​Crawfish Étouffée Cooked the Old-fashioned Way (Can You Feel the Love?) by Stacey Roberts

What to do with the leftovers from your crawfish boil? Pick the meat out and make crawfish etouffee! You can also buy crawfish frozen for this recipe. I let everyone add cayenne to their own instead of putting it in the pot, just in case there are those who can’t handle it. 

You'll need:

• 5 sticks butter
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 4 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, chopped
• 3 bunches green onions, whites only
• 6 - 7 medium cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup seafood base (I use Minor’s)
• 1 - 2 tablespoons chicken base
• 2 quarts water
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 lemon, cut in half
• 8 pounds crawfish (I buy mine from Louisiana Crawfish Co.)
• cooked rice, for serving

Here's how to make it:

Using an enameled cast iron pot, a big one, melt butter. Add flour and cook, stirring often, until the color of dark peanut butter.

Add veggies except green onion and garlic and cook until onions start to be translucent. Add green onions and garlic. Continue to cook until veggies are translucent.

Mix base in large measuring cup adding enough hot water to melt it, then add to pot with the 2 quarts water. (Later on you will probably need to add more water. And it will be taste like there’s too much seafood base, but it needs to be strong because once you add the crawfish they’ll soak up the flavor.)

Cut a lemon in half and wrap with cheesecloth so seeds don’t fall out and toss it in the pot along with cumin and salt and pepper (go light on the salt). Lower heat to lowest setting and put the lid on. Stir every 15-20 minutes or, depending on how much love you want to put in, stir more often. I usually cook mine for at least 3 - 4 hours.

About an hour before you think it’s done, take the crawfish out of freezer and put in the sink to thaw. Leave it in package while thawing. If it’s a hot day and the kitchen is hot place in fridge when you start cooking. (They go bad fast and the last thing you want to eat is bad crawfish.) When thawed, turn the heat off and add crawfish to the pot and cover with lid until they’re hot. You can add some chopped parsley, if you want. Ladle etouffee over cooked rice.

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