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My Take on Viet Cajun

Making Hot & Juicy style Viet Cajun Crawfish Boil


In Boise, we really don't have anything cajun, but I love the flavors fused with Asian flavors in seafood. I usually make this dish with these ingredients:
  • Shrimp 3-4 pounds 9-12 count 
  • Andouille sausage
  • Corn
  • Small red potatoes
  • Crawfish (Crayfish)
  • Clams
  • Any other seafood you would want to try with




 For the sauce:
  • Margarine 1-3 sticks
  • 1 cup of chicken stock
  • onion powder
  • garlic powder
  • chopped fresh garlic 4-5 cloves
  • ginger 1 cup chopped
  • lemon grass 1 stick cut
  • basil leaves as much as you want
  • any cajun seasonings you can get from the store (ex. Old Bay season, slap yo mama season, etc.)

 For the boil:
  • Lemon 4-6 lemons
  • Zatarins crab boil
  • 1 stick of lemon grass
  • old bay seasoning
  1. Those are the main ingredients to making my version of the Viet cajun style hot & juicy. What you want to start off with is chopping up all the ingredients.  
  2. Have a pot out to boil the corn and potatoes in one pot. 
  3. To start the boil, get out a big pot with water filled 3/4 of the pot and bring to a boil. Squeeze 2-3 lemons cut in half and drop in the boil after. Then put in your Zatarins pouch and along with the lemon grass and old bay seasoning. Now you can add any kind of seasonings to this boil, all you are trying to do is cook the seafood and sausage in it. 
  4. Once the pot is boiling, it is ready to put some of the seafood it, what I would start off is with all the seafood that will take longest to cook, so any shrimp, clams, or anything else and then the crawfish last. 
  5. Bring out another pan or pot to make the sauce, I recommend making the sauce first before you start boiling the seafood. To make the sauce, place half of the garlic chopped into the pan when it is hot and then add the sticks of margarine. once that is all melted and the garlic has infused into the liquid, put in half of the powder seasonings. 
  6. Next put in the chopped ginger and lemon grass and stir to a boil. 
  7. Put in the chicken stock and stir and then put in the rest of the chopped garlic and basil leaves, once the sauce is boiled, simmer it down and put to the side until your boil is finished. 
  8. Once you have your potatoes corn and all the meats boiled and done in the crab boil, put it all in a giant pan to stir or toss. 
  9. The shrimp usually will take 5 min to cook depending on the amount you put in at a time. Clams are usually cooked until they pop open. Crayfish usually take 5-10 min also. 
  10. Once you have everything in a big pan or tub, put your sauce in and toss it or stir it to cover everything.









Now you can eat this in that tub or spread it out on the table under some plastic lining to make it easier to clean. Enjoy!



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