Motorboat's Crawfish Bisque Thread--Picture Heavy

First, let me start by saying that I did some experimenting this batch. I'm pleased with the flavor but some of the aesthetics are not there. I am not a recipe follower. I get an idea from a recipe and run with it. For this recipe I loosely followed John Folse's recipe from the Encyclopedia of Cajun Cooking. Anyway, here goes.

I had a crawfish boil on Friday night. Saved a tray full of heads.


I cleaned all of the heads, saving the legs, claws and innards for stock. I also reserved fat where I could. the legs, celery bottoms, onion tops and salt went into a pot of water for stock. Additionally, I had some crawfish base that I threw in there.



Once the stock was rolling, I began knife work for the veggies. For the heads, I used Onion, celery, bell peppers, parsley and garlic. For the bisque, I used the same except parsley, just more roughly cut.



On to the stuffing:

In a food processor, I worked in 3 lbs of cleaned crawfish meat to the minced vegetables. Add 3 beaten eggs, Italian bread crumbs for consistency, salt and pepper to taste.





Tested out the stuffing:



Adjusted for seasoning and then began the stuffing. I used a ziploc bag with the corner cut out as a piping bag:



About 90 finished heads:



This is where my experimenting began. I had heard of someone frying the heads. So I rolled my heads in egg wash, then flour and commenced to frying. While I was frying, I began a roux.





Fried heads:





Got the roux dark, added the more coarsely chopped vegetables. Cooked them down and added some tomato sauce (maybe 5 ozs).



Added my stock and more cleaned crawfish tails. I made the bisque a little thinner because I knew I would be adding flour fried heads and they would thicken the stew. I also added the reserved crawfish fat.



I then stirred in my heads and let them cook for an hour or so. Here is the finished pot:



Then I packaged it all up to give to family at our Easter gathering today. I may have also kept a couple for myself to freeze.



The bisque and heads came out delicious. If I did it again, I would bake the heads per my usual method. The fried heads with the batter on them did not release the cooked batter like I had hoped. the sauce was still the correct consistency, but the heads have some clinging batter. Oh well, that's part of learning on a dish I cook once a year.

All in all, it took me 6 hours working by myself, with a few interruptions and did I mention extremely hungover?

I will serve over jasmine rice, with parsley and green onions.