Cooking with Chef Greg Campbell | Serving up a taste of New Orleans
Mardi Gras is upon us. Here we are in February, and New Orleans is going to get a lot of attention across our great country. We always look for the party, and this one seems to be one of the best to attend.
If you don't have plane tickets now or booked a room well in advance, you will just have to find your own party or just cook a good Cajun meal.
Many years ago, a true Cajun shared his recipe for etouffee with me, and I will just pass it along to the readers unaltered. I have cooked this recipe many times over the past 15 years, and there are adjustments I make to it every time I prepare it.
As with any recipe, good cooks will find things about it that they like and things that they do not like. One of the things that I adjusted on this recipe was that I buy whole, live crawfish. And instead of using water, I make stock with the bodies after I have steamed them and pulled the tail meat.
I prefer to use tomatoes in my recipe, but I only use fresh tomato and boil them for 20 seconds so the skin peels off easily before they get mashed into the recipe. I obtain the crawfish fat from the stock that is made by skimming it off the top after it is pulled from the stove top and has rested for 10-15 minutes.
I hope that you enjoy playing with this recipe and make sure you set
yourself up with a nice cup of chicory coffee and a beignet for dessert. By the way, crawfish season just opened, so fresh live crawfish is definitely the way to go. Love and bacon!
CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE
2 pounds crawfish tails
1/4 pound butter
1 cup minced onion
1/2 cup minced bell pepper
1/2 cup minced celery
2 tablespoons crawfish fat
2 cups cold water
1 tablespoon corn starch
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/4 cup chopped parsley
Creole seasoning blend, to taste
Salt, to taste
Pinch dried thyme
Pinch dried oregano
1 bay leaf
Add 1 Cup Stewed Tomato if you like
Season the crawfish tails with salt, plus a little black and cayenne pepper. Heat the butter in a saute pan and saute the onion, bell pepper and celery until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the crawfish fat (or extra butter if you don't have any), plus 1- 1/2 cups water. Add the Creole seasoning, thyme, oregano, bay leaf and crawfish tails. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Dissolve the corn starch in the remaining 1/2 cup water and add to the mixture. Add the green onions and parsley, and cook an additional 5 minutes. Serve over hot long grain rice.
Greg Campbell, executive chef at Pier 22 Restaurant in Bradenton, can be reached at greg@pier22dining.com.
This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Cooking with Chef Greg Campbell | Serving up a taste of New Orleans ."