What is it about certain days that bring on cravings for particular dishes? I’ve got my mind on étouffée and these thoughts will surely not disappear until after I cook and stuff myself with this wonderful entree.
Although I love Cajun food, I have not cooked a lot of such dishes until recently when I moved back to Cajun Texas. It’s laziness, I suppose and on these hot days I want to just get in the kitchen and get out. But I did find a recipe for étouffée that I decided to try and it was so good it would make you slap your grandma. That’s just an expression for shock value. I would have never slapped my grandma although my dad, her son-in-law, was surely tempted on a number of occasions.
I found the recipe on a Web site called The Gumbo Pages and found it is an excellent site to read up on Cajun culture and cuisine. I chose the shrimp étouffée route over crawfish because I am a lazy slob and would rather be drowned in a roux than have to go to more than one grocery store per shopping excursion. And to find decent crawfish tails — at a decent price — around here would mean I would have to actually shop, God forbid.
It was an enlightening experience deciding which étouffée recipe to choose. I settled on the Marc Savoy variety, although as I said I used shrimp rather than crawfish. I say enlightening because I never really gave much thought about what went into étouffée. But it is a relatively simple dish to cook and if done correctly pays off in a meal in which your taste buds will perform cartwheels and perhaps roll over and play dead for more!
Fortunately, the first time I made the étouffée I hit a ringer. I don’t always do that trying something new. Hopefully, I will be able to duplicate those results later this evening. If you don’t hear from me again you will know something didn’t go right. I know this is a dangerous mission but somebody’s got to do it. So wish me luck! Thank you. Thankyouverymuch.