Moving along in our food journey, I was thinking about how much I miss the seafood we could get the 30+ years we lived on the Texas Gulf Coast. So I thought I’d post some of my favorite seafood recipes this week. Man, I had the very best at my fingertips down on the coast. Why ever did we move (hurricanes, that’s why)? Moving up to Central Texas to get away from them when we retired, I’m relegated to using frozen crawfish, previously-frozen shrimp, not-too-good crab meat and just awful 1-2 day old whole fish (trucked in from the coast) unless you go fishing yourself and catch something worth cooking.
I number of years ago I found a fantastic way to shake up my glucomannan dumplings recipe with crawfish! I hesitated to actually make it for the longest time, as I was afraid putting that much bulk into my dumpling batter would make them just totally fall apart in the simmering water. As you can see in the pic, that just didn’t happen!
This is 5-star restaurant eating experience as far as I’m concerned! Not many recipes strike me that way, either. It was every bit as good as the seafood fare served to me in the finest restaurants in Dallas or Houston, that’s for sure! My husband and I were absolutely astounded at how good this idea I hatched one night would come out. This opens the door for a world of new uses for this dumpling recipe.
For those still on Atkins Induction, omit the wine and substitute 1/2 c. seafood stock or chicken stock in your sauce. This recipe is suitable for Atkins OWL Phase 2 or beyond and Keto diets if it fits your daily carb limits. You’d have to make the sauce with coconut milk for it to pass Primal-Paleo muster, but that would taste OK here. By the way, these freeze beautifully and tasted even better than the first night they were made! 🙂
VARIATIONS: Substitute either crab meat or shrimp for the crawfish. These made smaller would also be lovely in a simple wonton-style soup, standing in for the meat-filled wontons. 🙂
DUMPLING INGREDIENTS:
6 oz. cooked, cleaned crawfish tail meat (the rest of the 12-oz. package goes in the sauce)
4 T. butter, unsalted
2 oz. celery, chopped
2 oz. green bell pepper, chopped
2 oz. yellow onion, chopped
½ c. green onion, chopped
1/3 c. parsley, chopped (3 more T. needed for the sauce, so go on and chop 1/2 c. total 😉 )
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend
2 recipes my glucomannan Dumplings batter
SAUCE INGREDIENTS:
4 T. unsalted butter, melted
6 oz. remaining crawfish
½ c. white wine (omit for Induction)
1 T. lemon juice
3 T. parsley, chopped
½ c. heavy cream
½ c. water
1 small clove garlic, minced
Dash each salt and black pepper
DIRECTIONS: Chop all the vegetables up. Melt 4 T. butter over high heat and add the celery, bell pepper, onion and minced garlic. Sauté until they are tender. Add 6 oz. of the crawfish, the parsley, and seafood spice mix. Lower heat and let simmer 2-3 minutes for flavors to blend. Turn off heat.
Bring a large stew pot of water to a boil. While it is heating, make up a double recipe of my glucomannan dumpling batter and add the veggie crawfish mixture to the egg/water mixture and stir well. Stir the dry ingredients in and mix with a rubber spatula until it begins to thicken up. Keep turning the dough until it is stiff enough to roll. Roll 24 1″ dumpling in your palms and set on a sheet of silicone (best) or a baking sheet. When all 24 are formed, your water should be at a rolling boil. Drop all 24 dumplings gently into the water. This will cool the water down a bit. You want a medium gentle rolling water bath. Cover and cook for exactly 10 minutes without lifting the lid.
Make the sauce while the dumplings are cooking. Melt 4 T. butter over medium heat in a skillet. Add the remaining 6 oz. crawfish, garlic, wine, lemon juice parsley and simmer long enough to cook the garlic well. Add the cream and salt and pepper to taste.
When dumplings have cooked 10 minutes, lift lid and using a slotted spoon or tongs, gently lift onto a serving platter and spoon the sauce around them. I served with steamed, buttered broccoli, but they would be good with a nice green salad and low-carb dinner rolls.
NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 6 servings of 4 dumplings each and ¼ c. sauce. Each contains:
258 cals, 20.4g fat, 10.55g carbs, 5.96g fiber, 4.59g NET CARBS, 13.25g protein, 481 g sodium
Buttoni's Low-Carb Recipes 