tom foolery

A few days ago (maybe even over a week ago) I posted the following:

Menu:
crawfish cakes

cheese grits

prosciutto and capicola wrapped grilled asparagus

blackberry cobbler with cream cheese crust

I’ve been cooking with crawfish since 2000 when I started dating my husband and learned how things like etouffee and crawfish fettuccine. I can honestly say that in all that time, I’ve never had worse crawfish to work with than the brand pictured. Crawfish is normally pretty smelly nasty stuff but this was horrible – I had to rinse something like 10-15 times and still the water draining out was sickening:

Ask at the seafood counter or look in the frozen seafood section, most grocery stores and superstores will sell frozen crawfish tails. Thaw in a container of ice water in the fridge and rinse SEVERAL times until water runs clear through them. This is what you should end up with:

For crawfish cakes, like crab cakes, you want to make sure the product is fairly dry so you may have to spread it out on paper towels and blot it a bit. Then throw it in a bowl and mix your favorite crab cake mixins – bread crumbs, fresh parsley, lemon juice, finely diced red bell pepper, onion powder, garlic, black pepper and a beaten egg. As you know by now I’m not a precise cook – more of a throw it in until it looks right (how is it supposed to look? Um, I don’t know, I just know.)

In my food chopper thingy I make my favorite red pepper sauce: roasted red peppers, garlic, goat cheese, black pepper and a touch of half and half. You’ll drizzle this on the cakes later – very good camoflauge when they look gross, like mine did because they fell apart. Which leads me to: form your crawfish into cakes and put them onto a very hot skillet that has a bit of olive oil and butter melted in it – if you want a sear, which you do, then don’t use non-stick. Let them go around 3 or 4 minutes and then flip…or if they fall apart, as mine did, then just kind of flop everything around….if I were to try these again maybe I’d add more of a binding agent, like mayo perhaps?

I know I talked about the crawfish first but sautéing the cakes will be the last thing you want to do, as you will want to serve them pretty much right after taking them off the stove.

For the grits, I simply followed package directions on original (not quick cook) grits, subbing half the water for fat free half and half at the suggestion of my aunt. I grated in lots of sharp cheddar and fontina and some goat cheese and sundried tomato cream cheese, and some fine chopped sundried tomatoes, then I poured all that goodness into a big casserole dish (spray with cooking spray) and topped with fresh parsley, cracked black pepper and chopped prosciutto – then pop in the oven until they are a little browned on top and the prosciutto is crispy.

Before:

After:

They were the best grits I’ve ever had…even 2 nights later served alongside red pepper flat iron buffalo steak sandwiches on mancini’s basil pesto bread:

I first had prosciutto and fontina wrapped asparagus last fall at this wonderful Italian restaurant in Washington D.C. (Ristorante Luigino which has sadly closed). We sat down next to this very friendly couple who conversed with us the entire meal and immediately suggested the asparagus when we sat down. On some food network show I also saw someone using spicy capicola ham. This is incredibly easy and in my opinion, impressive sounding. All you do is trim your asparagus, chopping off any woody stems, then wrap in prosciutto or capicola, and toss on the grill…I also did some plain asparagus tossed in some roasted red pepper salad dressing…

Throw on a serving plate and shave some fontina on top…

As I mentioned, my crawfish cakes kind of just fell apart so I just kind of smooshed them together and drizzled on lots of red pepper sauce.