Although crawfish is often found in Cajun cooking, three things indicate this particular recipe has Creole roots: the presence of so much dairy, the special ingredients like Italian parsley and breadcrumbs, and the long prep time. My recipe was inspired by Sharon Olson’s incredible crawfish pies, which she cooks to taste (no recipes!), so I began with Belle Année’s original recipe on Food52, then adapted processes and ingredients to match my memory of Sharon’s pie and my own family’s preference for a lot of crust bits in the filling.
Note: it will take approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to assemble the pie and another hour to bake.
Double Crust Pastry
• 2-1/2 Cups unbleached flour
• 1/4 – 1/2 Cup additional flour to roll out crust
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Cup (2 sticks) very cold butter
• 10-12 Tablespoons cold buttermilk (1/2 –3/4 Cups)
Filling
• 1/2 Cup butter
• 1 Cup chopped sweet yellow onion
• 1/2 Cup diced bell pepper
• 1/2 Cup diced celery
• 1 Tablespoon freshly minced garlic
• 1-1/2 Cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 pound crawfish tails, thawed in a bowl to capture liquid
• 1/2 Cup chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley (substitute cilantro leaves for a Texas twist)
• 1/4 Cup chopped green onions (green part only)
• 1/2 Cup Italian style breadcrumbs
• 2 teaspoons Tony Chachere’s Spice ‘N Herbs blend
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Make and refrigerate the crust dough. While the dough chills, assemble the filling.
Crust
Sift the 2-1/2 Cups of flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl with high sides.
Cut the cold butter into 8 pieces per stick and scatter across the flour. Use a pastry blender to work the butter into the flour until the texture in the bowl resembles small peas coated with flour.
Scoop out some of the crumb mixture from the center of the bowl and up the sides, then and pour 1/2 cup of cold butter milk into this small well. Reserve 1/4 Cup buttermilk to use as needed.
Use a fork to blend the cold buttermilk and crumb mixture together into a coarse ball. Add more buttermilk, 1 Tablespoon at a time, as needed to moisten the dough.
Halve the ball of dough and place one half on a lightly floured mat. Flatten slightly by apply palm pressure to the top of the ball. Use the fork tines to make indentions around the entire edge of the disc, then dust lightly with more flour and use a rolling pin to flatten the disk to a thickness of about 2 inches. Wrap in plastic and repeat with the other half of the dough.
Refrigerate the crust discs for 60 minutes and make the filling in the meantime.
Filling
Chop all the vegetables before beginning to assemble the filling.
Melt 8 Tablespoons of butter in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat (5 on a scale of 0-9).
Add sweet yellow onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic and cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently.
Pour in the thawed crawfish tails and liquid, plus the heavy whipping cream. Stir gently to break up crawfish tails and cook over medium heat for 1 minute.
Add the rest of the ingredients: parsley, green onions, breadcrumbs, and spices. Stir gently to combine, cook for 5 minutes and then turn off heat. Cover the skillet to retain warmth, but and move the skillet away from the hot burner so it won’t cook further.
Roll out crust and pre-bake
Place a rack in the upper third of oven and pre-heat to 375° F.
Remove one of the crust discs from the refrigerator and place on flour-dusted pastry mat. Use fork tines to indent the edges all around the disc – this helps it roll out more smoothly into circular shape.
Scatter a little more flour over the disc and roll out.
Invert a 9-inch pie pan over the crust and cut a circular shape that exceeds the edge the pie pan by about 2 inches. Save the scraps.
Line the pie pan with the crust and use the fork tines to poke small holes across the surface and sides of the crust. This allows air to escape as it bakes and yields a more uniform shape.
Bake for 15 minutes while you roll out the top crust.
Repeat the rolling out procedure with the second disc of dough and use another pie pan to cut the 9-inch top. Save the scraps of crust dough.
Remove the pre-baked crust from the oven and lower the temperature to 350° F.
Break up scraps of crust dough and add to warm filling, then turn the filling into the pre-baked pie shell.
Top with the second crust and pinch the top crust onto the pre-baked bottom crust with the flat blade of a knife, fingertips, or fork tines to seal the top and bottom crusts. Use the fork tines to poke small holes across the top crust for steam to escape while baking.
Bake for 45 minutes at 350° F.
Check top crust at 15 minutes and 30 minutes into baking. If the top crust starts to brown more quickly than you prefer, cover the top loosely with a sheet of foil.
Remove pie from oven and cool at least 15 minutes before slicing.
Serves 8 people.