CRAWFISH (RACI, in roumanian) FROM TEXAS, for a charity event in Boston.

My friend Seth, invited us to a charity event for helping “coming home” solders. He was a solder, himself, not long ago, so to help with his charity, I payed few tickets.

I was not sure if I will go, but I was curious, because he said he will “fly” crawfish from Texas. I didn’t know what crawfish are, I hear all kind of recipes from Louisiana, and Cajun cooking, and Emeril Lagasse cooking show.

In the day of Charity, he started boiling potatoes, corn on the cob and Cajun sausage, early, in the morning. Later on he added live crawfish, to be boiled, just before the charity event started.

What a surprise for me!! I know this crawfish =RACI (in Romanian) since I was a child. I remember so well.

 In long summer day, you go to the river, and slowly, under the rocks, on the river bed, you can catch, “raci”= crawfish. I remember very well, how much we enjoy them, boiled, and my mother makes a dish called “scordolea” from walnuts, bread and milk, to put with clean crawfish tails, on a platter.

That was too fancy, too much cooking. We love to boil and clean the tails and the little clasps, for hours….

When we came to this country and have “lobster” for the first time, I was so happy, that it remind me of “crawfish”, but much bigger and much easy to clean.

I never imagine I will eat crawfish=raci again!

I found out they are growing in farms and they can be delivered alive, on ice, anywhere in the United States:

 http://www.cajungrocer.com/fresh-foods-crawfish-live-c-1_15_19.html?gclid=CM7eibHE6qgCFWNx5QodcDKWCg
 

My mother’s “SCORDOLEA” crawfish tails (=cozi de raci) and ground walnuts mix , for a fancy appetizer:

 

Ingredients:

200 g (1/2 cup) ground walnuts

2 slices of white bred

200ml olive oil

200ml cold milk

½ tsp salt

4 garlic pod crushed

Preparation:

Soak well the bread with milk, mix with ground walnuts, add salt. Mix well until there a soft puree.

Add crushed garlic and oil, slowly, until is a good emulsified consistency.

Make a platter with this sauce and cleaned crawfish tails on the margin.

Bone appétit!~

my note:

 

Skordalia  is a  Greek word  /adopted for Rumanian cooking/, for a thick puree  made e by combining crushed garlic with a bulky base—which may be potatoes, walnuts, almond  with a  liquid-soaked  bread—and then beating in olive oil to make a smooth  dipping sauce.    From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skordalia