Crawfish bisque is a notoriously labor intensive Cajun delicacy. More a gumbo consistency than other thick, creamy seafood bisques that may immediately come to mind, what makes crawfish bisque special is the stuffed crawfish heads floating in the soup. My bisque making experience was basically a 2-day process (actually spanned 4, but could have been condensed into 2) which began with our Mother’s Day crawfish boil. We filled 2 gallon size zip-top bags with crawfish heads and refrigerated them until I was ready to clean them.

Cleaning crawfish heads is quite possibly the most disgusting task I have ever performed. Not sparing any of the details (misery loves company!), on Day 2 I had to scrape the yellow “fat” from the crawfish heads, which according to some sources is worth its weight in gold. This is what people are hoping to extract when they suck the heads of crawfish. Next, a gentle tug on the crawfish’s walking legs removes them and most of the internal organs.  After a quick scrape with the back of a spoon to remove any leftovers, the crawfish’s “face” is snapped off.  What’s left is a hollow tube perfect for stuffing.

Crawfish

Because I’m not entirely clear on copyright rules for bloggers, I won’t be posting the recipe I used here, but of course I can let you know that it came from one of my favorite cookbooks, River Road Recipes I.  There are a number of good bisque recipes online as well, and I actually ended up combining elements from a few recipes to get to my final product.

On Day 3, the crawfish heads needed to be stuffed.  The stuffing is made by combining sauteed vegetables (the trinity, of course) with ground crawfish tails and seasonings.  My brother was my taste-tester for the stuffing, and he likes things spicy, so we added much more Tony Chachere’s and hot sauce than the recipe called for.  Once stuffed, the heads are rolled in bread crumbs or flour and baked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.

Crawfish heads stuffed with their brethren

Finally, bisque-making time.  Saturday morning I got up and started a roux.  Roux is made by mixing equal parts flour and fat (in my case, oil) and stirring until it reaches its desired color.  Roux can burn easily, so constant stirring is required, making it a fairly arduous task.  Unless, that is, you keep roux mix in the cabinet, which apparently my mother does–and unfortunately, which I didn’t find out until after my roux was nearly finished.  Once that was done, another generous helping of the trinity was dropped in and cooked until tender.  Next, a few quarts of seafood stock were added, brought to a boil, and then left to simmer for a few hours.  The smell in my house was heavenly!

10 minutes before serving, add some crawfish tails, the stuffed heads, and a few slices of lemon.  Serve the bisque over rice.  Here’s mine:

Crawfish Bisque

So delicious!!  I was very pleased with my first attempt at crawfish bisque.  I had about 40 heads to float in my bisque and split among 4 family members.  Watching how people get their stuffing out can be interesting.  I’ve seen spoons, fingers, and tongues pushing through crawfish shells to retrieve the yummy stuff.  Make sure you have enough of them–fights will break out!  One way to make sure everyone gets their fair share is to have everyone hang the emptied shells on the edge of their bowls for physical evidence.