Crawfish Pie

Have you ever heard of Crawfish Pie? Me neither until I saw one put together on Farmhouse Rules, a cooking show filmed on a farm in the Hudson Valley.

I was intrigued, enough to jot down the bones of the recipe and then go out and create my own version. We loved this take on a seafood dinner. Harper wouldn't touch it - mostly because it wasn't a PB&J sandwich.

Are you wondering where to find crawfish tails? I didn't think I could find it in my local HEB but sure enough I have several choices for crawfish tails in the seafood freezer section.

 

 

The first thing I did was prep all my ingredients:

 

1 leek - chopped and rinsed well with water to remove the grit, then spin dry

1 green bell pepper - diced

1 red bell pepper - diced

1 celery stalk - chopped small

1 carrot - peeled and diced

2 cloves garlic - chopped small

 

1 lb frozen crawfish tails submerged in the sink to defrost

1 frozen puff pastry set on counter to thaw

1 egg, crack in a small bowl and beat with a fork

6-8 ounces of cream cheese, opened and set on counter to soften

 

Other ingredients needed:

2-3 T seafood seasoning like Old Bay

1/2 stick of butter

2-3 T olive oil

1/4 cup to 1/2 cup shredded asiago cheese

1/2 cup half and half

 

 

 

Melt 1/2 stick butter and 2 T olive oil in a heavy bottom dutch oven over medium high heat. When melted, add leeks, bell peppers, celery and carrot. Stir for 3-5 minutes until beginning to soften, then add garlic cloves and stir for one minute.

 

At this point you could deglaze with white wine. I didn't do that but may next time. I added the thawed crawfish tails and all the juices from the package. Add seafood seasoning and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

 

Add the cream cheese and stir until melted, then add the half and half and asiago cheese. Turn heat to low and add a lid while you prep the puff pastry.

I rolled the puff pastry out on a floured surface and cut a circle a 1/2 inch large than the ramekins I was using.

Before filling the ramekins, taste the crawfish mixture and adjust seasoning if needed. Next time I will add a dash or two of cayenne to make it spicy. Once you fill your ramekins, top with a puff pastry circle and pinch down around sides to seal. A little egg wash on the top rim of the ramekin helps the puff pastry to stick.

Brush the tops of the puff pastry with egg wash and cut an inch slit in the top for steam to escape. I had a handful of chives left over from another recipe so I chopped them up and threw on top of the pastry to add color. The last thing I did was sprinkle the puff pastry with fleur de sel, a course salt product.

Bake on a sheet pan at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove when pastry is golden brown.

These pies turned out wonderfully and I'm adding it to my quarterly rotation. I had some "bits" of puff pastry left over after I cut my circles out so I cut those into manageable pieces and baked on a silpat lined baking sheet on a lower rack in my oven below the pies. After we ate the top crust we used the puff pastry pieces to dip in and scoop out the rest of the crawfish and lovely sauce.