Recipes

Crawfish Pasta Recipe

• 1 pound of Louisiana crawfish tails (nope, you can't use the Chinese junk!)
• 1 stick of real butter
• 1 pint of half & half
• 5 cloves of chopped garlic
• 1 group of green onions chopped
• 1 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of Tabasco
• 1 pound of cooked pasta (Rotini or whatever kind you want to use)
  

Directions

• Melt the butter in your heavy skillet and sauté the garlic and onions until they are soft.
• Add the Cajun seasoning, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and half & half.
• Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes until it thickens.
• Lower the heat to a low setting.
• Add the pasta and stir. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Crawfish Dip

• 2 pounds crawfish chopped
• 1 can cream of mushroom
• 1 can cream of celery
• 1 can Rotel (stewed tomatoes with chopped pepper)
• 1 stick butter (8 tblsp)
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 bell pepper finely chopped

Directions

• Sauté the onion & bell pepper in butter. Add the Rotel and cook to reduce the amount of liquid.
• Add the chopped crawfish and cook for five minutes. Add the cream of mushroom & celery. Cook on low for forty minutes; stirring occasionally to keep from sticking. Season to taste.
• Serve with Crackers

Crawfish and Corn Chowder

• 1 pound peeled crawfish tails
• 12 ounces bacon
• 2 cups diced potatoes
• 1 cup diced onions
• 2 cans 16 oz cream style corn
• 2 pints Half & Half (or whipping cream)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp Creole seasoning (or to taste)
• 1 tsp Tabasco sauce (opt)  

Directions

• Fry bacon until crisp.
• Discard all but 4 tbsp of bacon grease and saute' potatoes and onions for 15 minutes.
• Add butter, corn, Half & Half, seasoning and Tabasco (opt).
• Crumble bacon into fine bits and add to chowder.
• Cook until potatoes are tender; approximately 20-30 minutes.
• Add crawfish and continue to cook 15-20 minutes before serving (best not to overcook crawfish.)

Cajun food terms/ sayings

Andouille ( an DOO ee)  

Cajun sausage made from pork meat, pork stomach and seasonings. Used for flavoring gumbos, jambalayas, beans and other dishes.

Boudin ( BOO-danh)

Traditionally made with pork, rice and various vegetables, like green onions. However, you won't find one central recipe, because each butcher makes boudin a different way.

Etouffee/ Etouffe/ Etoufee  (AY too fay)

No matter how you spell it, this is probably one of the more popular Cajun dishes made with a blend of spices and crawfish or shrimp. It is served over rice. The term etouffee means "smother" or "cook down". This dish does not use any roux.

Filé (FEE-lay)

Made from dried and ground sassafras leaf. It is used as a seasoning and primarily thickening agent in gumbo. Filé should never be added to a pot of gumbo while it's cooking, but rather added at the end when the gumbo is off the fire.

Gumbo

Called a "brown soup", gumbos are roux based and are made with just about any meat you can find. Meats such as duck, chicken, blackbirds, pork or deer sausage, tasso, Andouille sausage or seafood can be used singly or in any combination. Gumbo is an excellent example of cultural blending, melding African, European, and Native American cultures. The word itself is derived from the Bantu word for okra, nkombo. The okra plant, a favorite in Africa, is a Middle Eastern plant brought to America by Portuguese traders. Any gumbo researcher soon discovers that there are many types and that there is no consensus about what makes a good gumbo. Families from the prairies west of the Atchafalaya Basin typically use a very dark roux. And in southeast Louisiana, east of the Atchafalaya, cooks prefer a lighter roux or add tomatoes to the gumbo.

 

Jambalaya ( jum ba LIE ya)

Highly-seasoned mixture of any of several combinations of seafood, meat, poultry, sausage and vegetables, simmered with raw rice until liquid is absorbed.  The Spanish added jambalaya to Louisiana’s cuisine, it’s probably based on the Spanish paella.

 

Joie de vivre (zhwah duh viv-re)

“The joy of living”

Lagniappe (lan'-yap) 

A little something extra that is free.

Laisez les bons temps rouler (lay-say lay bawn tawn roulay)

“Let the good times roll”

Roux    

Just as it is in classical French cuisine, roux is a mixture of flour and fat, usually butter or oil. The proportion is roughly 1:1. It is the basis for many Louisiana dishes, particularly gumbo, but also etouffees, sauce piquantes, and more. Roux is used to thicken gumbos, sauces, étouffées or stews, and in the case of a darker roux to flavor the dish as well.   

Sauce Piquant   

A hot spicy stew made with tomato paste or sauce, roux and most any meat available. The most popular is turtle or alligator sauce piquant.

Tasso  (TAH so)  

A very highly seasoned lean pork butt, used as a seasoning meat. It has an intense, delicious flavor, and a little goes a long way.