It’s crawfish season in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Recently, Canseco’s Market on Esplanade had a sale on locally grown as well as Vietnamese crawfish. The price difference was remarkable. Crawfish from fisheries within 20 minutes of my 9th Ward home cost nearly five times as much as the Vietnamese fishes.
I went the Vietnamese route and immediately began dreaming of court-bouillon; fantasizing about gumbo and musing over étouffée til I worried myself sick.
Finally, I got up from the sofa and opened the refrigerator where I found inspiration: a big knob of fresh ginger.
Here’s my recipe for Vietnamese Crawfish Soup With Andouille Sausage
Ingredients
3 quarts stock, chicken (if you don’t have chicken use fish or vegetable stock)
12 oz. crawfish tails
1lb sausage, andouille, chopped
12oz mushrooms, whole
3 each onions, green, chopped
1 knob ginger, minced
1 tiny star anise pod
2 each chiles, jalapenos, chopped
4 oz, vermicelli noodles
2 T. Fish sauce, Red Boat brand is best
1 T. Soy Sauce, Bourbon Barrel Foods is best
Method
* Add all ingredients except noodles and green onions to cold stock
* Bring to boil
* Add vermicelli noodles
* Reduce to simmer
* Cook til starch cooks off noodles
* The stew will ‘cream’ when all the starch is cooked off-the noodles will be full and plump
* This step takes about a half hour and is crucial to the dish
* Add chopped green onions to stew and cook 5 minutes more
Cooking notes
This is one of the best soup/stews I’ve ever created. It’s rich and hot with chile pepper. If you have access to authentic Vietnamese sausage by all means use it. Andouille is a fine substitute.
I use a tea bag steeper to hold the star anise in the stew, you do not want to bite into a star anise pod so please refrain from tossing the pod into the stew
Crispy fried shallots make a wonderful garnish for this stew
You may substitute any number of fishes for the crawfish, shark would be an excellent choice
Lemongrass would be a good addition to this stew