Karl’s Crawdaddy Corn Chowder II

We love the crawdads at Crawdaddy on King Street in San Jose, but at $10 a pound (unshelled) it gets very expensive to make a meal of them. Crawdaddy has 4 levels of heat: mild, medium, hot, and fire. We once got their hot and the only thing we have ever had that was hotter was real Thai soup. Their mild is spicy enough for most palettes. To stretch this special treat I use 2 pounds of crawdads as a soup base (which produces about ½ pound of meat) and comes with about 2 cups of their boil sauce which has lots of garlic. To boost the meat content I also add some langoustine and shrimp. The soup with Olive Oil Garlic Bread and Tomato and Cucumber Salad is this meal:

Olive Oil Garlic Bread
Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Karl’s Crawdaddy Corn Chowder II

(Myr’s Mango-agave Caiparhina on the side)

Karl’s Crawdaddy Corn Chowder II

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. mild Crawdaddy crayfish with boil (if you can stand the heat you can get their medium hot)
• 2 cans chicken stock
• ½ lb. langoustine
• ½ lb. medium shrimp
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 large onion, course diced (1/2 cup reserved)
• 3 leeks, chopped
• 4 ears of corn, niblets removed
• 1 ½ Tbs. corn starch (in 1.2 cup water)

Directions

1. Shuck crayfish and reserve the meat and boil (separately). 2. Boil and peel shrimp if necessary.

3. Boil shells and heads in 2 cans chicken stock for 30 minutes. Strain stock and reserve.

4. Clean pot and heat over medium high heat, add olive oil and sauté onions and leeks until transparent, about 10-15 minutes.

5. Add reserved boil and stock. Bring to a boil and add most of the corn niblets, cover, reduce heat and cook 20 minutes. (If you are making Karl’s Tomato and Cucumber Salad you may add the tomato jelly at this point.)

6. Use an immersion blender to cream most of the solids.

7. Add the rest of the corn and the reserved onions and cook 15 minutes more.

8. Add crawdad, langoustine, shrimp meat and corn starch slurry, heat until thickened, but not boiling.

9. Serve hot, with garlic bread and cucumber tomato salad.