Shrimp Étouffée

Heather says:

This recipe appears complicated, but comes together a lot faster than the explanation and I should note that I screwed up and omitted half the beer and still had fantastic, oh my goodness, I need to make this again results. In fact our babysitter asked to move in with us, just to have the dish again. So, if you want the complete Heather experience, only use one bottle of beer instead of two. If you stick to the recipe your results won’t be as thick as those in the picture.

I have mentioned that I will be giving roux and mirepoix their own posts, so if there isn’t enough explanation here, just hang tight. It’s coming. Don’t get overwhelmed with the ingredient list. The red ingredients are the roux and green are the mirepoix, it’s less intimidating if you look at them as groups instead of single items.

Ingredients for Shrimp Étouffée:

• 2 lbs raw large or jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 bell pepper – diced
• 1 onion – diced
• 1 stalk celery – diced
• 3 garlic cloves – minced
• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup vegetable or peanut oil
• 24 oz or 2 bottles dark beer
• 2 cups fish or shrimp stock (I used 15oz canned, tsk tsk all you want)
• 3 -4 bay leaves
• 3 TBSP Creole or Cajun seasoning, divided (watch the sodium content some are higher than others)
• 2 tsp hot pepper sauce (I’m a big fan of Louisiana Hot Sauce)
• 2 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce
• salt to taste
• optional green onions as garnish

Directions for Shrimp Etouffee:

Before starting the roux place the diced pepper, onion, celery, and garlic into a bowl and toss to mix thoroughly. This is a creole mirepoix, a standard mirepoix has onion, celery, carrot and occasionally garlic. Once the roux is hot, there won’t be time to chop and mix these aromatic vegetables.

In the heavy pot, heat the 1/2 cup peanut or vegetable oil just until it starts to smoke. I tried to be smart and use a thermometer, but it still caught me off guard.

Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and whisk in the flour.

Once the roux is smooth, it’s fine to switch to a wooden spoon, turn the heat to medium and keep stirring.

As you stir and the roux begins to darken the aroma will change, it starts off nutty and slowly has more of a roasted flavor.

Keep stirring past the peanut butter color until it’s a brown rather than tan.

Add all the mirepoix and switch back to the whisk.

Cook and stir until the onions are translucent.

Turn the heat to low and whisk in the beer, one bottle at a time. Whisk until smooth before adding the second bottle. Don’t get distracted and completely forget about it.

Whisk in the fish or shrimp stock. Once all of the liquid has been incorporated and the sauce is smooth, you can switch back to a spoon.

Add the bay leaves, 1 TBSP of the Creole seasoning, 2 tsp hot pepper sauce, and 2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce.

Stir the sauce and bring to a simmer for 20 minutes.

Taste the sauce and add the second TBSP of  Creole seasoning and more pepper sauce if you like things spicy. Add a small amount of salt at this point, if you’d like, but go easy a little more Creole seasoning is coming on the shrimp.

Sprinkle the shrimp with 1 TBSP of Creole, then add to the sauce.

Bring to a simmer for about three minutes, then serve over rice.

Add green onions and a sprinkling of Creole seasoning if desired.

Enjoy!

Submitted to Mouth Watering Monday @ A Southern Fairytale, Tasty Tuesdays, and Delicious Recipes.

Tagged as: Cajun Recipes, Fish Recipes, Main Dishes, Recipe, Seafood Recipes, Southern Food