YatCuisine: Crawfish Pasta!

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December 27, 2006

Crawfish Pasta!

After all the weeks I've been away from home, one of the first things I did was make something uniquely New Orleans for dinner last Friday night. A lot of local places do a variant on crawfish pasta with a cream sauce, and I'm constantly experimenting with my own version. I told daysinger I'd take photos, and so here they are:

The Basic Ingredients

In the photo, you see a pound of frozen crawfish tails, 1 cup heavy cream, Manda tasso, some pre-cut "Holy Trinity," and bow-tie pasta.

Getting Started

The "Holy Trinity" of Creole cooking is, of course, onions, green pepper, and celery. I cheated for this dinner and bought pre-chopped veggies. Now they're sauteeing in about 3tbsp of olive oil. Some folks use butter here, but I'm trying to be responsible. Of course, that's like drinking a diet coke with a big mac, given the cream sauce.

Tasso!

Tasso is smoked, spicy pork loin. It's VERY spicy, to the point that you really don't need a lot of additional pepper in a dish that includes tasso. Usually I'd sprinkle some creole seasoning on the sauteeing veggies, but here I just added a cup or so of diced tasso.

Making the sauce

When the onions get transparent, sprinkle 3tbsp of white flour over the top. This is the quick-and-dirty way to thicken a sauce. Since we're not looking for a dark roux here, we can get away with doing things more-or-less in reverse. When the veggie-tasso-oil-flour mix gets all thick and starts to ball up, add 1/2 cup of chicken (or fish) stock (I used chicken), and 1/2 cup of wine, stirring constantly. Continue to add stock and/or wine to thin the sauce out a bit more if necessary. To this, add the 1 cup of heavy cream, again stirring constantly. Simmer on low heat.

Shrooms...