Ever since I bought the boiled crawfish from Johnny Sanchez, I embarked on an investigation of other boils with the endgame being a crawfish tart. That finally happened over the weekend. Rarely am I enthralled by something I have created on the stove, but that word absolutely captures it.
As I mentioned when I ate some of the Johnny Sanchez crawfish, there is sometimes an extra step of cleaning that some people do. And some people don’t. I never inquire about this step, and I am only surmising this because I recall a conversation with the late great Chris Vodonovich from Bozo’s who was proud of his clean crustaceans. The Johnny Sanchez batch seemed darker and dirtier than the subsequent batch at Acquistapace’s, but they were also much more loaded with flavor. It is essential to find crawfish that have this fundamental quality of assertive flavor to them to get the best out of this dish. The Acquistipace’s version was mild in flavor. Prettier, but much less taste. The Acquistipace’s crawfish would add bulk meat to the dish, and the Johnny Sanchez critters would impart some kick.
To do this, you’ll need 4 lbs. crawfish with two potatoes and one corn (1/2 cob)
1 green bell pepper
1 stalk celery
1 small to medium yellow onion
1 cup chopped crimini or Baby Bella mushrooms (optional)
½ cup chopped parsley (optional)
1 pat of butter
½ cup of heavy whipping cream
4 oz cream cheese
While I crafted the filling, The oven was puffing up some pastry. I bought a package of puff pastry and separated each of the two dough sheets. One I laid down, and the other I cut into strips to frame the tart, creating an edge around the bottom sheet. Follow the package instructions for baking.
I peeled all the crawfish, taking special care to get all the fat from the heads. It is a messy task, and not for the faint of heart. I also chopped the 2 red potatoes, skin on, and sheared the half of a corn cob that came with the boil. But first I started with the holy trinity, using one stalk of celery and a smallish green bell pepper (I somehow associate a green bell pepper with crawfish dishes, though I use red for most everything else.) The onion I chopped was medium to small, and all of this was diced small.
The trinity went into a pan with a pat of butter, and it was sauteed until translucent. I added three chopped mushrooms, but there could certainly be more. While this was cooking I chopped the crawfish coarsely. When the mushrooms had cooked completely I stirred in the crawfish and parsley. The melting fat creates a sludge that keeps this moving, but when it starts to stick pour in a half cup of cream, deglazing the caramelized film in the pan.
To this add a half stick of cream cheese and continue to stir until everything is incorporated into everything else.
If you have selected a properly seasoned boil of crawfish, there is no need to add anything else. Otherwise, season to taste.
When the shell is baked, let it cool a bit before moving the contents of the saucepan into the center of the pie shell. Remember when removing the empty shell from the oven that you will return it to the oven with the filling inside for another 10 minutes, so be careful to only bake until it’s puffed up because some more browning will occur in the second baking.
Crawfish dishes are never pretty, but this was exceptionally tasty, and I can’t wait to make it again.
