Dutch Oven Crawfish Cornbread
A skillet of cornbread with a pound of crawfish tails and a lot of cheese baked into it. Feeds six out of one pot.
- calories
- 560
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 62
- protein
- 28 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 55 min
- total time
- 70 min
- water
- 240 ml cold
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Shelled crawfish tails | 1 lb | frozen at home, thawed in the cooler; shrimp works |
|---|---|---|
| Jiffy corn muffin mix | 1 box | |
| Baking powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Baking soda | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Eggs | 2 | |
| Milk | 1 cup | or 3 tbsp powdered milk plus 1 cup water |
| Butter | 1/4 cup | |
| Onion | 1 medium | chopped at home |
| Jalapeno cheese | 8 oz | shredded at home, kept cold |
Method
- Set up a 12-inch dutch oven for frying heat, around 350°F. That is roughly 25 coals, most of them under the oven.
- Melt the butter in the oven and cook the onion and crawfish until the tails are firm and opaque. A few minutes, no longer.
- Scoop the crawfish and onion into a bowl and stir in the dry mix, eggs, milk, and cheese. Do not beat it, just get it wet.
- Pour the batter back into the oven over the buttered bottom. Re-set the coals for baking: about 8 under, 17 on the lid.
- Bake 45 minutes, turning the oven and lid a quarter turn in opposite directions every 10 minutes so nothing scorches.
- Check the middle with a stick. If it comes out clean, pull the coals off and let it sit 5 minutes before cutting.
This is a cornbread that has to carry a pound of shellfish, so the batter gets help. The extra baking powder and soda push against the weight of the crawfish, cheese, and onion, which would otherwise settle into a dense wet layer on the bottom. Cooking the tails and onion first matters for the same reason — raw onion sheds water into the batter as it bakes, and wet batter around firm crawfish is the usual failure here.
The frying step and the baking step want different coal setups, so plan for the switch. Frying puts nearly everything underneath; baking moves two thirds of the coals to the lid so the top browns instead of the bottom burning. This is car camping food — it needs a cooler for the eggs, cheese, and crawfish, and it will not scale down to a backpack.
Packing
Corn muffin mix, baking powder, baking soda, and salt go in one zip bag at home — that is the whole dry side measured once. Onion chopped, cheese shredded, crawfish frozen, all in the cooler. If you would rather skip the cooler for milk, carry powdered milk and mix it with water at camp.
Variations
- Powdered milk and 1 cup water replaces the fresh milk with no real change in the crumb.
- No jalapeno cheese? Plain cheddar plus a chopped jalapeno gets you there.
- In a 10-inch oven use about three quarters of everything and keep the heat and time the same.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/crawfish_cornbread-2363.asp