Crawfish Michaela

Rhett is trying to cram in as many stateside things as he can in his 6 months here, before heading off to Afghanistan for a year. One of those things was to attend Tennessee’s Homecoming game Saturday, so they came in for the weekend. He and wife Beth went to the game, Bev, her sister, and the three kids headed off to town, and I stayed home to watch the six dogs, catch a little football on TV, and cook dinner. Tennessee won their game.

Every since returning from NOLA with some frozen crawfish tails, I’ve been wanting to make this dish. It’s a Cajun dish but with pasta rather than rice and a cream sauce – how could it not be great. I used the recipe from Katherine over at Smoky Mountain Café – check out her site for excellent step-by-step pictures and instructions. I just brought the ingredients and instructions together from her site:

Crawfish Michaela Ala Chef John Folse
Courtesy of Katherine Aucoin at Smoky Mountain Café

1lb Crawfish tails
1 stick Butter
1 tbsp Garlic, chopped
¼ cup Green onion, Crawfish Michaela chopped
¼ cup Mushrooms, sliced
½ cup Andouille, diced
1 tbsp Flour
1 oz Dry white wine
1 tbsp Lemon juice
8 oz Tomato sauce
2 cups Heavy cream
¼ cup Red sweet pepper, diced
1 tbsp Chopped parsley
1 tsp Chopped basil
1 tsp Chopped tarragon
¼ tsp Cayenne
S&P To taste
4 cups Rotini pasta, cooked

Melt butter over med-high heat in a 2 quart pot and add the garlic, onion, mushrooms, sausage, and sauté for 5-7 minutes (until veggies are wilted).
Sprinkle in flour and thoroughly blend with veggies.
Stir in half the crawfish and deglaze with the wine and lemon juice.
Lower heat to medium and stir in tomato sauce.
Add cream and stir constantly until thick sauce develops.
Stir in sweet pepper and herbs.
Add remaining crawfish tails.
Fold in pasta and serve.

I followed it as closely as I could, except, I’d used all of my andouille, so I used kielbassa for the sausage, I used all dried herbs at 1/3 the recipe amount and I used a whole pound of pasta – for which there was plenty of sauce. Since Katherine made such great step-by-step photos on her blog, I didn’t bother, but here’s my plate. We sided it with a salad and some homemade rolls topped with garlic butter.

Daughter-in-law Beth’s comment was “there is a party going on in my mouth” and I think everyone agreed. This dish was absolutely outstanding and worthy of company anytime. I’ll have to try it with shrimp and I’m glad we had leftovers.  Thanks Katherine for a great meal.

Earlier in the day, Bev and the girls had made pretzels from part of the days bread dough – they were tasty.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry