Easy Easter Etouffee

1 crawfish 1

Remember this?  That’s right…summer.  At the end of a long, cold winter and an even longer cold spring, we’re longing for it.  It’s just around the corner.  But not yet…this first weekend in April, Easter Sunday, we still need something warm to dig into in the cockpit.

20150405_122044

How is crawfish etouffee a sensible dish for Easter supper, you ask?  What, the photo above isn’t what your Easter basket looked like?  Well, aside from resurrecting the leftover crawfish tails we froze after our epic crawfish boil last year, etouffee like most good Louisiana dishes, starts with this…the Holy Trinity.

20150405_123720

Yes, New Orleans recipes and real-life cooks actually refer regularly to onion, celery, and bell pepper as the holy trinity.  Dice two onions, half a pepper, two stalks of celery and a couple of cloves of garlic.

20150405_124407

Sautee these in six tablespoons of butter (yes six, and yes butter…it’s from New Orleans) over medium heat until they begin to soften, about 10 minutes.

20150405_125116

Stir in a good healthy pound of crawfish tails (or shrimp if you’ve not been blessed with extra mudbugs) and simmer this, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.

20150405_125433

Add one 10.5 ounce can condensed cream of shrimp soup (no, I’m not kidding, and yes, they still sell it), 1/2 cup water, and 1/2 cup dry white wine.

20150405_131657

Let all of this simmer for 20-30 minutes.

20150405_132833

While the etouffee is simmering, make white rice.  After 20-30 minutes, season the etouffee to taste with salt, some cayenne pepper, and hot sauce (we like Crystal, but Tobasco is good too), then give it another 10 minutes or so on medium-low heat.

20150405_133731

Serve over rice with a sprinkling of chopped green onion tops, and a decorative crawfish tail shell that you picked out of the tails before adding them in, so that your guests are forewarned that this is real food!  Happy Easter and spring!

 

2 thoughts on “Easy Easter Etouffee

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.