THE etouffee recipe

the law student (the esquire, the law graduate, et cetera, et al) is quite the little sous chef. i came home to a huge crockpot of black beans and chopped veggies for my dish of the week: crawfish etouffee. etouffee means "smothered," and i'm thinking it must also mean delish. i never make this stuff the same way every time, because i can never find the same etouffee base or sauce or mix or whathaveyou. ever. mom always made it with a jarred sauce - how convenient. must be one of those magical grocery store items only she can find.

so, per amanda's request, here is last night's recipe. not only was it scrumptious, it was also pretty.

you'll need: butter, 1 chopped red pepper, 1 chopped green pepper, 1 stalk chopped celery, garlic, black beans (canned or homemade), onion, crawfish tails (i use bernard's, in the frozen section at the kroger), tony's seasoning and tony's instant roux, and 1 can of rotel tomatoes.

canned black beans are convenient. whole beans are not, but they are infinitely more tasty. giving a grocery list to a man is almost always a crapshoot, which is how we ended up making our own (awesome) black beans. i will learn this one day. be explicit, or you will come home to a plastic bag full of dried black beans. to avoid having to soak the beans, we threw them in the crockpot. recipe follows.

1. pour boiling water over 1 cup of dry beans in water into crockpot--cover beans, plus about 1 inch. *note - 1 cup of dry beans yields way more than 1 cup of cooked beans.
2. throw in garlic (a few cloves, to taste) and chopped white or yellow onion.
3. 3-4 hours on low (we will probably eat around 7:30 like normal)
4. check every few hours to make sure 1) water level is good (add more BOILING if needed) and 2) to stir. taste test for consistency.
5. congratulate yourself by doing a solo happy dance in the kitchen in your socks.

next, the roux. here's last night's recipe. boil the rice while you are making this.

1. melt 3/4 stick of butter in large pan.
2. throw in chopped veggies - peppers, onion, celery, whatever
3. pour in one can of rotel tomatoes, juice included.
4. sprinkle generous amounts of tony's roux mix into pan. stir. bring to boil. add more as needed to thicken. lower heat when to desired consistency.
5. dump in crawfish tails. stir.
6. spoon in black beans, making sure to get a little of the bean water. stir to mix.
7. you can smother your rice with the etouffee to be super literal, or you can just stir in the rice, like i did. season to taste.

and voila, you now have the prettiest, tastiest crawfish etouffee ever! the colors in this dish look fabulous.

amanda, you're welcome.