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Bordeaux Brandied Crawfish
2 ONIONS, MINCED I CARROT, MINCED 4 TABLESPOONS MELTED BUTTER 2/3 CUPS BORDEAUX WHITE WINE I HERB BOUQUET 1/2 GARLIC CLOVE 4 TABLESPOONS COURT BOUILLON 12 LARGE CRAWFISH 4 TABLESPOONS BRANDY 2 TEASPOON MINCED 1/2 PARSLEY SALT AND CAYENNE Heat onions and carrot with 3 tablespoons butter, stir well and do not allow to color. Add wine, herb bouquet, garlic and 2 tablespoons court bouillon. Cover and let simmer. Wash crawfish well and dry. Wet with brandy and flare them, if you want to be truly French; if not, plunge them into simmering mixture and add brandy with remainder of bouillon, salt and cayenne. Cover and simmer, stirring a couple times. Remove herb bouquet and garlic, add remaining butter, sprinkle parsley over, and serve.
A French écrevisses à la bordelaise in shorthand: aromatics sweated in butter, wine and stock reduced, whole crawfish poached briefly in the result. The whole dish takes about twenty minutes once the crawfish are in hand.
- Cook the crawfish only until they turn redWhole crawfish generally need only about 5 to 8 minutes in the simmering wine. Past that the tail meat tightens and goes cottony, and no amount of butter at the end will bring it back. The shells turning uniformly scarlet is the signal.
- Herb bouquetA bouquet garni: parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string so it lifts out whole. Tie the half garlic clove into the bundle as well, since the recipe has you fish it out later.
- Bordeaux white wineA dry Graves or Entre-Deux-Mers, or any crisp unoaked white. The wine is most of the sauce, so it should be something drinkable rather than a cooking wine.
- Flaring the brandyWarm the brandy first, pour it over the crawfish off the heat, and light it at arm's length with a long match. Let it burn out on its own. The alternative given in the recipe, adding the brandy straight to the simmering pan, works and simply keeps more of the raw spirit flavour.
- Live or frozen crawfishThe recipe assumes live crawfish, which is still the ideal; purge them in cold water and discard any that are already dead. Frozen whole crawfish work but are usually pre-cooked, in which case they want only two or three minutes to heat through.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; twelve large crawfish is roughly a first course for two to four. Serve in shallow bowls with the sauce spooned over and plenty of bread, and put out finger bowls or napkins.
- CayenneA pinch is enough. The dish is meant to taste of wine, butter and shellfish, with the pepper as a warm edge rather than a heat level.