Crawfish Stock

My friends suggested that the first step in this recipe's instructions be, "Start with a jar of crawfish carcasses." It does make for an exciting start, don't you think?

We did a crawfish boil last week at house church, and partway through the meal I decided that I wanted to make crawfish stock out of the claws, heads, and shells that otherwise would have gone in the trash. They thought I was joking until I brought out a half-gallon mason jar, filled it with crawfish remnants, and forced them to drink the rest of the tea and prickly pear limeade I'd brought so I could fill those jars with crawfish as well.

A few observations about the stock-making process:

• It felt resourceful to make homemade broth from stuff that would normally be thrown away. If I were really resourceful, I would make a habit of tossing into the freezer carrots, half-used onions, and other trimmings that I won't be able to use before they go bad, so I could use those for stock instead of buying all fresh veggies for this.
• Prepping the ingredients was extremely quick and easy. Since all the solids get strained out, it doesn't matter how roughly everything is chopped. I didn't even peel the carrots or garlic.
• What took me a long time was washing pots and colanders between batches. I don't have a pot large enough to do this entire recipe in one batch, so I had to split it in half and do two rounds in my 7(?)-quart stock pot. I think I spent more time washing dishes than chopping, cooking, and straining everything.
• Crawfish stock is basically the color of mud. It looks kinda gross, I'm not gonna lie. I felt discouraged when I saw the end result. But it tasted fine when I sampled it, and tasted even better when I used some to make jambalaya a couple days later.
• If you have some shrimp tails, toss those in as well.
• Open your windows to help the fishy smell dissipate.
• Who knew a cross-section of a head of garlic could be so pretty?

Crawfish Stock
Adapted from crawfishboil.org
Yield: A little over 1 gallon of stock, which yielded 10-1/2 pint-sized mason jars, since you have to leave some head room in each one

Ingredients
6 quarts crawfish shells
2-1/2 large onions
10 stalks celery
5 large carrots (about 1 lb.)
2 heads garlic (whole heads, as opposed to individual cloves)
2 lemons
5 Tbsp. butter
2-1/2 small bunches fresh parsley (or 2 medium bunches)
10 bay leaves
1-1/4 tsp. dried oregano
12 stems fresh thyme
15 whole peppercorns
Very modest sprinkle of salt

Directions
Roughly chop the onions, celery, and carrots. Lay each head of garlic on its side (so the stem end points to the side rather than up or down) and slice down once through the whole head. Quarter the lemons.

In batches, rinse the crawfish shells very well. You want the stock to taste like crawfish and veggies, not like crawfish boil seasoning.

In a large stock pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the crawfish shells and cook, stirring frequently, for 5-6 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients to the pot, then add water so the ingredients are almost covered. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about an hour.

Now it's time to strain the stock. There's not one correct way to do this, but here's how I did it. Place a large colander inside another large pot or bowl. Scoop ladlefuls of stock (with solids and all) into the colander. This will take care of all the big pieces of vegetables and crawfish, but you'll still have some thyme leaves and flecks of stuff in your broth. So now pour or ladle the broth through a fine mesh strainer. Discard all the solids.

Don't be worried that your stock is the color of mud. It will still taste good.

Portion out the broth into jars for freezing, being sure to leave an inch or so of head room since liquid expands when it freezes. Since this is shellfish, I would suggest cooling it as quickly as possible (i.e., in the fridge, freezer, or an ice bath...not by leaving it out on your counter for a couple of hours). Use the stock within 3 days or freeze it.