Its method and preparation process, however, is very tedious and needs patience.
Ingredients needed:
Flour 2 cups
Butter 1/2 lbs
Chicken Stock 1cup
Shrimp stock 1cup
Tomato juice 1/2 cup
Tomato paste 1tbsp
Chopped shallots 1/2 cup
Chopped garlic 2 tbsp
Diced red onion 2 cups
Diced red pepper 2 cups
Diced green pepper 2 cups
Tabasco 1/2 cup
To prepare an etouffee sauce properly, a brown roux is needed, which is where the flour and butter comes from. Roux (pron. Ru) by definition is: flour cooked with melted butter; typically used as a thickening agent for cream/bechamel sauces, brown sauce (sauce espagnole).
To prepare brown roux:
Heat Chicken and shrimp stock together, but not boiling.
melt butter in large sauce pan in low/medium heat.
let the butter turn slightly darker before any flour is added.......BUT do not let it burn!
Add flour and mix using a wire whip/wisk............. continuously. The mixture will get pasty and loose and nutty smell. Keep this up until medium brown......and unfortunately, you cannot take your eyes off this.
Once brown (this is your brown roux), turn heat down to low.....slowly with a ladle add the warm stocks into the roux and continue to whisk and incorporate. Then add tomato juice, tomato paste and tabasco into this mixture.
Once cool add garlic, shallots, onions and peppers into the etouffee sauce. Bring all this into a slight boil.
THIS IS ETOUFFEE sauce. This will get you app. 3 cups od etouffee sauce
To prepare a crawfish and shrimp etouffee:
10 pcs of cooked crawfish and 4-6 medium sized shrimp (21-25) is sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic and shallots.
Halfway cooked add 1/2 cup of etouffee sauce and toss everything around in a sauce pan until properly cooked.
Serve with Basmati rice and greens
To prepare a sauteed soft shell crab with etouffee sauce:
flour seasoned with kosher salt, black pepper, paprika and ground cumin
2 pcs soft shell crab (app. 8oz each), cleaned.
Toss into seasoned flour and pat off excess flour.
In a sautee pan, preheat olive oil, sautee soft shell crabs until nicely brown on each side.....finish cooking in a 350 oven for 10 mins.
Remove crabs and use the same pan to heat 1/2 cup etouffee sauce.......add 2tbsp lump crabmeat to finish. Serve soft shell crabs on top of etouffee sauce with rice and greens.
So, I prepared this last sunday with a little bit of a twist on the preparation. I rendered about a cup of bacon; rendering means to bleed or melt the fat. When the bacon gets crispy cook together garlic and shallots just until translucent. Then add the brown roux into this process.
ReplyDeleteOnce the sauce takes form add heaping tbsp of coconut milk and about 1/2 cup of crabmeat. This will add a sweet and mild seafood falvor to the etouffee.