Crawfish Etouffee

Dinner

My Thoughts

I absolutely love crawfish etouffe. The Picky Eater is a little more on the fence about it. Luckily, we have a neighbor who requests it every year for her birthday. No other presents, just crawfish etouffee over grouper on a bed of rice (as pictured here).

This is a rich, hardy sauce/gravy/stew/chowder (the line is a little blurry here) that works as a topping for other fish (or steaks, yes you can do that - and you should), or on simply over rice. It's got just a little kick of heat that just gives it flavor and doesn't blow you out with heat. Then you've got the earthiness of the the crawfish tails and the nice freshness of all those vegetables in there.

The How To Do It

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat.
  2. Add the celery and saute until the celery just starts to soften, 2-3 minutes.
  3. Add the onions and bell pepper and saute until they have soften, another 2-3 minutes.
  4. Add the garlic and spices and blend everything well, about a minute.
  5. Now, turn up the heat to medium-high and add the flour and make a roux. To do this, sprinkle in the flour and stir the mixture. Keep stirring the mixture until it starts to brown slightly. If black specks start to form, it's burned and it will not taste good, so stir like you mean it. The flour/butter portion should start to be come a light brown, kind of the color of a brown paper bag.
  6. Add the stock and cook for roughly 10 minutes. This allows the flavors of all the ingredients to diffuse into the roux. I use chicken stock because The Picky Eater is allergic to shrimp and it's always hard to tell if seafood stock contains any (there's always the "other seafood flavors"). I just don't trust it. Sometimes The Picky Eater isn't picky and just wants to not swell up like a wheezing blister. I can understand that.
  7. Add the honey, tomato paste, and most of the parsley (leave enough for the garnish, if you're into that sort of thing - I usually am) and combine thoroughly.
  8. Add in the crawfish tails, including the liquid that is in the bag (I have to use frozen tails. Crawfish aren't abundant enough around here to get fresh). That's where a lot of the flavor is.
  9. Serve over rice. It also makes a great topping over catfish or grouper (a personal favorite). Garnish with the green onions and remaining parsley.

Ingredients

Crawfish Etouffee
2 tbsp
unsalted butter
1 cup
low-sodium chicken stock
2 tbsp
all purpose flour
1 stalk
celery
½ sml
red bell pepper
½ sml
green bell pepper
1 sml
white onion
4 cloves
garlic
1 tsp
granulated garlic
1 tsp
smoked paprika
½ tsp
cayenne pepper
½ tsp
ancho chili powder
½ tsp
tomato paste
1 tsp
honey
2 green partss
scallions
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