Hank Williams and Crawfish Pie

Hey, Hey, Good Lookin’, whatcha got cookin’

How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me

Hey, sweet baby, don’t you think mabbe

We could find a brand new reci-pe

The 33^rd Annual Hank Williams Festival is in Georgiana this weekend June 1-2.  If you aren’t going to the party, maybe you can cook somethin’ up at home in homage to Hank.

Hank joined a medicine show and was touring south Alabama when he met Audrey in 1943.  As Audrey remembered, “I knew Hank about a year before I married him.  All that time he was trying to get me to marry him…..He was living in a trailer in Andalusia and playing for a club, a rather large club in Andalusia.  I was doing the cooking for the boys in the band.  All of a sudden one afternoon he asked me and I said, ‘yes.’………We went by the justice of the peace who ran a filling station, with a couple of the boys in the band, and we got married.”

Andalusia has remembered Hank with one of its murals and with a marker on East Three Notch where he and Audrey married.

In 1948 Hank moved to Shreveport, Louisiana to play the Louisiana Hayride on radio.

Jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and-a file gumbo

‘Cause tonight I’m gonna see ma cher amio

Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh

Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.

Put on your favorite Hank Williams CD and let’s cook.

This recipe is taken from My New Orleans, The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Crawfish Pie

Serves 6

You may prefer using a nine-inch prepared pie shell instead of the individual shells; just know when you slice the big pie it will be slightly runny. I will also give the recipe for basic pie dough, since this is so much better that a prepared shell.

5 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons flour, plus more for dusting

1 onion, diced

½ green pepper, seeded and diced

1 ¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped

1 bay leaf

½ cup seafood stock (can buy already prepared, or use clam juice, or water)

½ cup heavy cream

1 pound peeled crawfish tails

2 dashes Tabasco

2 dashes Worcestershire

Preheat the oven to 325ᴼ. Make a roux by melting 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over moderate heat. Stir in the flour until it is incorporated. Cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until all the roux is lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Then add the onions and cook for a few minutes more until the roux becomes golden brown.

Add the bell pepper, celery, salt, cayenne, black pepper, tomatoes, and bay leaf. Reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer for 10 minutes more.

Stirring constantly, slowly add the stock and cream to the skillet. Raise the heat to moderate and simmer the sauce until it has reduced itself by half. Remove the skillet from the heat and add the crawfish, Tabasco, and Worcestershire and stir to combine. Set the filling aside; discard the bay leaf.

Liberally coat each of 6 individual 3-4-inch pie tart pans with the remaining 1 tablespoon butter, then dust with flour.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to a thickness of ¼ inch. Cut into 6 individual circles, each a bit larger than the tart pan. Gently fit the dough circles into the prepared pan.

Place the tart pans (or the 9-inch shell) on a cookie sheet and fill with the crawfish mixture. Bake for 25 minutes or until the pie shells are golden brown.

Basic Pie Dough

Makes one 9-inch crust

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

7 tablespoons cold butter, diced, plus softened butter for greasing the pan

Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut the butter into the flour until it resembles cornmeal. Sprinkle in ice water, as needed, as many as 4 tablespoon, mixing it into the dough until it comes together into a ball. Press the dough into a round, flat disk, then wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling it out. (I kept mine in the refrigerator for 3 hours. Just remember to keep it cold because if it gets sticky it will give you problems.)

Liberally coat a 9-10 inch pie pan with softened butter, then dust with flour. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of ¼ inch.

Wrap the dough around the rolling pin, then gently fit the dough into the pan. Trim off overhanging dough and crimp the edges.

…fill fruit jar and be gay-oh…..