Method

Soak crawfish 1 hour in strong salted water. Drain, rinse, and drain again.

Boil shrimp a few minutes in 1 quart lightly salted water. Remove shrimp, peel, and finely chop. Reserve for stuffing. Put shrimp heads back in water  in which shrimp were boiled, add 2 more quarts of water and crawfish. Add onions, garlic, celery, thyme, bay leaves, cloves and tomato paste. Boil about 30 to 40 minutes, remove crawfish and strain broth.

Mix flour and water together.  Add flour-water mixture to broth for thickening, and stir in Kitchen Bouquet. Simmer 2 hours, stirring frequently.

Stuffing: Peel crawfish, saving heads, and chop finely. Combine crawfish with chopped shrimp. Saute about 30 minutes in butter together with onion, garlic, celery, thyme and tomato paste.

Break up French bread into small pieces, squeeze out after soaking in water, and add to crawfish, shrimp and seasonings. Simmer about 20 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Let cool, remove thyme sprigs, then stuff into the empty shells of crawfish heads. Before serving, stuffed heads may be browned slightly in moderate oven.

Add 3 or 4 heads to each bowl of soup.

Serves 10.

Contributor: pat ciesla

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