Crawfish Étouffée

By ROBandSEAN

Étouffées are hearty Cajun dishes that begin life with a roux, and the "holy trinity" of onions, bell pepper, and celery. Traditionally, this recipe is served over rice. From the French language, the word literally means "smothered". Drawing from its definition, there is no reason to limit this dish to rice. Try it over grilled pork, chicken, or fish. Many versions of étouffée can be found that call for tomatoes. While there is nothing wrong with using tomatoes, they are more characteristic of Creole dishes (such as Shrimp Creole), rather than true Cajun étouffée. Creole, Cajun, "to-may-toe", "to-mah-toe", this dish will make y'all happy either way.

Ingredients

• 6 tbsp butter
• 4 tbsp flour
• 2 cups onions, chopped
• 1/2 cup bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp dry sherry
• 4 cups crawfish stock (any seafood stock or a vegetable stock with a seafood "base" can be substituted)
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 4 dashes of your favorite hot sauce
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 lbs Louisiana crawfish tails
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 cup green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• steamed white rice

Details

Servings 6

Preparation

Step 1

In a large pot or saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Whisk in flour, stirring constantly until medium or golden brown roux is achieved. Add onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic to the roux. Sauté these vegetables until soft and translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add sherry to vegetables while scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add stock, bay leaves, and thyme, salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper, hot sauce, and Worcestershire and stir well. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add crawfish tails, lemon juice, green onions and parsley, then stir, cover, simmer 5 more minutes. Adjust salt, black pepper and hot sauce to taste. Serve in a soup bowl over steamed white rice.