Crawfish & Sausage Cream Pasta

Serves 4–6

Ingredients

• 1 lb Louisiana crawfish tail meat, drained
• 12–14 oz smoked sausage or andouille, sliced
• 12 oz fettuccine, linguine, or penne
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• ½ bell pepper, finely diced
• 2 stalks celery, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1½–2 tsp Cajun seasoning, plus more to taste
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• ¼ tsp cayenne, optional
• 1 cup heavy cream
• ½ cup chicken or seafood stock
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Salt and black pepper
• Reserved pasta water

Directions

1. Cook the pasta in well-salted water until just al dente. Before draining, reserve about 1 cup of pasta water.
2. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the sliced sausage until the edges get a little crisp. Remove it from the skillet and set aside.
3. Lower the heat to medium. Add the butter, onion, bell pepper and celery to the same skillet. Cook about 5–6 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic, Cajun seasoning, paprika and cayenne and cook another 30–60 seconds.
4. Add the stock and scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. Let it reduce for about 2 minutes.
5. Reduce the heat to medium-low and stir in the heavy cream. Simmer gently for 3–4 minutes—don’t let it boil hard.
6. Stir in the Parmesan until melted and smooth. Add the browned sausage back to the pan.
7. Add the crawfish last. Crawfish tails are already cooked, so they only need about 2–3 minutes to heat through. Overcooking them can make them tough.
8. Add the drained pasta and toss everything together. If the sauce is too thick, add reserved pasta water a little at a time until it’s silky and coats the pasta.
9. Finish with green onions, parsley and lemon juice. Taste before adding salt—the sausage, Cajun seasoning and Parmesan can already be salty.

One little Louisiana trick

If your crawfish tails have some of that orange crawfish fat, don’t rinse it away. Add it right into the sauce with the crawfish. It gives the cream sauce a much deeper crawfish flavor.

I’d serve this with garlic French bread and put extra Parmesan, green onions and Cajun seasoning on the table.