Crawfish Bisque White House Recipes

LOUISIANA CRAWFISH BISQUE

Steps:

• Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Cook and stir chopped onion and green onion in melted butter until softened, about 5 minutes. Add crawfish tails, potato soup, mushroom soup, yellow corn, white corn, and cream cheese; cook and stir until cheese melts completely into mixture. Pour half-and-half into the pot; stir. Season with Creole seasoning, salt, and black pepper. Cook until hot, about 15 minutes.

CRAWFISH BISQUE WITH CRAWFISH BOULETTES

Steps:

• For the crawfish stock: Remove the tails from the 5 pounds of boiled crawfish and peel, reserving the tail meat for the bisque and the peelings for the stock. Pinch off the claws and reserve. Put the tail peelings and claws in a stockpot and cover with the water. Bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered for 45 minutes. Drain. You should have about 3 quarts of stock. Let the stock cool.
• For the bisque: Combine the oil and flour in a large cast iron or enameled cast iron Dutch oven over medium heat. Stirring slowly and constantly for 20 to 25 minutes, make a medium brown roux, the color of peanut butter. Add 3 cups of the onions, 1 1/2 cups bell peppers, and 1 1/2 cups celery. Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, and bay leaf. Cook, stirring often, for 6 to 7 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Add the reserved crawfish tails. Stir and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the crawfish stock and bring to a boil. Simmer over medium heat, uncovered, for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of the green onions and the parsley.
• For the boulettes: In a food processor with a metal blade, combine the remaining onions, peppers, celery, garlic, 1 pound peeled crawfish tails, bread pieces and egg together. Pulse the mixture a few times to finely chop the mixture. *Do not puree. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and stir in the remaining green onions and parsley. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Shape the mixture into small balls, about 1 tablespoon each. Season the bread crumbs with the Rustic Rub. Roll the balls in the seasoned bread crumbs. When the oil has reached 360 degrees F, deep-fry the boulettes until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Remove the boulettes from the oil and drain on a paper-lined plate. Season with Rustic Rub. Garnish each soup with a couple of the boulettes.
• Combine all ingredients and store in an air-tight container.

CRAWFISH BISQUE

Steps:

• For the crawfish stock: Remove the meat from the crawfish tails and set aside. Place the shells and heads in a large stockpot. Add water to cover. Add the carrot, celery, onion, bay leaves, and thyme sprigs, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain, reserving the stock.
• For the bisque: Melt the butter in the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the bell pepper, celery, onion, tomato, and Cajun seasoning and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour and tomato paste and cook until bubbly and beginning to brown, about 2 minutes. Stir in the crawfish stock and sherry and cook until it evaporates, about 1 minute. Stir in the cream and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the soup begins to thicken.
• Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth. Alternatively, use a standard blender and puree in batches. (Be sure to remove the lid cap to allow steam to escape.) Stir in the reserved crawfish meat and cook until heat through, 5 to 10 minutes.
• Divide the bisque between serving bowls and garnish with parsley, if desired.

CRAWFISH BISQUE: WHITE HOUSE

Steps:

• Bring 2 quarts water to a boil, add crawfish, and 2 teaspoons salt. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and save stock. Pull out middle tail fin and with it the intestinal vein of each crawfish. Pick fat and meat from tails and heads and save it. Keep head shells for stuffing. Return tail shells to stock, and add 1/2 cup celery and 1/4 cup parsley. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain. Chop crawfish meat and add half of it to this bisque. Remove from heat and cover to keep hot. Meanwhile sauté onion and remaining 1/2 cup celery and crawfish fat and butter in a heavy pot for 10 minutes. Combine drained soaked buns, crumbled bread, and eggs and stir into onion mixture. Add remaining chopped crawfish meat, remaining 1/4 cup parsley, scallion tops, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, a few grains of cayenne pepper, and black pepper. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Stuff crawfish heads with this mixture. To serve, put 5 stuffed crawfish heads and a few spoonfuls of rice in each soup bowl. Pour bisque over each serving. Author's note: A little secret-boil rice in fish broth or even chicken broth in place of water.

ANN AND EUGENE PATOUT'S CRAWFISH BISQUE

Steps:

• Rinse crawfish; place in large pot of boiling water. Cook for one minute. Remove crawfish from water. Cool.
• Remove tail meat from crawfish: break off the ridged tail, snap in half lengthwise, lift out meat in one piece. Place tail shells in large pot. Remove black vein if it remains. Carefully remove the yellow fat from tail and body so the mud sack doesn't burst; add to pot. Snap off claws and smaller legs; place in pot. Clean out the body cavity, called the head; discard eyes. Rinse shells; place in pot.
• Add 2 cups crawfish fat to pot with 3 quarts water; simmer stock until reduced to 2 1/2 quarts, about 30 minutes.
• Chop half of the onions, green peppers and celery finely.
• Melt butter in large skillet; saute finely chopped vegetables for 10 minutes, until very soft. Add 1/2 cup crawfish fat; cook 2 or 3 minutes more.
• Chop 1 pound of crawfish tails very fine. Add to skillet; simmer 3 minutes.
• Mix 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, 1/4 each teaspoon white and black pepper, salt and 5 or 6 dashes hot pepper sauce into crawfish mixture. Simmer 3 minutes. If mixture is not thick enough for stuffing, add bread crumbs.
• Add 2 tablespoons each parsley and green onion; cool and use to fill crawfish heads.
• Lightly dredge the opening of the stuffed heads in flour. Oil cookie sheet; bake heads at 350 degrees until brown, about 20 minutes. Refrigerate, if not using immediately.
• Make roux: combine oil and flour in heavy skillet; cook over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Roux will begin to color slowly, taking about 45 minutes to reach desired nut-brown color. Toward end of cooking, watch roux carefully, making sure it does not burn. Roux may be made ahead and reheated.
• To assemble dish, dice remaining onion, green pepper and celery; add to boiling stock. Return to boil. Pour a little of the stock at a time into hot roux, stirring. Return roux mixture to stockpot, bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 45 minutes. Five minutes after adding roux, stir in remaining cayenne, white and black pepper, salt to taste and hot pepper sauce.
• To serve, put stuffed heads in bisque and cook for eight minutes; add remaining 1 1/4 pounds of tails (this includes approximately 1/2 pound removed from live crawfish); cook another two minutes. Adjust seasoning.
• Stir in remaining green onion and parsley. Serve over rice in individual bowls.