Crawfish Bisque

My daughter and sister and I got together to make some Crawfish Bisque. It can be very time consuming, especially stuffing the cleaned crawfish heads. I have done it once before and peeled the crawfish tails and cleaned the heads myself. It was a 2 day project. This time we saved time by purchasing the tails already peeled and the heads already cleaned. It still took us all day to make the bisque. It didn’t help that one of my burners on my stove was inoperable. I am going to show some of the steps in pictures and include the recipe that we generally followed. The recipe is found in a local cookbook titled “Delicious Hertiage” by Nippy Carville.
Crawfish Bisque
Cajun cooks should know
· A 40 –pound sack of live crawfish yields 12 to 15 cups peeled tails.
· Two cups of peeled tails equal 1 pound
· From one 40-pound sack, there will also be 1 or more cups of fat, needed for the best flavor of this dish.
For and easier variation of this dish:
It’s possible to make a tasty bisque using peeled tails and cleaned heads. These are readily available at seafood markets throughout South Louisiana.
Preparation of Crawfish
1. Wash crawfish several times by rinsing with the hose. To purge, fill a large tub or pot with water, add 1 ½ boxes salt and crawfish.
2. Let crawfish sit in salty water for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove, drain and rinse.
3. In large seafood boiling pot filled with water, scaled crawfish. Do not boil. Remove from pot and drain.
4. Separate sections, reserving the heads to be used for stuffing, the claws for making stock, and the tails for stuffing and gravy.
5. Discard all parts inside the head, while carefully extracting the fat (yellow-mustard substance) into a separate bowl.
6. The tail is the edible part of the crawfish. Peel and devein by pulling out the dark string down the center of the back. Marinate the tails with a seasoning mix like Tony Chachere's and 1 bunch of chopped green onions.




Broth
Make a broth using 2 gallons of water and the crawfish claws of about 5 lbs of crawfish.
Add:
3 medium onions, cut into large pieces
Seasoning mix, like Tony Charare
2 bell peppers, quartered
Roots and peelings from onions, celery and garlic well scrubbed
6 ribs celery, cut into large pieces
2 gallons water
1 head garlic, cut in half

Stems from 1 bunch parsley

Allow the onions, peppers, celery, garlic, parsley stems, roots and seasoning to come to a boil. Boil about 45 minutes and add crawfish claws. Simmer about 1 hour. Strain and store in refrigerator of freezer. Yield about 1 ½ gallons.
Roux (pronounced rue)
With 2 cups of oil and 2 cups of flour, make a roux as follows.
1. In a heavy Dutch oven, heat oil over low heat.
2. Stir in flour and continue cooking over low heat.
3. Cook roux slowly, about 45 minutes, stirring only occasionally. This cooking time is a good opportunity to prepare the crawfish heads.
4. When roux reaches a golden brown uniform color, remove from heat immediately and set aside.

Stuffing Mixture
10 cups (or less) chopped crawfish tails
2 bunches green onions, chopped
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 – (8 oz) can bread crumbs
1 head garlic
6 eggs, beaten
Tony’s seasoning, salt and pepper to taste,

1. Combine above ingredients. Mix thoroughly.
2. Rinse heads well and pat dry with paper towels. Stuff heads and lightly tap open end in flour. Brush lightly with oil
3. Bake heads at 350 degrees for about 20 – 30 minutes till the stuffing begins to dry out.
Gravy
2 sticks butter
Broth
4 large onions, chopped
Crawfish fat
2 bell peppers, chopped
Tony’s seasoning, salt & peper to taste
4 ribs celery, chopped
3 cups tails
Roux
1 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste


1. Sauté, the onions, bell peppers, celery and garlic in butter until soft. Stir these sautéed
2. vegetables into roux.
3. Add tomato paste, broth and fat. Season well to taste.
4. Cook over medium heat for at least 1 hour. Add stuffed heads about 30 minutes before gravy is complete.
5. Add the marinated tails and green onions 20 minutes before serving. When ready to serve, add the parsley. Ladle bisque and stuffed heads over fluffy rice. Yield: 150 -175 stuffed heads or approximately 24 servings.
We freeze the broth in meal size batches and freeze the heads separately. When we serve we are rather stingy with our heads so we ration out 4 per person.