Back to those Crawfish...

After a few more days of trapping we had a few pounds of live Crawfish to work with and I set to making Crawfish stock for bisque, shelling the tails for meat, scraping the heads for fat and cleaning out the heads for stuffing.

A two day process at least, it was well worth the effort.

I rinsed the Crawfish and soaked them in cold water a few times to get them as clean as possible. After a cold water soaking, I placed them on the stove in a large pot filled with water, fresh Bay Leaf, lots of Salt and sliced Lemon. I brought them up to a boil ( with the lid on),let them simmer for 10 minutes, then turned off the heat and let them sit for 20 minutes. The water was strained off and the Crawfish were peeled and prepped for all of the above applications.

Crawfish Stock started with the shells, fresh Lemon, Celery, Onion, Carrot, Fennel, Thyme, Bay Leaf, Peppercorns and Parsley Stems. I brought this lovely concoction up to a boil and let the stock simmer for 45 minutes. Crawfish stock may not have the nicest of hues when finished, but it adds more flavor than anything else.

The stuffing, you can find the recipe below, was made and the heads were stuffed. Traditionally, only the thorax of the Crawfish is used, but if you can get all the head "gunk" out of the heads, I leave the heads on for a more formal presentation.

The bisque, made very classically but finished with a few shots of Brandy was served with Brown Rice and the stuffed heads. Delicious!