Monday, June 6, 2011

Crawfish battle royale


Recently I was visiting at my older sisters home in Seattle, Washington.  My mom also happened to be visiting my sister too, so it was a quick little family reunion of sorts for us.  My sister is able to purchase locally raised crawfish in Seattle at her local WholeFoods, (which by the way does not purchase Louisiana crawfish as it does not meet their high standards....really?.....really!....really.) So we decided to have crawfish etouffee one evening.  There is debate within our family as to which way to cook etouffee is better.  One version uses a butter based sauce (featured in an earlier shrimp etouffee post,) while the other uses a can of cream of celery or cream of mushroom soup.  (There are other ways too using a roux as a sauce base, but the two most popular versions in our family are the butter or soup based sauce.)  To be honest I had never tried the version that used more of a cream sauce base so really I couldn't say if I liked it or not, but I had strong feelings I would not like it.  So thus, the Crawfish Battle Royale began.  We had enough crawfish to make both versions so we proceeded to do so.  Really both start off in a similar fashion, and have mostly the same ingredients rather one uses butter while the other uses a can of cream soup.  So at the end of the meal it was rather a draw then one clear winner, but because etouffee is really a special meal for me, I would rather stick with the butter based sauce.

Crawfish tail meat packed in head fat I assume

Beginning of etouffee using cream soup

Beginning of etouffee using butter base

Cleaned crawfish tail meat

Crawfish added to soup base sauce

Crawfish added to butter base sauce

After adding cream of celery soup (or you can use cream of mushroom instead)

After adding flour and wine to butter sauce

A tasting of the finished products, on the left the cream soup base and on the right the butter base sauce

Cream soup base close up....really either way is good...and if you are lucky enough to eat crawfish don't be too picky

Butter base close up, my preference

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