Easy Crawfish Etouffée

One of my favorite restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, where I lived for over 20 years, was Creolina’s and it served some of the best crawfish etouffée I’ve ever had. I enjoy making this deeply-flavored dish at home as it seems rewarding for me to make a roux, let the holy trinity (typically onion, green bell pepper and celery) cook in the hot butter/flour and simmer crawfish in the concoction.

Holy Trinity

This version doesn’t go through the process of making a homemade stock from the crawfish heads and peels. The roux isn’t cooked for 45 so it’s lighter in color and flavor yet still delicious. Another tweak to the tradition recipe I’ve made here was to use red bell pepper instead of green as I like the flavor better and the red color looks pretty in this dish. Ingredients:

• 4 Tbsp. butter
• 4 Tbsp. flour
• 1 cup onion, diced
• ½ cup celery, diced
• ½ cup red bell pepper, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. thyme, chopped
• 1 cup clam juice
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup tomato, diced
• 1 Tbsp. creole seasoning
• 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 pound cooked crawfish, shells and heads removed
• 1 tsp. hot sauce (I use Crystal)
• ½ tsp. each salt and pepper
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• Juice of ½ lemon
• ¼ cup scallions, chopped

Roux after 10 Minutes

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a large cast iron pan over medium heat and cook until it starts to brown, about 2 minutes. Add the flour and whisk to incorporate and break up any lumps. Simmer over medium-low heat until it turns the color of peanut butter, about 15 minutes, whisking frequently.
2. Add the onion, celery and red bell pepper to the roux and cook until tender, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the garlic and thyme and cook for an additional minute.
4. Whisk in the clam juice and broth ensuring any clumpy roux is broken down, Add the tomatoes, creole seasoning and Worcestershire sauce and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Add the crawfish and cook about 3 minutes to just warm the crawfish.
6. Season with hot sauce, salt and pepper then add the butter and lemon juice.
7. Serve the etouffée over white rice and garnish with scallions.

Serves 4.