Crawfish Fettuccine -- The Recipe I Came Back to After Thinking About Mrs. Broussard's Jambalaya

A school week that moved fast and well — tests returned with good grades, a project assigned in Biology that immediately interested me (a research mini-paper on an organism of our choosing; I chose the Louisiana crayfish and spent two evenings reading about their ecological role and their cultural significance and the intersection of those two things). Marcus said I had chosen an obvious topic. I said I had chosen a correct topic. He laughed.

Saturday brought a fall festival at the community center near MawMaw's neighborhood — booths, music, food vendors, the particular noise and warmth of a community gathered on purpose. I went with Destiny, who I had been seeing less of since we started at different schools and who I had been determined to maintain contact with no matter what. We walked the festival for two hours, ate fried things on sticks, and talked with the focused ease of people who have stored up things to say.

She had been adjusting to Catholic High with mixed feelings — she liked her teachers but missed the community of middle school, the sense of already knowing where you fit. I told her it would come. She told me that was easy to say from inside a magnet program full of people who were all already the same kind of different. She wasn't wrong. I held that observation.

There was a food booth at the festival run by a woman named Mrs. Broussard — no relation to my homeroom teacher — who was selling her jambalaya in styrofoam cups with crackers. I bought one and stood eating it at the edge of the crowd. It was good jambalaya: the rice properly seasoned, the sausage sliced in rounds, the chicken tender. But she had done something unusual with the spice balance — more thyme than I was used to, less cayenne — and I found myself reverse-engineering it in my head while I ate. That is what food has become for me: something I eat and simultaneously analyze, always asking what is happening and why and what I might do differently. Mama says I can't just eat food anymore, I have to audit it. She's right. I consider it one of my better habits.

Mrs. Broussard’s jambalaya stayed with me longer than the festival did — specifically that thyme-forward spice balance, and the question of what I would have done differently if it were mine. I didn’t go home and make jambalaya, though. I went home thinking about crawfish, which had been on my mind anyway since the Biology project, and I landed on this fettuccine: still Cajun, still Louisiana at its core, but a different format for the same instinct. If you’re going to audit your food, you might as well cook it too.

Crawfish Fettuccine

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 12 oz fettuccine
• 1 lb peeled crawfish tails (fresh or frozen, thawed)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 1 green bell pepper, finely diced
• 3 stalks celery, finely diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 4 oz cream cheese, cubed and softened
• 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook fettuccine according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining. Set pasta aside.
2. Build the base. In a large deep skillet or Dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion, bell pepper, and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until vegetables are softened and beginning to turn translucent.
3. Add aromatics. Stir in garlic, Cajun seasoning, thyme, cayenne, and smoked paprika. Cook for 1–2 minutes until fragrant, stirring constantly to prevent the garlic from burning.
4. Make the cream sauce. Pour in chicken broth and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add heavy cream and cream cheese. Stir over medium-low heat until the cream cheese is fully melted and the sauce is smooth, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the crawfish. Stir in the crawfish tails and cook for 4–5 minutes until heated through. Do not overcook — crawfish tails toughen quickly. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, and cayenne as needed.
6. Combine with pasta. Add the drained fettuccine to the skillet and toss to coat evenly in the sauce. If the sauce is too thick, add reserved pasta water a few tablespoons at a time until it reaches a creamy, coating consistency.
7. Finish and serve. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan. Divide among bowls and top with fresh parsley. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 520 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 26g | Carbs: 45g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 680mg