Oh how I love the mud bugs. I want them fried with a rémoulade, fried on a fully dressed po-boy, suspended in a seafood risotto, pasta alfredo, boiled up, or even carefully placed in crawfish bread. I love the mudbugs.

You know, growing up in Philadelphia, as a youth, me and my boys used to play around in the creeks. We’d step from rock to rock carefully navigating our way from place to place. And anything “nature” piqued our curiosity especially the lobster looking-like creatures we’d find under rocks. I never thought about eating them though. See these things we found, you know, up north, were crayfish!



Not crawfish like what people eat in Louisiana…

These couldn’t be the same crustaceans could they?

And what of these crawdads?

I’ve already had a similar conversation with my wife about butter beans and lima beans. She claims that butter beans taste better than lima beans. Um, okay, but honey, butter beans ARE lima beans! Nope, she maintains, butter beans taste different and better (more on this later). Well, in that same vein I continue and proclaim, crawfish=crayfish=crawdad. It really depends on where you live what you call them.

One thing is for sure, I call them tasty.

...

When I was in the Army, I travelled to New Orleans most every weekend. I had an interest in a witch there who used voodoo on me to lure me into her clutches. It took awhile but I managed to reverse the hoodoo and move on. But, the food! I love the food in N’Awlins! When I first had a bowl of étouffee, I though wow, this must be another version of a gumbo. Not exactly. Well, I have had several bowls of étouffee over the past 15 years, from homemade, to some really good restaurants, to frozen - yuk! This is an easy and delicious dish.

I resign myself to the fact that I can make a pretty mean étouffee. I have gone through a progression; with a roux, without a roux, with tomato, without tomato. I have made some dreadfully tasteless dishes, to those that “wow". I now only make “wow”

I always use frozen tails for this dish because I have seen how many live critters have to be, let’s call it “processed", for the tail meat, I will never do that again. Live mud bugs are to be consumed boiled! So let it be written, so let it be done.

Crawfish Étouffee:

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds crawfish tails (keep the liquid)
6 tbsp butter
4 flour
1 cup onion diced
1/2 cup celery diced
1/2 chopped bell pepper
6 cloves garlic minced
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 1/2 cups seafood stock or water
Cayenne pepper
Tabasco to taste
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 small can tomato paste
Juice of half a lemon
1 cup chopped green onions
Cooked white rice for serving

METHOD:

1. Put crawfish tails into a bowl with fat (or liquid). Season bugs with salt, black and cayenne pepper.

2. Put a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add 4 tablespoons of the butter and whisk in flour.

3. Stir constantly until roux is the color of peanut butter, nothing more, nothing less than peanut butter. (Do not burn)

4. Add onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme, and cook until vegetables are soft.

5. Add stock, tomato paste, salt, cayenne pepper, Tabasco and Worcestershire.

6. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and let it go for 30 - 35 minutes stirring occasionally.

7. Add the bugs with their juice and cook just until heated through, about 12 minutes.

8. Add remaining butter, more if you like, lemon juice, and green onion. Adjust seasoning.

9. Serve with rice.