Crawfish /Shrimp Etouffee

chia's Note:

i made this for dinner tonight and i just had to share, it was so good.prep time considers the time it takes to make stock, but you can always use water. serve this with hot sauce on the side, some like it hot! you can also make this with crawfish only, as i did in this photo.

• Total Time: 4 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 4 hrs
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 6 tablespoons oil
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 1 onion , chopped
• 1 green pepper , chopped
• 2 stalks celery , chopped
• 2 scallions , sliced, green parts reserved
• 4 -6 cups shrimp stock (recipe follows) or 4 -6 cups water
• 3 tablespoons creole seasoning , such as cacheres
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 lb crawfish tail , peeled
• 1 lb shrimp
• hot sauce
• cooked white rice

for stock

• 2 lbs shrimp shells , and tails from shrimp
• 3 -4 quarts water
• 2 stalks celery , cut in half
• 1 onion , with skins on sliced in half
• 2 garlic cloves , sliced in half
• ½ cup baby carrot

Directions:

1. for shrimp stock, place 2 lbs of shrimp shells and tails into a stockpot, add 3-4 quarts of water.
2. add celery, onion, garlic, carrots, bring to boil.
3. lower to simmer and cook 3-4 hours, adding water if needed. drain through a sieve, discarding solids.
4. for the etouffee: heat 6 tbs oil and flour together in a heavy pan until it turns brown, stirring for 15-20 minutes.
5. add onion, stir, celery, peppers and seasonings, stirring, until vegetables are softened.
6. add shrimp stock and stir in slowly.
7. mixture will be very thick, so you can adjust the thickness to your liking by adding extra stock, simmer 10 minutes.
8. add shrimp, cook 5 minutes, add crawfish.
9. cook on simmer for 10 minutes until cooked through.
10. serve over rice.

Reviews

[Pets'R'us]

Excellent, I did make the stock and the flavor was well worth that extra effort. I did find the recipe difficult to follow, I mean the ingredients for the stock and the rest of the recipe. Thanks Chia for another good recipe!

[Just Brown Sugar]

This recipe was not worth the time spent to prepare it. I found it to be very bland to be called etouffee, and that disappointed me.I felt confident that it would be a good dish after reading the reviews, but it wasn't.

[Indigosmom]

I would have given it 5 stars, if the amount of cayenne pepper wasn't so much. It was my own inexperience with the stuff that had me trusting the amounts, which was far to much for myself (and my poor kids). My husband, the hot sauce junkie loved it, but didn't need to add any hot sauce, it was definately hot enough on it's own. I'm not a lightweight myself and usually order Thai food a 5 out of 5 on the spice scale. All of that aside, it really was delicious, just too much cayenne. I'd cut it down to 1/8 - 1/4 tsp next time and let everyone adjust their own with hot sauce.