How To Make A Vietnamese-Cajun Seafood Boil
Fusing Vietnamese flavors with the art of the Cajun crawfish boil, Vietnamese-Cajun is perhaps one of the greatest new American cuisines of the 21st century. Popularized along the Gulf Coast as Vietnamese folks moved from New Orleans to Houston in the early aughts, Vietnamese-Cajun crawfish can now be found as far as California—and even in Saigon. But it was first created in America, by immigrants, and is as American as pizza or Tex-Mex.
Like its Cajun inspiration, the Southeast Asian rendition of a boil starts simply with a Cajun spice blend. But once the seafood is boiled and left to cool, Vietnamese cooks will toss it in a plethora of sauces, spices, and fresh ingredients, creating intense spice and flavor both in and out of the shell. Speaking from experience, a Vietnamese-Cajun boil is messy, lasts several hours, and typically involves lots of beer.
It makes sense that the Vietnamese identified so strongly with seafood boils. They’re not too unlike the outdoor hotpot, or lẩu, shops that line alleyways in Vietnamese cities. As refugees in America, they offered a way to recreate familiar rituals of gathering over food and drink.
Longtime friends and native Houstonians Sean Wen and Andrew Ho brought Vietnamese-Cajun with them to San Antonio when they opened Pinch Boil House downtown back in 2017. Though the restaurant’s recently moved locations to the Alamo Heights neighborhood, it’s still focused on the same standout rendition of Southeast Asian seafood—crawfish, shrimp, or snow crab legs in sauces like garlic butter to coconut curry—that made it a staple of Texas’ largest city.
“What sets Vietnamese food apart is that it’s very balanced when it comes to the brightness of the aromatics: sweet, sour, salty. It brings everything together really nicely.” Ho explains. “One of the ways Viet-Cajun came about was that, after the Vietnam War, a lot of refugees came to America. The environment and industries in Texas and Louisiana were very similar to how things are in Vietnam. And the flavors are too. You have lots of seafood, and a lot of fresh ingredients.”
After becoming the ambassadors for Viet-Cajun in San Antonio, Wen and Ho in 2020 opened Curry Boys BBQ, a collaboration with South BBQ & Kitchen pitmaster Andrew Samia, where they turn out smoked meats like brisket and chicken thighs with a selection of curries. And in the near future, they’re opening Wurst Behavior, an Asian-influenced sausage and beer garden.
We headed down to San Antonio to meet the guys and get a home-friendly version of their favorite boil recipe: original blend of elemental Southeast Asian ingredients like coconut and lemongrass. Chicken bouillon adds a hit of umami with the ingredient every Asian parent swears by—MSG. And while crawfish is a special experience, you don’t need them to get the idea. Use this boil sauce recipe with any seafood you like, from shrimp and clam to mussel and crab.
“I learned this from a snail and escargot street vendor in Vietnam, and we became friends and he invited me over and showed me how to do this,” Ho says. “This is a real balanced dish with a good amount of garlic, coconut milk, lemongrass, and a hint of spice with some cayenne pepper.”
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