Crawfish Etuoffe
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped celery
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon Tabasco pepper sauce
2 tablespoons crawfish fat (see Note)
2 pounds shelled crawfish tails (about 6 to 7 pounds in the shell)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup chopped green onion, green part only
Cooked rice
In Dutch oven or large heavy pot, melt butter and cook onion, green pepper,
celery and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes. Add salt, TABASCO sauce and
crawfish fat, and cook, uncovered, over medium-low heat 30 minutes, stirring
occasionally. Add crawfish tails, lemon juice and parsley. Cook another 10 to 15
minutes. Just before serving, add chopped green onion. For best flavor, prepare
dish the day before. Remove from refrigerator an hour before serving, and reheat
just until hot to avoid overcooking crawfish. Serve over steamed white rice.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
Note: If you cannot purchase crawfish fat separately, you can extract it from
crawfish by running sealed package of tails under hot water to make fat more
liquid. Cut open package and empty into colander with bowl underneath to catch
fat that runs off.