Salsa de Congrejo

I love to eat crawfish; and, in my cooking, I have made a few etoufees and gumbos that feature the freshwater crustaceans.  A while back, I bought a bag of frozen crawfish, hoping to make a nice meal with it. (I don't have a good reliable source for fresh crawfish.) When I got around to deciding to make that meal, I found myself wanting something more than a bowl of gumbo. I wanted to try something different.

It got me thinking to another dish that I love to eat ... chapulines. There is something about grasshoppers marinated in a variety of spices, chiles and herbs that is very appetizing. The best chapulines recipes come, of course, from the Mexican State of Oaxaca. So, I decided that I would pursue the pages of Oaxacan recipes looking for a recipe that could serve as a starting point a crawfish dish. 

To be sure, there were a few recipes that caught my attention. The one that I decided to make was a Salsa de Chapulines. Perhaps it has been my recent craze in making Sambols - like Lunu Miris or Dried Shrimp Sambol - that got me thinking this salsa could have a variety of uses in other dishes. All I needed to do was to substitute the grasshoppers with crawfish. I would then have Salsa de Congrejo. 

This salsa is very easy to make as long as you have access to some good tomatillos, which you can find at most Latin American markets and even in some big name grocery stores. I did not have any morita chiles on hand, so I bought a can of chipotles and just made sure that I rinsed the adobo off of them. One could use dried or reconstituted chipotles if you have them, but the store-bought ones were more convenient to use. 

Now, I just need a good source for chapulines (spoiler -- I found one, check back for that post).

SALSA DE CONGREJO

Recipe adapted from Oaxaca, by Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral

Serves a few

Ingredients:

• Generous one pound of tomatillos, husked and rinsed
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup chopped white onion 
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 4 morita chiles (substitute chipotle chiles), stems removed
• 1/4 cup cooked and rinsed crawfish tails
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Directions:

1. Boil the tomatillos. In a 2-quart saucepan over medium high heat, combine the tomatillos and 1/2 cup water and heat to boiling. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and boil for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. until the tomatillos have changed color from a dark to a light green color. Set aside. 

2. Prepare the salsa. Heat the oil in a large pan over high heat. Add the onion and garlic, reduce the heat and mix well. Sauté until the garlic and onion are golden brown, then remove from the pan and reserve. Add the chiles to the pan and toast them for about 1 minute or until the color changes to a bright red. Remove from the pan and reserve. Add the crawfish tails and fry for about 3-4 minutes, until they are heated through. 

3. Finish the dish. In a blender, pure the tomatillos, chiles and garlic and onion mixture, 3/4 cup water and the salt. Stir in the lime juice. Pour into a bowl and add the crawfish tails. 

PEACE.