Crawfish Etouffee

Going through the freezer the other day, I came across some crawfish I purchased on my last trip to Louisiana at Don's Specialty Meats in Scott. These crawfish are supplied by Chez Francois in Lafayette and I believe were about $10 for the pound when I purchased them back in July. Very good product.



So I decided some etouffee was in order. Etouffee is really quite simple, although the cooking time can be cut significantly if you don't use a roux. (See here for a roux v. no roux debate, in addition to a domestic v. Chinese crawfish debate, in a prior thread on this site.) As the etouffee my mother always prepared was roux-less, I decided to go with that approach.

The ingredients:
One stick butter
One large onion (about two cups chopped)
Three or four stalks celery (about one cup chopped)
Half a green pepper (about 1/2 cup chopped)
Couple of cloves of garlic, minced
Couple of bay leaves
One pound crawfish tails
Salt (about 1 tsp) and cayenne (1/4 tsp or so)
Flour and liquid (water or stock, preferably seafood stock)
Parsley
Green onion



Melt the butter over medium high heat and add the chopped onion, celery and green pepper.



Once the vegetables are softened, add the crawfish and bay leaves.



Cook for ten minutes or so, stirring occasionally until you get something that looks like this:



Add a mixture of liquid and flour -- I went with just over a tablespoon of flour dissolved in a mixture of reserved crawfish juices and fat + water to equal about a cup (on the left in the photo below) -- along with the salt and cayenne.



After liquid/flour added:



Let that cook and thicken over medium-low heat for five minutes or so, then add chopped parsley and green onion and cook for two or three minutes more. And that's about it. Serve over rice. I used some rice my mother brought me from Gueydan, LA, which is, apparently, the Duck Capital of America (who knew?).



Finished product:



Couldn't be easier, really. Or more delicious.

I have made crawfish etouffee once myself a few years ago. I had a similiar frozen bag of crawfish that I purchased from Fabian Seafood, a purveyor from Texas who comes to suburban farmers markets semi weekly with fresh Gulf shrimp, oysters and other seafood delights. Making the etouffee took some work but it was a wonderful, tasty treat! Yours looks wonderful too, I made the roux which caused me not to want to try it again, too much work and close attention required! I'll have to try it again your way.

I've used Paul Prudhomme's recipe a couple of times, using shrimp due to inaccessibility of fresh crawfish on a regular basis -- it's delicious and ridiculously rich (it's from his pre-diet-book days).

His recipe has you make a pretty-dark roux (every etouffee I've ever had is darker than the one you photographed). The chopped trinity and spices then go into the roux to stop its cooking process, then the stock and it's pretty much done. I should go check but I think the mudbugs get sauteed in a separate pan then added at the end with a slab of butter.

Beautiful post, Matt! Has me wanting to drive down to Cajun Connection...

Mhays wrote:Beautiful post, Matt! Has me wanting to drive down to Cajun Connection...

I had the sad occurance of driving right by Ron's but at a time it was not open. I think going to Ron's is better for my etouffee fix than trying to make it again, I had too much trouble with the roux.

JoelF wrote:I've used Paul Prudhomme's recipe a couple of times, using shrimp due to inaccessibility of fresh crawfish on a regular basis -- it's delicious and ridiculously rich (it's from his pre-diet-book days).

His recipe has you make a pretty-dark roux (every etouffee I've ever had is darker than the one you photographed). The chopped trinity and spices then go into the roux to stop its cooking process, then the stock and it's pretty much done. I should go check but I think the mudbugs get sauteed in a separate pan then added at the end with a slab of butter.

A long time ago I abandoned Prudhomme's etouffee recipe for his sautéed crawfish recipe in the same cookbook, Louisiana Kitchen. I wanted to taste more of the crawfish and less roux and was happy with the sautéed version, but Matt's roux-less etouffee sounds even better. I can't wait to try it!

those are some great pictures. Thanks alot.... now I am really hungry..

Thanks for the compliments.

JoelF wrote:[Prudhomme's] recipe has you make a pretty-dark roux (every etouffee I've ever had is darker than the one you photographed). The chopped trinity and spices then go into the roux to stop its cooking process, then the stock and it's pretty much done. I should go check but I think the mudbugs get sauteed in a separate pan then added at the end with a slab of butter.

My understanding on the roux v. roux-less etouffee issue is that it goes back a long ways. As I understand it (and this may all be apocryphal), the more cosmopolitan French-from-France in Acadiana (such as those who made St. Martinville "Petit Paris" as vacationers and residents) were more likely to use butter in cooking whereas the "country" French-from-Acadia would use animal fat and often use that as the fat in a roux. I grew up eating a roux-less etouffee, so that's typically what I go with. When I have used a roux in etouffee (which I will more typically do with shrimp), I tend to go with a lighter roux -- not necessarily blond, but no more than peanut butter (and definitely not a chocolate as you would use for a gumbo). I find the butter version allows for the flavors of the ingredients to shine through a bit more than when using a roux. Using a roux imparts a more smoky flavor, which is not a bad thing, but not always what I'm looking for. See the photo here of crawfish etouffee at the Bon Ton Cafe in New Orleans, which I know is a butter-based version (and looks similar to mine), and contrast to the very dark chocolate of the gumbo in that same post.

One note is that even using no roux, this dish still has a nice reddish-brown hue to it that is the result of the crawfish tails and reserved crawfish liquid from the packaging. You will not get that color with a shrimp etouffee cooked solely in butter, and will end up with more of a greenish-white sauce. This can be remedied to some extent by adding a bit of paprika or tomato paste (which is anathema to some) if you care. I grew up eating shrimp and crab etouffee cooked that way, so I've got no problem with it, but the color might throw some. Whatever the color or approach, it's good eating.

I would say that Cajun cooking and Creole cooking, because of the scattered pockets of Cajun communities (some of which are/were very isolated), the cooking-with-whats-on-hand mentality of Cajuns, and the incorporation of varied culinary influences in Creole and Cajun cooking (West African, Native American, French, Spanish, etc.) seems to me to be more heterogeneous than some might expect and there tend to be very few canonical recipes for which there is a "true" standard. File gumbo v. okra gumbo is a good example of different approaches to a classic dish, and the inclusion or exclusion of tomatoes in many dishes is another area where you commonly see divergence. Either way, almost all of it is really good.

Also, two mods to the recipe above. If you like spice, I would add more cayenne (up to 1/4 - 1/2 tsp more) and/or some Louisiana-style hot sauce. We deliberately toned it down a bit in an effort to get our almost-three-year-old to eat it. If you use the version above, you may want to give folks the option to add spice with cayenne or hot sauce on the table. You can also do away with the salt + cayenne by using a Cajun seasoning such as Tony's or Slap Yo Mama, although my experience has been that use of those seasonings may get things too salty before you get the preferred level of heat, so I typically supplement with additional cayenne. I would also add a teaspoon or so of thyme.

Sweet post! Although it comes with a side of homesick belly. Nice summary of the two styles of cooking:

Matt wrote: I would say that Cajun cooking and Creole cooking, because of the scattered pockets of Cajun communities (some of which are/were very isolated), the cooking-with-whats-on-hand mentality of Cajuns, and the incorporation of varied culinary influences in Creole and Cajun cooking (West African, Native American, French, Spanish, etc.) seems to me to be more heterogeneous than some might expect and there tend to be very few canonical recipes for which there is a "true" standard. File gumbo v. okra gumbo is a good example of different approaches to a classic dish, and the inclusion or exclusion of tomatoes in many dishes is another area where you commonly see divergence.

And an excellent point--rarely if ever do you hear people pitting Cajun and Creole cookery against each other in a culinary deathmatch ( "thin vs. thick crust", "Northern vs. Southern Italian", "ketchup vs. no ketchup"). Because...

Matt wrote:Either way, almost all of it is really good.

I too have some crawfish meat in the freezer, so I've been googling and planning how to make some crawfish etouffée. I think I'd like to try the roux-less approach described by Matt here.

I have a question, though. I found a crawfish etouffée recipe on the Food Network website that is credited to Pat O'Brien's. In this recipe, the etouffée sauce begins with a roux, but it nonetheless looks like a good reference in combination with Matt's recipe. There's a comment at the end that caught my attention: "Cook’s Note: Etouffee sauce can be used as a base to make gumbo, such as chicken and sausage." Would you take that to mean the etouffée sauce and gumbo are basically the same liquid, the final dish only differing in consistency and in what meats or seafoods are added? And perhaps okra in the gumbo? (I always think of gumbo as having okra.) If that's true, I'll make bigger batches of the liquid in the future and keep it in the freezer for quicker etouffée and/or gumbo. I guess the point of my question is I'm not sure what the difference is between etouffée and gumbo. Well, I get that gumbo is basically a soup and etouffée has a thicker consistency, but I'm wondering if it's true that they're basically made from the same combination of ingredients/flavors, with stock added to the etouffée base to create a gumbo base.

I used to think that gumbo had either okra or a roux but not both. I can't think of where I heard that but the idea is that either will thicken the gumbo to a good consistency but maybe both would be too much?

I used to make gumbo in my regular soup rotation but I have not made it for quite a few years. Isn't it funny how things drop out of the repertoire without any notice or chance to plead their case?! And years later someone will say "remember that whatever that we used to make? Why don't we do that anymore?" and there will be no good answer.

Our home version of gumbo had both sausage and shrimp in it and both roux and fresh okra - when I could find it in the store. I think I haven't seen fresh okra in my usual stores for quite some time. I think if I saw it, it would have triggered the urge for gumbo!

In any case, I have some shrimp, some sausage, the trinity and the spices so there may be our version of gumbo in my immediate future.

BTW, upthread there was the idea that the crayfish are avalable at farmer's markets. Does anyone have a recent update about that?

Good luck, Katie!

Katie,

I am perplexed by that statement. Etouffe and gumbo sauce have very similar ingredients. They are cooked totally differently and create very different bases. I would again point you to Donal Link's 'Real Cajun'

Thanks, Lou. I was perplexed too. I'm doing more research, and I have that page with Donald Link's recipe open ...