Planning a crawfish boil is a great way to bring your friends, family and community together. With it being the middle of crawfi sh season, follow these food safety tips when preparing for your crawfish boil.
Look for the label: Look for tags on sacks or containers of live shellfish. These tags and labels contain specific information about the product, including the processor’s certification number.
Check for leg movement: live crustaceans should show some leg movement. They spoil rapidly after death, so only live crustaceans should be selected and prepared.
Follow these ser ving guidelines once your seafood is cooked and ready to be enjoyed.
Never leave seafood or other perishable food out of the refrigerator for more than two hours or for more than one hour if exposed to temperatures above 90. Bacteria that can cause illness grow quickly at temperatures between 40 and 140.
For party planning, keep hot seafood hot and cold seafood cold: Keep cold chilled seafood refrigerated until time to serve.
Serve cold seafood on ice if it is going to stay out longer than two hours.
Keep hot seafood heated until time to serve or divide the seafood into smaller containers and keep them in a refrigerator until time to reheat and serve.
Serve hot seafood under a heat source (hot lamp, crock pot, hot plate, etc.) if it is going to stay out longer than twp hours or discard the seafood after two hours.
For more information, see foodsafety.gov.
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