Shrimp and Crab Boudin (Seafood Boudin)

I go shrimping and I run crab traps, and down in the Louisiana cooking I love, that catch turns into seafood boudin — the coastal cousin of the pork-and-rice boudin I already make. Shrimp and crab, the holy trinity, rice, and enough cayenne to know it’s Cajun, stuffed into a casing and gently steamed. It’s richer and sweeter than meat boudin and it doesn’t keep as long, so it’s a make-and-eat sausage — which, standing over a pot on the coast, is exactly the point.

Ingredients

MEAT + RICE (about 1,810 g / 4 lb finished)

• 450 g (1 lb) shrimp, peeled and deveined, roughly chopped
• 340 g (0.75 lb) lump or claw crabmeat, picked clean of shell
• 230 g (0.5 lb) firm white fish or extra shrimp (body and bind)
• 680 g (1.5 lb) cooked white rice — cooked slightly UNDERdone (it finishes in the casing)

THE TRINITY + SEASONING

• 1 large onion, 2 celery ribs, 1 green bell pepper — all finely diced
• 4 green onions + a handful of parsley, chopped
• 6 g fresh garlic, minced

salt to ~1.6% of the total, ~28 g

• cayenne, black and white pepper — Cajun heat, to taste (start 6 g cayenne)
• a little seafood or shrimp stock to bind, and 30 ml oil to sweat the trinity

NO cure — cooked, refrigerated, short shelf life

• 32–35 mm hog casing

Directions

1. Key ingredients: this is the coastal, no-cure cousin of Cajun rice boudin — swap the pork and liver for shrimp and crab, keep the rice and the trinity.
2. Sweat the trinity in the oil until soft, then add the garlic. Let it cool.
3. Cook the shrimp and fish just barely — poach a couple of minutes in a little stock — then chop. Fold the crab in raw-picked; it’s already cooked if it came from a boil.
4. Combine warm: seafood, the underdone rice, the trinity, green onion, parsley, seasoning, and just enough stock to make it moist and bindable but not wet. Taste and push the cayenne where you like it.
5. Stuff loosely into 32–35 mm hog casing — the rice swells, so leave room, and a tight seafood boudin bursts.
6. Steam or poach gently at ~180°F for 15–20 minutes to heat through — do NOT boil, or the shrimp goes rubbery and the casing splits. Eat warm, the day you make it.
7. Or skip the casing entirely and roll the mix into boudin balls, bread them, and fry — which is how half the coast eats it anyway.

Notes

This does not keep like meat boudin. Seafood is perishable and there’s no cure — make it and eat it within a day or two, or freeze it. That’s not a flaw; it’s a fresh-catch sausage, and it tastes like one.

Crawfish is the classic if you can get it — a shrimp-and-crawfish boudin is the Acadiana standard, and it takes this recipe one-for-one. Blue crab from my own traps is what I actually use up here.

The rice is structural, not filler. Like every boudin, this is a grain-extended sausage — the rice carries the seasoning and gives the soft, spoonable interior that defines boudin. Underdo the rice going in or you get paste.

Boudin balls are the move for a crowd: the same mix, rolled, breaded in seasoned flour or panko, and deep-fried to order. No stuffer, no casing, no fuss.