author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

I'm distracting you with a recipe again. Distracting you from what, you ask? Shush, I say. Distraction commences.

So the weather got rainy and chill lately, chill enough that we started turning our heater back on from time to time. But although temperatures didn't come back up to July-type heat, they did rise significantly whenever the sun came out. And the sun was out all day today.

So I thought, what the hell, maybe local crawfish season isn't entirely over yet. I hadn't attempted to take any since the first week of September, and I hated to think I might have missed my last chance.

Well, I brought home nine. Just nine. Honestly, it's probably not so much about the cooler weather as it is that I relied almost entirely on my homemade traps. Didn't really feel like I had the time to sit out there and line-fish this week.

Nine is enough to feel like it would be a waste to throw them back, but it's not exactly enough to make étouffée. Turns out, though, it's enough to give some good flavor to red lentil dahl. The following is my own from-scratch experiment, which I will now share with you.

Crawfish Dahl

• 1/2 lb live crawfish
• 1 C red lentils
• 2 C water or stock
• 1 tsp mustard oil
• 1 Tbl olive oil
• half an onion, chopped up
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 can (14 oz or so) light coconut milk

Boil and soak crawfish as per usual. With so few crawfish, I only used about a Tbl each powdered and liquid Cajun Land. Also a squirt of lemon. I figured I couldn't go too far wrong; if the crawfish were over- or under-spiced, I wouldn't notice it in a thick and creamy lentil soup.

Simmer lentils in water or stock for 15 minutes, covered. I used the crawfish stock I made recently. I'm trying to free up room in our freezer; turning two big bags of crawfish shells into two half-full bags of stock sort of helped with that.

While lentils are simmering, process crawfish. Peel and "de-vein" tails. Extract and reserve "fat" and any eggs found inside the heads. Set aside. You may have already noticed I am fairly non-squeamish about the gross-looking but tasty, tasty things you find inside a crawfish's head. I was raised to appreciate the good things in life.

When lentils are about 5 minutes from done, heat oils to medium high. Add onion and pinch of salt. Sauteé until onion is soft. You are unlikely to find mustard oil in a mainstream US grocery store, for reasons. Really, any cooking oil will do (maybe add a half tsp of mustard powder to the other spices). However, the first dahl recipe I tried called for it, so, after some research, I picked some up. It was on the shelf at a nearby Indian grocery, and it was labeled "for external use only" (as a massage oil). Nevertheless, an ingredient check said this was the stuff I wanted. I only ever use a little at a time because otherwise the burn goes right up my nose.

Pour coconut milk into fully cooked lentils and stir. It wasn't my original plan to add coconut milk, but after the 15 minute simmer, my lentils had pretty much drunk up all the stock. Adding coconut milk meant the dahl would have a consistency like soup rather than like porridge.

Add crawfish meat, crawfish "fat" and eggs, and all spices to the sautéed onions. Stir constantly for about a minute, until spice smell is strong and crawfish tails are well coated and tightly curled. Not that they won't mostly be curled already, mind you, but they really tightened up during the sautée. I put them in the soup whole, because they make me smile when I get one in my spoonful. But I chopped up the crawfish eggs fairly fine. Each crawfish egg is tiny, but in aggregate they form a solid lump (of deliciousness). The only lumps I wanted calling attention to themselves were the crawfish tails.

Stir onion-crawfish-spices mixture into cooked lentil mixture. Simmer a few more minutes, then remove from heat. Serve.

I think that's everything. It was delicious, and made enough to feed me twice. I was very good and put the second helping away in the fridge rather than devouring it all tonight.