Recipe: Crawfish Pie

You can create the Frugé Farms’ experience in your own kitchen: lace the pie dough with vodka (for maximum flakiness), use long-grain rice for pie weights, and smother crawfish tails with a roux.

[Read Lucie Monk Carter's story about how Frugé Farms went from producing rice, to crawfish, to vodka, here.]

Vodka Pie Dough

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp. sugar

½ tbsp. salt

2 sticks of butter, cubed and kept cold

¼ cup  J.T. Meleck Handcrafted Rice Vodka, chilled

¼ cup ice water

¾ cup uncooked rice

1. In a food processor, pulse together flour, sugar, and salt. Add butter and process until pea-sized crumbs are formed.

2. Slowly add vodka and water. Pulse until dough just comes together. Turn out onto a floured surface. Halve the dough and form two disks. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 F. When ready to bake, roll out one disk into a 10-inch circle. Transfer the dough to a pie tin, then line with parchment paper. Pour uncooked rice on top to serve as pie weights. Bake for 45 minutes.

Crawfish Pie

2 tbsp. butter

½ medium yellow onion, minced

¼ cup of diced green bell pepper

¼ cup of diced celery

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp. Flour

Pinch of dried thyme

Cajun seasoning of your choice, to your taste

Dash of hot sauce (again, who am I to change your hot sauce ways with my measly recommendation, I actually used a chili-garlic sauce from Vinh Phat Market)

½ cup chicken or seafood stock

½ lb. crawfish tails

2 tbsp. diced green onions

1. Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add onions, bell pepper, celery, and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes, until onions are translucent.

2. Add flour, stirring constantly until smoothly incorporated. Add spices, then stock. Simmer for one minute.

3. Stir in crawfish tails, cover and cook for 3 minutes.

4. Uncover and remove from heat. Allow filling to cool slightly. Meanwhile roll out your second disk of pie dough.

5. Pour filling into the blind-baked pie crust. Cover with top crust. Use a knife to make a small X in the center of the dough, for venting. Use a fork to crimp and seal the top crust.

6. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the crust is uniformly golden. Let cool for fifteen minutes before serving.