Crawfish Kowalski
Submitted by skfisher
Crawfish Kowalski tosses wagon wheel pasta with crawfish tails, kielbasa, and a beer-spiked cream sauce with cayenne. A bold Cajun-Polish mashup ready in 40 minutes.
YIELD
6 servingsPREP
10 minCOOK
30 minREADY
40 minHalf Cajun, half Polish, all flavor. This is fusion cooking before fusion cooking was cool.
Kielbasa and crawfish tails get sauteed with green onions and garlic in butter, then simmered in a sauce of heavy cream and beer spiked with cayenne and black pepper. Toss it all with wagon wheel pasta and a scatter of fresh parsley.
The smoky, garlicky kielbasa plays off the sweet, briny crawfish in a way that just works. The beer adds a subtle bitterness that keeps the cream from being too rich.
It’s the kind of dish that sounds like it shouldn’t work but absolutely does.
Kitchen Tips
- Wagon wheel (rotelle) pasta catches the cream sauce in all its little spokes and crevices. Don’t swap it for spaghetti.
- Use a lager or pilsner for the sauce. Anything too hoppy or dark will overpower the crawfish.
- Simmer the cream and beer until it thickens enough to coat the pasta. Thin sauce means soggy noodles.
- Add the crawfish at the very end and cook just 2 to 3 minutes so they stay tender.
Ingredients
Directions
Meanwhile, sauté green onions and sausage in butter until onions are tender but not browned.
Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add peppers, cream and beer.
Simmer, stirring until slightly thickened, for about 5 minutes.
Add crawfish simmer 2 to 3 minutes, stirring.
Add salt to taste, toss in pasta and parsley and serve.
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