Crawfish Monica

One of my favorite dishes of all times is Crawfish Monica. I decided to make this for a work potluck tomorrow and wanted to take pictures along the way. I also made a shrimp version (first time making it) and I must say, I'm not sure which one is my favorite! I wanted to change up the recipe a bit, so I used bow-tie pasta for the shrimp monica and rotini for the crawfish monica.

Let's start with the recipe...

Julie's JazzFest Crawfish Monica
For each 1# of pasta:
1 stick butter
4 TBSP Prudhomme's Seafood Magic (a MUST!)
1 qt of heavy whipping cream (I usually buy Half & Half)
1 bunch of green onions
1# crawfish tails
1# rotini pasta

Melt butter in dutch oven (large pot). Add seafood magic. Mix well. Add cream. Let reduce by 25% (simmer about 20 minutes usually). Add crawfish tails. Cook until tender. (Takes longer for Chinese crawfish). Before serving, add chopped green onions and then add cooked pasta. Toss & serve. Recipe can be easily doubled.

Let's start with what makes life better: butter! Melt 1 stick of butter with the 4 tablespoons of Seafood Magic...

If you leave this out or substitute, IT WILL NOT COME OUT AS  GOOD!!!

I do not follow the recipe with this step, I add in my 1-1.5 bunch of green onions because I think raw green onions are GROSS.

This is what it should look like after several minutes of cooking... 

After several minutes, add in 1 quart of whipping cream - I use half and half (the real stuff!) because I find whipping cream leaves a lot of grease. There are two cartons here because I made two pots of Monica.

Oh yeah, just waiting for this pot of goodness to come to a simmer......

All while this goodness is cookin' on the stove, I have thawed my crawfish over night and then ran warm water to continue the thawing process. Frozen shrimp just came out of the freezer about 15 minutes prior to tossing in. Never add frozen crawfish to the dish, it will take quite some time to cook through. Please note: I doubled my seafood amounts - I'm doing 2# of crawfish tails and 2# of shrimps (ha!)... cuz I can.

Because I knew I would have a lot on the stove tonight, I cooked my pasta last night and just threw it into ziplocks and into the fridge. Cuz I'm organized...

 Now your creamy goodness is going to continue to simmer... I allow this process to take around 15-20 minutes prior to throwing in my seafood.

 Here's a video of the simmering goodness....

Now let's add the seafood.... 

Shrimp....

Crawfish tails.... 

 

Let's add the pasta.... bow tie to the shrimp and rotini to the crawfish

Now let's take a look at the final product....

  

Be sure to turn off the stove when you add the pasta, the sauce will slowly thicken once it sits without heat. Just as good the next day (and the day after that and the day after that...).

ENJOY!!!