Crawfish Boulettes

At Deanie’s Seafood Restaurant in New Orleans, these are served with the fried seafood platter and the crawfish combination. Deanie’s calls them “crawfish dressing balls.” To say that I crave them all the time is an understatement; it’s more like true lust. On our last trip, we went to Deanie’s twice just so I could get these little treats.

Crawfish Boulettes

Ingredients:

• 1 lb crawfish tails, with fat (I used shrimp once and it was just as good)
• 1 medium bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup Italian parsley, finely chopped
• 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 2 tbps Creole seasoning, or to taste
• 4 eggs, beaten separately in two bowls of two eggs apiece
• 1 tbps Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon hot sauce, to taste
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• corn meal for breading

Directions:

In a food processor, grind the crawfish tails together with bell pepper, onion, celery, garlic, and parsley. In a mixing bowl, incorporate the bread crumbs, Creole seasoning, two of the beaten eggs, Worcestershire, hot sauce, salt and pepper. Shape mixture with hands into smallish meatball-sized portions. Dip each boulette into remaining beaten egg, dredge each into breading medium and fry in oil until golden brown. Serves about 8-10.