Crawfish Étouffée
LOUISIANA CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE
Crawfish étouffée is quite possibly the quintessential Cajun dish. It’s right up there with gumbo. And alway remember, a true Cajun gumbo doesn’t have tomatoes. That’s Creole.
However, there are quite a few Cajun dishes that do have tomatoes, and this is one of them. My trick for the crawfish tail meat is to add fresh squeezed lemon juice to them before adding into the light roux base with vegetables. That way, if you are introducing yourself to the crawfish world, you won’t be put off by the fishy smell. It doesn’t take long to make, especially since the roux is light. If it were a dark roux, you would be stirring for quite a while. Never burn a roux! See the recipe below for full list of ingredients and instructions.
CRAWFISH TAILMEAT ETOUFFEE
Ingredients
1 lb frozen packaged crawfish tail meat, defrosted fully
1 lemon fresh squeezed for juice
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
2 T minced fresh garlic
3 bay leaves
1 cup AP flour
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 quart seafood stock
1 oz red wine vinegar
1 cup sliced green onion
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 T Tabasco sauce
2 cups of fresh cooked rice
salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper to taste
Instructions
In a 12” cast iron skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat.
Add onions, celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic and bay leaves. Sauté for 10 minutes or until wilted.
While vegetables cook, toss crawfish tails in lemon juice, set aside.
Whisk flour into the sautéed vegetables, stirring constantly until a white roux is achieved. This won’t take long, because you don’t want it to get brown.
Fold in crawfish tails and tomato sauce into mixture and stir for 5 minutes to prevent any scorching.
Slowly add seafood stock until well blended. Bring to a rolling boil, stir in Tabasco sauce and red wine vinegar, and set on simmer for 30 minutes stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat, and garnish with chopped parsley and green onions as desired over cooked rice.
