History

Viet-Cajun crawfish was developed by Vietnamese-American boilers in the Houston Asiatown along Bellaire Boulevard through the 2000s. The base technique came from the Cajun boil tradition that Vietnamese refugees encountered when they settled along the Gulf Coast in the 1970s and 80s. The breakthrough was adding garlic, butter, lemongrass, ginger and chillies to the post-boil toss. Trong Nguyen opened Crawfish and Noodles in 2008 and got a James Beard semifinalist nod by 2018. Cajun House, Cajun Kitchen and the LA-based Boiling Crab chain all trace back to the Houston style. Crawfish season runs late February to early June; the boil tradition has since gone national.

Common allergens: Shellfish

Make it at home

Yield Serves 4Hands-on 40 minTotal 1 hr 30 minDifficulty Intermediate

Ingredients

  • 4kg live crawfish, purged
  • 1 box (75g) crawfish boil seasoning (Zatarain's or similar)
  • 6 lemons, halved
  • 8 cloves garlic, smashed
  • 2 stalks lemongrass, bruised and cut in 5cm pieces
  • 1 head garlic, top sliced off
  • 4 small new potatoes per person
  • 2 ears corn, halved
  • 250g butter
  • 30g minced fresh garlic
  • 2 tablespoons cayenne
  • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
  • 1 teaspoon fish sauce
  • Lots of newspaper, for the table

Method

  1. Purge the live crawfish: rinse in cold salted water 3 times, discarding floaters. Set aside in a cool bucket.
  2. Bring 8 litres water to the boil in a 40-litre pot. Add boil seasoning, halved lemons, smashed garlic, bruised lemongrass and the head of garlic. Simmer 15 minutes.
  3. Add the potatoes, simmer 12 minutes. Add the corn, simmer 4 minutes. Then drop in the crawfish in one go.
  4. Bring back to a rolling boil for 3 minutes only. Turn off heat. Let the crawfish soak 18 to 25 minutes off the heat (this is when the meat absorbs the spice).
  5. While they soak, melt the butter in a wide pan. Add minced garlic, cayenne, paprika, brown sugar, lemongrass paste and fish sauce. Simmer 3 minutes.
  6. Drain the crawfish. Toss in the butter sauce. Tip onto newspaper-covered table. Eat by twisting off the tail, pinching the body to suck the head (the best part), peeling the tail meat.

Tip from the editors. The soak is the secret. Three minutes boil, twenty minutes off-heat soak. That is where Viet-Cajun differs from a plain Cajun boil.

This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.

Where to eat viet-cajun crawfish

Viet-Cajun crawfish in Houston

Crawfish and Noodles ★ 4.6

Crawfish and Noodles in Houston is Trong Nguyen's Bellaire Boulevard Viet-Cajun crawfish room since 2008, a James Beard semifinalist with lemongrass-garlic-butter crawfish.

Order: Crawfish in lemongrass garlic butter sauce. Blue crab off-season.

Why locals love it: A Bellaire Boulevard strip-mall Vietnamese kitchen that serves the country's defining Viet-Cajun crawfish, unknown to most national lists.

Tip: Crawfish only in season (late February to early June). Off-season the kitchen pivots to blue crab and Dungeness; both are worth ordering.

11360 Bellaire Blvd, Houston, TX 77072

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