Crawfish Dip in a French Bread Skillet
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Recipe by:
Serves: 8 to 12
Ingredients
Dip
  • 1 stick unsalted butter
  • 1 cup diced yellow onion
  • ¼ cup diced green bell pepper
  • ¼ cup diced red bell pepper
  • ½ cup diced celery
  • ½ cup chopped mushrooms
  • ½ tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1 tablespoon Acadiana Table Cajun Seasoning Blend, see recipe here
  • ½ cup dry sherry
  • 2 tablespoons sour cream
  • ½ cup cream cheese
  • ¼ cup heavy cream
  • 1 pound Louisiana crawfish tail meat
  • ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Dash of hot sauce
Bread
  • Flour, for dusting
  • 2 (11-ounce) cans refrigerated French bread dough, such as Pillsbury
  • ½ stick unsalted butter, melted
  • Kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
Dip
  1. In a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, bell peppers, celery, and mushrooms, and sauté until the onions turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and Cajun seasoning, and lower the heat to simmer, and stir to combine. Add the sherry and cook for 5 minutes. Add the sour cream and cream cheese and stir until the cheese melts and thickens. Add the cream and continue stirring until the consistency of a dip.
  2. Add the crawfish tail meat; stir the mixture to combine. Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes. Add the cayenne, and season to taste with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Keep warm for serving.
Bread
  1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
  2. Sprinkle flour over a cutting board and remove the bread dough from the packages. Cut the rolled dough into 12 to 14 equal segments of about 2 ½ inches. Roll on the cutting board with the palm of your hand until shaped into balls.
  3. In a 10-inch cast-iron skillet coated with non-stick spray, add the dough balls along the perimeter of the skillet leaving a circular space in the middle. Brush the top of the dough with melted butter and place in the preheated oven. Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush with butter and sprinkle with salt and Parmesan cheese.
  4. For serving, pour the hot crawfish dip into the hole in the middle of the French bread skillet. Serve family style in the middle of the table and invite your guests to pull apart the bread and dip it into the hot dip. Be sure to have plenty of napkins.
Notes
This dip is moderately spicy, so add more cayenne and hot sauce for added punch. The number of French bread rounds will be dependent on the diameter of your skillet, so measure accordingly. The assembled skillet can be reheated conveniently by placing in a preheated oven for 10 minutes before serving, but don’t add the dip too early, or the bottom of the bread will soak up the liquid and become soggy. Frozen crawfish tails can be bought online at CajunGrocer.com. Crawfish is excellent for this dip, but shrimp or crabmeat will work too.
Recipe by Acadiana Table at https://www.acadianatable.com/?p=19834