Weekly Dish

Whenever I visit my parents in Mississippi, the first thing my dad wants to know is what I want him to cook. For our holiday visit over Christmas, I thought it was high time that I learned to make a proper etouffee, seeing as how I now live in the land of fabulous Cajun cooking. Dad complied, and so I am pleased to share the recipe with you, as I diligently took notes during each step of the preparation.

One of the things I noticed as I was watching him (and we’ll see this later on when my Grandmother teaches us to make dressing) is that I come by my “cook by feel” method quite honestly. There’s very little measuring that goes on in the kitchens of these folk. I did insist that we measure some things, as you will see from the recipe, but both Dad and his mom say that the best way to figure out what your dish needs is to taste it and then add some stuff. Not very scientific, I know, but the more you cook, the more you learn this trick.

When I first started cooking regularly, I tried to follow recipes exactly because I was afraid of screwing up our dinner. If the recipe called for celery, I’d use celery, even though I don’t usually like celery that much. Since then, I’ve become more confident at making substitutions and leaving things out entirely. All I can say is that it comes with practice. Of course, having these techniques in the family doesn’t hurt either. You just have to pay close attention.

Dad’s Shrimp Etouffee

3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup butter
4 stalks celery, small-diced
1 bell pepper, small-diced
2 medium onions, small-diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, white and green parts minced
3 bay leaves
3 small tomatoes, chopped
2 pounds shrimp, in their shells
Tony Chachere’s
Salt
Cayenne pepper

First, peel the shrimp. Put the shells into a large stockpot to make the shrimp stock. Add the trimmings from the onions and celery; cover with water. Season with Tony Chachere’s. We didn’t measure here, but my guess was about a tablespoon. Bring the mixture to a boil, and let it simmer until you need it. Put the peeled shrimp into a bowl; season them wtih Tony’s as well (dust lightly). Set aside.

Next, make a roux with the butter and flour, stirring them together in a large saucepan or cast iron dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat, until the mixture begins to turn golden. Dad agrees with Emeril: the roux takes 2 beers to brown. Just keep stirring, so that the flour doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn. When it’s ready, it should look like this:
Once the roux has browned properly, add the celery, bell pepper, and onion; coat the vegetables with the roux. Cook until all vegetables are very soft and translucent. Season with salt and cayenne pepper (a good bit of salt, and as much cayenne as you can handle; Dad likes it hot! Just remember that the Tony’s has both salt and cayenne in it too.) Add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves, and green onions (reserve some of the green onion for garnish). Stir into the roux-vegetable mixture.

Here’s where the measuring goes out the window. You add the stock, a little at a time (maybe a half cup per addition), stirring so that the roux and the stock become thoroughly blended. You have to wait until you think the mixture has come back up to temperature before adding more stock (it should simmer a little–that’s how you know). All in all we ended up adding one quart of stock for this amount. The key is consistency: you don’t want it to be too thin (like gumbo), but you also want it to be pourable, so not too thick. Cream sauce consistency is what you’re after. When the thickness is right, add the shrimp. Dad also added some worcestshire sauce and Tabasco while I wasn’t looking, so I have no idea how much. He topped ours with crab meat, but that’s not really necessary. Right before serving, taste for seasoning. Serve over rice, and garnish with the leftover green onions.

Posted: Monday, January 30th, 2006 at 7:09 am Filed under: Main Dish, Family, Seafood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.