Crawfish Pasta

Crawfish Pasta

1/4 cup olive oil
1 large yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1/2 cup Italian parsley, chopped
2 toes garlic, minced
1 can whole tomatoes
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
2 lbs. crawfish meat
1/2 cup red sherry
1 1/2 cups water
Creole seasoning, Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
1 lb. cooked pasta

In a large saucepan sauté onion, celery and parsley in olive oil. Cook until golden brown and translucent. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and water; then season. Cover and simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Test seasonings and add crawfish and sherry; continue to cook for 30 minutes. Add cooked pasta to sauce and mix well. Serves 8.

Technorati Tags: Creole, Food, Italian, Main Dish, recipe, Seafood

Creole Tuna Casserole

What could be better? Elements of creole cooking combined with comfort food… for me that’s redundant, but that’s not the point…

Creole Tuna Casserole

Ingredients:

2 tins (12 oz. total) of tuna packed in water, drained
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
A couple of toes (cloves) of garlic
16 oz. shell-type or rotini pasta (any type that will hold sauce well)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups of milk (whole milk is best)
8 oz. SHARP cheddar cheese (the sharpness is important!)
a couple of dashes of Worchestershire sauce
1 tablespoon creole seasoning (Zatarain’s works great!)
a couple of dashes of Crystal hot sauce (although this is hard to get now… use any cayenne pepper based hot sauce as a decent replacement)
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs or Panko bread crumbs (depends on your taste)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees;. Start your pasta water boiling. Sautée your trinity (celery, onion, bell pepper mixture) in a tablespoon or so of olive oil (or if you must, vegetable oil will do) until onions are translucent (about 5 minutes). Add chopped garlic and sautee mixture for another 2 minutes (if the garlic burns, it will taste very bitter). Season trinity/garlic mixture with creole seasoning mix and remove from heat. Check pasta for just below al dente stage as the pasta will cook more in the oven, drain pasta when its done. Start your roux by melting the butter and adding the flour to the melted butter. You only want this to be a blond roux, so you don’t need to cook it long, just long enough to get rid of the raw flour taste. Add milk to roux and whisk until smooth… You are essentially making a bechamel sauce and adding cheese to it. Add 3/4 of your shredded cheddar cheese to hot milk sauce and whisk until creamy smooth. Add a few dashes of Crystal and Worchestershire to sauce (to taste). Combine tuna, pasta and vegetable mixture in a bowl and mix together until all the ingredients are fairly integrated. Add cheese sauce to mixture and combine. Transfer mixture into a casserole dish, top with leftover cheese and bread crumbs. To make bread crumbs turn out crunchy and golden brown, add a tablespoon more of butter, chopped, to the top. Bake at 350 degrees; for 30 minutes.

EDIT: you can try it with Fontina or Gruyere mixed in with the cheddar. Or better yet, try Pepper Jack.

Technorati Tags: Creole, Food, Main Dish, recipe, Seafood