The Pots Are Boiling

Nearly every local has faced this conundrum: A large group of friends come in town and are staying in the Quarter. They all want to go out for heaping platters of boiled seafood, but the options are limited to non-existent in the downtown area. What do you do?

A few weeks ago Rene wrote about the Crab Trap II, an excellent suggestion for your seafood seeking out of town guests. But Frenier is a 30 mile drive away, which would make for an expensive cab ride. However, if instead of heading west on I-10, you decide to drive east to the Westbank, just a 10 minute ride away is a Harvey hideaway where the pots are always at a rolling boil.

Perino's Boiling Pot, located below the elevated Westbank Expressway a few blocks past the Manhattan exit, is a no frills seafood joint where locals feel at home and tourists can act like locals. The family behind Perino's operates both a restaurant and seafood market, a business model which generates a lot of turnover for inventory and ensures freshness for its customers. Customers who are not carrying out bags of boiled shrimp and crawfish are seated at long formica tables covered plastic trays full of the same.

Before you get elbows deep in crawfish fat, crab claws, and shrimp heads, Perino's offers a short list of starters that are worth sacrificing precious stomach real estate for. The stuffed artichoke is an almost forgotten art that is thankfully still practiced at Perino's with expert precision.  Here, the most delcious flower on earth is in full blossom with every crevice overflowing with lemon and herb stuffing. Oysters are on the half shell are priced cheap and served ice cold. Spicy crawfish boudin is sold by the link and oozes from its casing.

Then come the platters of boiled seafood ferried to the table by smiling, no-nonsense waitresses and rested atop a metal stand with an empty tray for remnants strategically placed underneath. The crawfish are medium in size and easily peelable, with a restrained level of spice which may be dissappointing to some but appreciated by others who believe that pain is not a necessarily prerequisite to crawfish pleasure. On my most recent visit, the boiled shrimp were terribly overcooked, resulting in withered shells which struggled to pull away from the tough flesh underneath. Corn and potatoes are sold separately, but the bland flavor of both relegate them to obscurity.

While some of the offerings at Perino's may lack the enthusiasm found out your best friend's crawfish boil where the seasoning level increases with every round of beers, this Harvey hangout displays most of the congeniality and affordability of a local favorite that most out of town guests will be happy to experience. And sometimes, that's all that you're looking for.

Perino's Boiling Pot - Par

3754 Westbank Expressway
(504) 340-5560
Sun-Thur: 11am-10pm; Fri-Sat: 11am-11pm

Crawfish Pie, Ella?

Let's face it, there are only about three ways you eat crawfish: boiled on newspaper, etoufee'd, and as a cream sauce over crepes. Now look there is nothing wrong with any of the above. But for all the talk about how crawfish crazy people in South Louisiana get during the Spring, we sure get uncreative with how to cook this delicious crustacean.

But one need not stray too far from conventional ingredients to get an utterly delicious crawfish dish. Rice, andouille, crawfish, these are all things that "grow" together, so why not use them in a paella. Originally I wanted to make an andouille, crawfish and fava bean paella, but somehow I ended up walking 6.2 miles thru New Orleans on a steamy Saturday morning and missed the Farmer's Market. So asparagus and peas were called in for relief, and performed quite admirably.

Andouille, Crawfish, Asparagus, and Pea Paella
Adapted from a Jose Andres recipe or two, Serves 6



Andouille, used 3 links of Richards cut into 1/4 inch rounds
Crawfish tails, 2 cups or thereabouts from yesterday's boil
Arborio Rice (easier to find than Bomba), 2 cups
Chicken Stock, 5-6 Cups
Soffrito*, 1/2 cup
White wine, 1 cup
Peas, 1 cup
Asparagus, 1 of those rubberbanded stalk packs, cut into 1" segments
Saffron, pinch
Bay leaf
Olive Oil
Garlic clove, 1 finely minced
Patience

First blanch your asparagus and peas in heavily salted water until cooked. Now shock them in ice water. Drain and set aside.

Heat a paella pan over high heat. Don't have a paella pan, bet you could use a cast iron skillet. Add olive oil to coat bottom of pan. Saute your andouille rounds until brown on each side. Then add 1/2 cup of the soffrito mixture. And cook for two minutes or so. Then add, cup of wine and reduce by half. Note bassets will not leave the pan's side at this point.

Now, add in your garlic, 5 cups of the stock, and the saffron. Bring to a boil and add in the rice, stirring for 5 minutes fairly constantly. The rice should start floating barely, if it doesn't add another half cup of stock. Reduce heat to a simmer. Sprinkle the crawfish on top and walk away. Don't touch the paella, don't poke it, don't stir it. Just let it be.



Once most of the liquid has been absorbed by the rice, sprinkle the peas and asparagus on top. Let cook for another 5 minutes (all liquid should be absorbed), remove from heat, and let sit for about 5 minutes. Now enjoy. Perhaps soon that familiar refrain will read Jambalaya, Crawfish Paella, File Gumbo.



*Soffrito is basically a cousin of Creole Sauce. Take 4 Spanish onions and chop them finely. Slowly cook them until they caramelize. Cut 8 tomatoes in half and grate the inside into a bowl. Toss the skins in garbage. After the onions have slowly cooked for about an episode of The Wire, add one diced jalapeno and the juice from the tomatoes. Cook for another 30 minutes, let cool.  Keeps well, very good on eggs.

The Secrets of Boiling Great Crawfish

Good Friday is probably the most popular day of the year in South Louisiana to fire up the burners for a crawfish boil. And for as many sacks of mudbugs tossed in the pot, I imagine that there is an equal number of seasoning methods used - from simple recipes consisting primarily of liquid crab boil to elaborate concoctions that resemble the work of Ferran Adria.

So what's the secret to great tasting crawfish? The long and short of it is: I don't know. It is probably just as truthful to say that there are many secrets as it is to say that there are no secrets.

Last week I had the honor and good fortune to serve as a judge for the annual crawfish boil fundraiser for The Drew Rodrigue Foundation, along with two other individuals who happen to know a hell lot more about food than I do - Aaron Burgau of Patois and Justin LeBlanc of Southern Yacht Club. We ate our way through 26 teams' worth of crawfish, and surprisingly we could taste the differences in flavor in each batch all the way through the end. Though we were not privy to each team's seasoning method, I did take away a few tips which I thought would be helpful to share.

1. Unlike making mashed potatoes and garlic bread, butter should be used in moderation in your crawfish boil. A few batches that we tasted were basically poached in liquid gold, which sounds good but the spice is then relegated to the background.
2. The southwest Louisiana method of seasoning the outside of the crawfish is acceptable but not as an exclusive method. Boiling your crawfish in what amounts to seawater imparts no flavor to the fat and tail meat, no matter how many shakes of Tony Chachere's your pour on after the fact.
3. Lemon is your friend. The acid really brings out the flavors in your boil and can help offset some of the heat from the cayenne.
4. In my most humble of opinions, I implore you to please leave the pineapple out of your crawfish pot.

There was also a lagniappe category judged separately from crawfish, and we saw some interesting additions to the typical potatoes, corn, and sausage. This discussion though is another topic for another blog post, but suffice it to say that there may be no better lagniappe than the turkey neck.

As for the winning team, the judges unanimously agreed that theirs was head and shoulders above all others. Interestingly enough, after the final decision had been made, we learned that the winner employed a homemade spice blend dusted over the crawfish just before serving. That secret reminded me of Brett Anderson's recent article on the Cajun Claws, and I immediately started formulating a plan for a Saturday afternoon trip to Abbeville.