in his gullet.

Oh he did. He doesn't want seagulls-

[Brad] Seagulls screwing with him.

[Andrew] Look at them.

Well Andrew thank you again, man.

For inviting me down here and for my first low country

boil, blown away.

From the quality of the ingredients, you're going out

and catching them to what you built here.

This passion, the kind of restaurant scene,

the culture, down here in Hilton Head Island.

Yeah, it's just been my honor and I learned something.

I hope everyone else did.

And just thank you again man.

This was my pleasure.

It's so amazing meeting you, man truly.

Oh thank you, same.

[Brad] Dinosaur showed up.

[chuckling]

[Man] It's just amazing this place.

[Brad] Guys got one foot, and he ain't complaining.

Guys still kicking ass.

Boat life bruh, salt life bae.

[upbeat music]