Crawfish Hand Pies (New Orleans Jazz Fest at Home)

Prep:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone.

Prep the filling:

1. Either cook your jambalaya and reserve 3 cups of rice for this recipe or cook 1 box of Zatarain's jambalaya. Do not add meat to it, just cook the rice.
2. In a large bowl, mix jambalaya and boiled crawfish. If you are using frozen crawfish (or shrimp) that has not been boiled or seasoned, saute these first on a pan with ½ - 1 teaspoon creole seasoning. Once cooked combine with jambalaya rice.

Prep the dough:

1. Make your own pie dough or lay store bought pie dough on a flat, floured surface. If using my homemade recipe, roll out to about ¼" thick.
2. Using a round biscuit cutter or round glass, cut 16-20 round circles. If using store-bought pie crust dough, you should be able to get 10 circles with a biscuit cutter. To reuse the leftover corner pieces, reshape the dough into a ball, re-roll, and cut.

Assemble:

1. Lay 8-10 round circles onto the lined baking pan. Begin filling circles with crawfish rice leaving a ¼" space around the edges. Top with another round pie dough circle (while stretching it a bit with your hands). Using a fork, clamp the edges all the way around.
2. Whisk the egg and milk in a shallow dish. Brush the tops of the pies with egg mixture.

Bake:

1. Bake 12-15 minutes until the tops are golden brown.

Store:

1. Store these hand pies in an airtight container in the fridge for 2 days.