Published June 14, 2011.

And now is the time when crawfish tails become less dear. Winter-long we suffer tails at $17.99 a pound, and from China or last year's harvest no less. But just as surely as summer brings mosquitoes, it also brings a drop in crawfish tail prices.

On a recent trip to one of our fine, locally owned grocery stores, my mother and I noticed the orange envelopes of Louisiana crawfish tails, packed in ice, on offer for $10.99. These sightings are the stuff that étouffées are made of. We each grabbed a pound. She intended to prepare them according to the instructions on the back of the package. I had other things in mind. I wanted to make Baked Pasta with Crawfish, Mushrooms, Tarragon and Three Cheeses.

I will not recommend that the following dish go into your regular weekly rotations of meals. Not because it is not good, but because it should come with some disclaimer about the quantities of cheese, butter and cream it contains (not to mention crawfish fat, which isn’t really fat by we won't go into that). I will recommend that you serve it the next time you have a party of healthy eaters or are desirous of some comfort food. As an added bonus, you also will be instructed on how to make a basic béchamel sauce! My mother insisted that I mention that she prepared the étouffée exactly as described on the back of the package and, in her words, “It was just fabulous, you tell them that!”  GET THE RECIPE...

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