Issue Date: October, 2009
Serves: Serves 6
Pairings:
Courtesy of:

Recipe courtesy Chef John Besh
Restaurant August, New Orleans, LA

Ingredients:

White Grits

• 4 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Anson Mill white stone-ground organic grits
• 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter

Crawfish Stock

• 1 rib celery, quartered
• 1 carrot, peeled and quartered
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered
• 1 sprig thyme
• 1 head garlic, split in half
• 2 pounds Louisiana crawfish shells
• 1 gallon water (or just enough to cover shells)
   

Sautéed Crawfish and Sauce

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 30 large Louisiana crawfish
• Creole spice, to taste
• salt, to taste
• 6 tablespoons Jacob’s andouille sausage, diced small
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 2 tablespoons small diced Piquillo pepper
• 1 tablespoon chopped thyme
• 1 quart crawfish stock
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 cups diced tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup chervil pluches (small 3-leafed sprigs of chervil), for garnish

Instructions:

Grits

Bring the water to a boil and lightly season with salt. Add the grits while stirring rapidly and reduce heat to low. Simmer the grits for about 20 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot. To finish, turn off heat and stir in butter and mascarpone cheese.

Crawfish Stock

To a large pot, add celery, carrot, onion, thyme, garlic, shells, and just enough water to cover the other ingredients. Simmer on low for 1 hour, skimming the fat off throughout the hour. Strain and reserve liquid in refrigerator.

Sauteed Crawfish and Sauce

Heat a large pan over medium heat and add the olive oil. Season the crawfish with Creole spice and sauce and sauté until they start to brown but are not cooked all the way through. Remove the crawfish and hold on the side. To the pan add the andouille sausage, garlic, shallot, Piquillo pepper, and thyme and sauté until they become aromatic. Add the stock and bring to a low simmer. Stir in the butter and reduce until thick. Add crawfish back to the pot and cook through. Finish with tomatoes, chives, and lemon juice.

For each serving, place 4 tablespoons of grits in the middle of a large bowl.  Arrange the crawfish (evenly divided among the plates, 5 each) in the middle so they stand up, tails facing in.  Spoon the sauce around to fill in the negative space. Garnish with fresh chervil pluches.

Chefs note:

“If you ask my children what they love most about being a Catholic in South Louisiana, they'll tell you that it's boiled crawfish for dinner every Friday in Lent,” John says. “I, like them, enjoyed the crawfish with much enthusiasm, growing up on the edge of a swamp that gave us some of the finest crawfish ever. I never gave it any thought that other countries and cultures enjoyed them as much as I did. However, a meal in Provence was such a moving experience. The crawfish were large, but tender and fat! Each one had looked perfectly red, with large juicy claws full of succulent morsels of meat perfumed by the black truffle and marc de Provence.

“It made me rethink my arrogance and thus taught me that the crawfish, if handled properly, was one of the finest ingredients ever,” he says. “So pre-peeled crawfish meat is never an option, it must be large, select crawfish that we steam, shock in cold, salted water, and peel to use in a variety of dishes. The shells are then toasted and used to make rich broths that serve as building blocks to any number of sauces and reductions.

After the shells are steamed, shocked, toasted, boiled, and strained, they are then fed to our chickens that benefit from the high levels of beta carotene and give our eggs big beautiful orange/yellow yolks.”