Crawfish Etouffee
To honor Mardi Gras, I decided on a crawfish étouffée. Name of the cookbook/author to come.
Almost every item in this recipe already existed in my fridge or pantry. I just needed the crawfish, which I found at…Walmart! I bought a frozen bag of crawfish tails for about $8.
While my crawfish run took an hour, it was still better than driving to Fredericksburg and killing 2 hours (at a minimum).
Ah, life in a small town!
I’ll run the full version below, but I made half the batch (but ALL the crawfish!). I did make a few tweaks. I used almond flour instead of regular flour, I used a handful of sweet red baby peppers instead of a bell pepper, I used a handful of diced grape tomatoes instead of a small tomato and Cholula hot sauce instead of Tabasco. I also used twice the amount of garlic (4 cloves instead of 2). I used jasmine rice as well.
INGREDIENTS:
3 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons flour
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
Half a red bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic,
Minced Leaves from 2 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 small tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 quart Basic Shellfish Stock
3 tablespoons butter
1 pound peeled crawfish tails
2 green onions, chopped
2 dashes Worcestershire
2 dashes Tabasco Salt Freshly ground black pepper
3 cups cooked Basic Louisiana White Rice
My classic shellfish stock is about 5 shrimp with shells, a small onion, a peeled and chunked carrot, one stalk of sliced celery and some black peppercorns in a pot with water, simmer for about an hour.
DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk the flour into the very hot oil. It will immediately begin to sizzle and fizz. Keep whisking and reduce the heat to moderate. Continue whisking until the roux takes on a gorgeous dark brown color, about 15 minutes. Add the onions, reduce the heat, and cook until the onions caramelize.
2. When the onions have turned the roux shiny and dark, add the celery, bell peppers, garlic, thyme, cayenne, and paprika. Cook for 5 minutes.
Now add the tomatoes and the Shellfish Stock and increase the heat to high.
3. Once the sauce has come to a boil, reduce the heat to moderate and let simmer 5-7 minutes, stirring often. Be careful not to let it burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.
4. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the butter. Add the crawfish tails and green onions. Season with Worcestershire, Tabasco, salt, and black pepper. Once the crawfish tails have heated through, remove the saucepan from the heat.
5. Serve in individual bowls over rice. Add some sliced green onions and fresh parsley to garnish.
I also served mine with a couple slices of french bread. It was a great meal that I enjoyed with my wonderful fiance remotely, and it made for a couple great lunches as well. It was quick and easy to prepare, and absolutely full of flavor!