2006/05/19
Etouffee is one of my absolute favorite dishes to eat, and more recently, to cook. I first had etouffee when my Aunt Charlotte's cajun parents came to the Pensacola beach house at which my family was vacationing, along with all my Aunts, Uncles, and cousins on my mother's side. I was probably around ten at the time. I remember quite a bit about that vacation. I was fascinated when we found a number of gigantic portugeuse man-o-wars. My cousin Justine had a Game Boy that I got to play with (a novel thing, at that time--oh, how I loved Tetris).
It was great being around all that family, but the single memory that is most vivid about that vacation was the day Aunt Charlotte's parents made Crawfish Etouffee. I loved it. And ever since, I occasionally persuaded my mother to make Chicken Etouffee from a boxed mix by Luzianne brand. The etouffee from every brand but Luzianne is horrible, but Luzianne's is pretty good. And though I've graduated to making my own etouffee from scratch now, and moved up to shrimp and fish from chicken, I still can't get crawfish cheap enough or easy enough to really complete the dish. Oh well. This stuff is still amazing.
This recipe uses seafood, but you could really use any kind of meat. Or none. It's undoubtedly best with crawfish, if you can get them. Whatever kind of meat you're using, you want about a pound to a pound and a half. Here, I divide that up evenly between shrimp, and whatever kind of fish I can afford.
Seafood Etouffee over Rice
Serves 4 really fucking hungry people. Prep time: 20 minutes. Cooking time: 1 hour, 20 minutes or so, including making the roux.The ingredients:
Etouffee base
- 1 stick butter
- 1.5 c onion, very finely chopped
- .5 c all-purpose flour
- .5 c red bell pepper, finely chopped
- .5 c celery, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
- 1 can diced tomatoes, with liquid from can
- 1 can chicken broth
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp paprika
- .5 tsp ground mustard
- to taste cayenne pepper
- to taste salt
- .5 c sherry (optional)
Fish
- .75 lb. medium to heavy fish, such as (in order of preference) grouper, snapper, mahi-mahi, tilapia, or even catfish
- .75 lb. medium-sized shrimp, peeled, deveined, and washed
Rice
- 2 c rice (uncooked)
- .25 sticks butter
The algorithm:
Make a roux with 1 stick butter, 1/2 cup flour. It will take 20-30 minutes to get to the desired darkness; a nutty, deep umber.
Add about 2/3 of the can of chicken broth, slowly while stirring to mix it in with the roux. Then add the can of diced tomatoes and the rest of the vegetables. If the pan seems too dry (if it's frying instead of simmering), add water in 1/4 cup increments. Any water you add now will not hurt, it will just add to your simmering time later on. Add all the spices, and simmer until vegetables are soft, about 12 minutes.
While waiting for vegetables to soften, bring 4 cups water to a boil in a separate small pot with a tight-fitting lid. Once boiling, add the rice, a quarter stick of butter, and a few shakes of salt, and cover, simmering on low heat, for about 20 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed (without removing the lid).
Back to the etouffee. Once all the vegetables are soft, add the rest of the chicken broth and the sherry (optional), and simmer, stirring occasionally, until etouffee starts to thicken, about 12 minutes. At this point, you've got etouffee, with no meat. Taste it and see whether you want more salt, or more cayenne pepper.
We're making seafood etouffee here, and seafood takes very little time to cook, but if you were making Chicken Etouffee instead, for instance, you'd have probably wanted to add your chicken at the same time as your vegetables in order to cook it fully. But again, ours is a seafood etouffee, and we've got our shrimp peeled, washed, and deveined, and our fish trimmed and cubed. Add the fish and shrimp to the etouffee, and simmer until cooked, about 10 minutes. Serve etouffee over rice.
Posted by Barzelay on 2006/05/19 @ 6:36 | Comments (0) | Seafood