Crawfish Bisque Balls Recipes

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.

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.

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.

Steps:

• NOTE: Drain all liquids from the 3 pounds of tails before grinding and reserve for later use. It is a good idea to use hands and squeeze the liquids from the tails. Grind all crawfish tails with food processor. Use 2 lbs of tails for the balls and the remaining 1 lb for the gravy.
• CRAWFISH BALLS: In a large bowl, add 2 lbs. of ground crawfish tails, onions, celery, parsley, shallots and bread crumbs and mix thoroughly. While mixing, season mixture with salt, black pepper, red pepper and garlic powder. Add 4 raw eggs to mixture and mix thoroughly. Form into 1" to 2" balls. After balls are made, deep fry the balls until they are golden brown. Set them aside to add to gravy later.
• GRAVY: In a medium-sized thick bottom stock pot, add cooking oil and flour and cook on medium to high heat stirring constantly until roux is golden brown. Add onions, celery, garlic and bell pepper and sauté until onions are clear. Add ground crawfish tails to mixture sauté for 8 to 10 minutes. Add crawfish liquids that were removed from tails prior to processing, chicken broth; bring to boil. Add shallots and parsley and cook on gently boil for 1 hour. Add fried crawfish balls to gravy and cook on medium to low heat for about another 30 minutes. Season to taste and add water as necessary (gravy should be a heavy and smooth consistency). Serve over white rice.