I used this recipe for Crawfish Etouffee which was very easy to follow and produced a deeply flavored, beautiful smelling and absolutely delicious etouffee. The only think I would do differently next time would be to cut down on the amount of stock used-- I like a thicker gravy.
Making the roux made my palms a bit sweaty but it was one of the most interesting things I've done in a long time. Here's how it looked at the start, with the butter just melted in the peanut oil and the flour sprinkled in:
About 10 minutes later:
15 more minutes. It was about the color of creamy peanut butter at this point:
This was about 20 minutes later and I was starting to get nervous. Though it looks watery, this mixture is VERY hot. Whisk too vigorously and you'll have little pinpricks of fat on your hands and fingers that burn much more than bacon fat splatters.
15 more minutes of constant stirring and I had taken the roux as dark as I was willing to go.
Now I added in the chopped vegetable and created the most amazing scent to ever come out of my kitchen. I've never smelled anything that was nearly this lovely and I felt almost guilty that I was the only one that was able to enjoy it.
The rest of the etouffee process was very easy. Add stock, seasoning, let simmer 30 minutes, add crawfish, spoon over rice. Boom boom boom.
This was absolutely worth all of the trouble. I can't wait to have a good excuse to make it again!
5 comments:
That looks beautiful and delicious.
Stupid Hosea grumble grumble frozen fish grumble shouldn't listen to sous chef grumble grumble grumble.
If loving roux is wrong, I don't wanna be right!
Girl, that looks damn good! What kind of stock did you use?
I think Top Chef needs to reevaluate how the final winner is chosen and the final competition as a whole. I really HATED the sous chef "twist"-- anyone with Richard on their side had a clear advantage.
The stock I used here was fish stock purchased from Bristol Farms. A bit of a cheat but not a bad one. Their stocks are fantastic.
it was absolutely hilARIOUS when Hosea was crowned the winner, the way his face scrunched up in pleasure and he yelled in a huge display of emotion by immediately turning to stefan, clenching his fist, bending at the knee, and pumping his fist toward stefan while yelling 'yaaaahhh!!"
My husband and I rewound it more than once, laughing our asses off.
The only thing that could possibly have made that funnier would have been if he had gone: "IN YOUR FACE, STEFAN!" "THAT'S RIGHT, YA KRAUT BASTARD!" "RAAAAAHHHHH!"
LOL. LMAO.
very entertaining. other things, sad. that, pure delight.
Congrats on the roux. It is not esy to do and not burn. It looks delicious. Did you use chinese crawfish or La crawfish. La is much better, but awful expensive. Good going!!!
I have an etouffee recipe on my blog, come by and visit sometime.
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