In the heat of summer I love this citrusy, light, and refreshing ceviche-like chopped salad. It is satisfying and yet not heavy. You can serve this as is with a side of chips, or on top of a fresh greens, or in tacos. If you do not have access to crawfish, you could also use shrimp to the same effect.
Ingredients
1 lb. crawfish | precooked, shelled, and roughly chopped *see note
2 limes | juiced
2 large tomatoes | roughly chopped
2 avocados | chopped
1 cucumber | roughly peeled and chopped
1 small red onion | diced
1 jalapeño | thinly sliced
a large handful of fresh cilantro leaves | chopped
sea salt and pepper
Instructions
Step 1
In a large bowl combine all the ingredients and season with sea salt and pepper to your taste.
Step2
Gently toss, then cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving to let the flavors combine. Serve. Enjoy.
To cook the crawfish
While I love a good seasoned boil, in this recipe I am looking for a fresh and almost sweet crawfish meat flavor, kind of similar to shrimp. So instead of cooking up my crawfish with a ton of flavors, I keep it super simple. I bring a big pot to boil with a good amount of salt added. Right before I throw the crawfish in, I add a good couple of glugs of rice wine vinegar into the water, and then add my crawfish. Boil until cooked. Once the shells are nice and red and the meat cooked through, I strain the crawfish, and send them straight to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Once they are cooled completely, I shell them and then move forward with this recipe.
Often I boil large batches of crawfish and dedicate an afternoon to sitting on the back stoop of the house and shelling them. I then can make little 1 pound packages of freshly shelled meat and throw them into the freezer to use in recipes just as I would shrimp. It is a lot of work, but I find it an enjoyable and satisfying process. Then I can just grab a bag from the freezer and in no time at all have some delicious crawfish tacos or this ceviche like chopped salad. This options are endless.