Lenten Crawfish Soup

Recipe from Kate Logan

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Cooking time: 50 min

Servings 4

Can I eat crayfish during Lent? According to church tradition crayfish are not considered to be fish products. There is a mention in the liturgical regulation known as the Tipikon that they may be consumed on Saturdays and Sundays during the feasts that fall during Lent.

Crawfish

1,2 lbs.
Potato

12 pcs.
Bulb onion

4 pcs.
Mushrooms

0,8 lbs.
Celery

16 oz.
Garlic

8 cloves
Carrot

4 pcs.
Tomato paste

4 tbsp.
Bay leaf

4 pcs.
Cloves

8 pcs.
Dill

16 oz.
Cold water

32 fl.oz.
Black pepper and salt

to taste
Chili pepper

2 pcs.
Uncooked couscous

24 oz.

Calories

511.1 kcal
Protein

80 g
Fat

6 g
Carbohydrates

34 g

Wash the crawfish well in a cold wate, using a brush to remove the dirt from hard-to-reach places. Put them in a sauce pan and cover them with cold or room temperature water. Add bay leaf, cloves, salt well. Cook for ten minutes. At the end of boiling, add a bunch of dill. The crawfish should stand in this stew for twenty minutes after the heat has been turned off. Pour the brother out. Remove the shell and separate the crawfish tails. Get rid of the gall sac. In a baking dish, place the shell with the crawfish claws and legs. Place for 15 minutes in an pre-heated to 400 F oven.The high heat in the soup gives the chitin the flavor it need.
When using dried mushrooms, cover them with hot boilering water and let them swell for around 30 minutes. Wash, chop, add water, and boil the vegetables until they are soft. Add the tomato paste or juice and few pinches of salt. According to chefs, it improves the flavor of crawfish.
After removing from the oven, carefully slice the сrawfish. Transfer the chopped crawfish to a blender and add a half cup of the veggie broth. The shells should be smoothy pureed. To ensure that not a single bit of chitin enters the soup, strain through a sieve. In a bowl, pour the crawfish puree. Clean the blender thoroughly, not to mix with vegetables, add the vegie broth, and then puree the prepared vegetables. The mixture shouldn't be overly thick.
Pour 1 soup ladle of boiling water over the couscous. Cover it tightly and give it from five to seven minutes to swell. Put 2-3 tablespoons of raw couscous in a bowl, add peeled crawfish heads on top, and add some greens on top. Pour the pureed soup into the bowl. You can include 5-7 drops of olive oil, if preferred. Done! Serve the preparing soup with pieces of black bread after letting it cool somewhat.

The crawfish's molting cycle affects the density of the shell! Crawfish shed their old shell and build up new ones from the salt in their bodies. For two weeks, the crawfish hide in their burrows, don't come out, and don't eat anything. Therefore, they lose weight, and the shell size retains the same, but there is less meat. It becomes dry. It takes at least two weeks for the crawfish to gain meat mass again.
How to take a crawfish when buying, so that it does not claw at you. The whiskers are not always longer than the claws. The crawfish can easily reach out and pinch you. Grab the crayfish by holding its back. This is the place between the tail and head. The crawfish is not particularly flexible and can't twist the claw.
Add 3-4 drops of lemon juice to the soup to give the soup an extra bright flavor.