Louisiana Recipe: Crawfish Etouffée

Mike Huval is a three-time etouffée cook-off champion at the annual Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival. The key to winning, he says, is keeping it simple and not over seasoning. He uses a little Tony Chachere’s seasoning, and he fine tunes the recipe with cayenne pepper and salt. Though he’s retired from competition, he continues to do a demonstration at the festival, where he hands out copies of his recipe, found here.

Ingredients:
2 pounds Louisiana crawfish tails
2 onions, diced
1/4 bell pepper, diced
1 stick butter/margarine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Method of preparation:
Sauté onions and bell pepper in melted butter/margarine until vegetables are soft enough to be almost pasty. This should be done over a medium fire. Once vegetables are done, lower fire and add flour. Mix in flour with vegetables. (This should be a pasty mix.) Cook this for about 10 to 12 minutes. Do not allow this to stick to the pot. Add in the crawfish and stir into the mix of vegetables and flour. Season to taste. Add water or ice to bring etouffée to desired consistency. Garnish with either chopped parsley or chopped onion tops.

Recipe courtesy of Louisiana Culinary Trails.