Crawfish Cornbread Dressing

Crawfish Cornbread Dressing

Recipe type: entree Yield: 8 servings Prep time: 1 hour Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins Total time: 2 hrs 30 mins

Crawfish Cornbread Dressing by Chef Issas Toups is an in-depth recipe for this delicious and classic Cajun casserole.

Ingredients:

Isaac’s Cornbread

Ingredients:

4               Egg

1 1/4 C     Whole milk – cold

1/4 C        Honey

2 C            Yellow cornmeal

2 C            AP flour

1 1/4 C     Sugar – (Yeah, I like my cornbread sweet. Get over it.)

1 T            Baking powder

1/2 t         Salt

1/2 lb        Butter – (2 sticks), melted

 

Crawfish Cornbread Dressing

Ingredients:

2 T         Butter – divided (1 Tbsp butter + 1Tbsp butter)

1            Onion – medium, finely diced

1            Red bell pepper – finely diced

1            Celery rib – finely diced

5            Garlic clove – minced

1 lb        Crawfish tail – cleaned (preferably fresh, but frozen will do; this is actually the perfect dish to use frozen crawfish because it’s a creamy dressing and you don’t notice the odd texture that frozen crawfish can get. You’ll see this at Thanksgiving even when you know there’s not a damn crawfish around.)

1 1/2 t   Salt

1/4 t      Black pepper – finely ground

1/4 t      Cayenne pepper

2 C         Crawfish stock – (or any seafood stock)

5 C         Isaac’s Cornbread – crumbled

Directions:

1. Isaac’s Cornbread
3. Directions:
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
7. Place 12-inch cast-iron skillet in the oven to warm as the oven preheats.
9. Whisk eggs, milk, and honey together.
11. In a separate bowl, whisk dry ingredients (Yes, whisk. Powders act more like liquids when mixing them together, so using a whisk is highly advantageous to fully combine them).
13. Pour egg-milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix vigorously with the whisk for 8 seconds.
15. If it’s slightly lumpy, that’s ok. I’d rather slightly lumpy than overworked—overworked will give you dense cornbread.
17. Add melted butter and immediately mix vigorously with whisk for another 4 to 5 seconds.
19. Remove skillet from oven and pour mixture in.
21. Place in oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until cake tester comes out clean.
23. Serve with room temperature butter and cane syrup.
25.  
27. Crawfish Cornbread Dressing
29. Directions
31. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
33. In a large Dutch oven, melt 1 Tbsp butter over medium heat. Add onion, bell pepper, celery, and cook in butter for 10 minutes.
35. After 10 minutes, the vegetable mixture (the trinity) should start to brown a little bit—this is intentional; you want it more than just translucent. Since we’re not braising this dish down, you really want to have your trinity cooked—because I don’t like crunchy trinity.
37. Add garlic and cook for another minute.
39. Add crawfish tails, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and give it a stir.
41. Add 2 cups crawfish stock. While keeping it on medium heat, slowly bring the mixture to a low simmer. Once it is simmering, turn off heat.
43. Add 1 Tbsp butter and stir until it’s fully melted.
45. Once butter has melted, gently fold in 5 cups of crumbled cornbread until it’s well incorporated, being careful not to smush it all to bits.
47. Scoop mixture into a 9×13 casserole dish and spread out evenly.
49. Place the casserole dish in the oven. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Call your Cajun mother and thank her.

Published on November 6, 2019 by Teri Williams