My crawfish etouffee is good but not great. Help!

what fat are you using to make the roux?
what starch are you using to make the roux?
are you adding the crawfish fat?
are you sauteeing the veggies down first before you make the roux?
Get that damn rotel out of there for one.

Ditch the rotel
Ditch the roux and add cornstarch slurry
Get some crawfish fat

and


BUY LOUISIANA CRAWFISH !!!!

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BUY LOUISIANA CRAWFISH !!!!

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If possible, use crawfish from a previous boil.

First of all, I did try Chinese crawfish once when I accidently bought it a few years ago. I was terrible and I'll never touch it again. I only buy Louisiana.

I've done the roux with butter and have used a teaspoon or two of tomato paste instead of rotel and my etouffe is always pretty dang good.

The problem is, every time I eat etouffee at the Chimes, it pisses me off because it's so damn good and I can't figure out what they are doing.

Oh, and thank y'all again for all the advice.

Real butter roux is a must, brown it long enough to toast the flour, but not burn the milk solids in the butter. No L+P or Rotels, that is strickly amateur, same for using bacon grease for the roux. I don't use tomato in mine, some do, matter of taste. Never, never, never add any Cream of anything soup, you can taste it a mile away and it says you are a crappy cook.

I sometimes add stock from a pound of seasoned boiled crawfish, spices it up. Etouffe is French for 'smothered', after you brown the vegetable (onion, celery, gr. pepper, gr onion, add your stock and let it smother. Add the tail & fat last.

add the cornstarch at the end after the crawfish.

bout a tablespoon of any cornstarch mixed with a little cold water..depending on how thick you like it.

Add slowly it thickens quickly

And like others said ... nothing but butter.

My grandmother swore Margerine (or Oleo as she called it)worked better and I never proved her wrong...

Also you can't have to many onions.

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or Oleo as she called it

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My parents call it "Oleo", to this day!

OK i realize this is heresy, but I make etouffee the way my friend's mom in Houma makes it - a "country" etouffee and it dosen't start with a roux.

[Pauses here for flaming and cursing from FDB readers.]

Now. It is over the top delicious and easy as heck. Saute as much of the trinity as you can stand - and I use alot. Nothing beats butter or oleo, i just try not to use so much. Then add water, then thicken with flour and blend until it's smooth paste. So it's sort of a backwards roux I guess. Then the tails, more water, adjust seasonings to taste, let it simmer a bit. OMG it is good and so easy.

And get that rotel outta there! Personally I don't even think that thyme or oregano belong in there either.

I looked up oleo. Here's what I found.

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In 1869 Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France offered a prize to anyone who could make a satisfactory substitute for butter, suitable for use by the armed forces and the lower classes.[1] French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés invented a substance he called oleomargarine, the name of which became shortened to the trade name "Margarine". Margarine now refers generically to any of a range of broadly similar edible oils. The name oleomargarine is sometimes abbreviated to oleo.

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Source: LINK

I never throw out shrimp shells or crawfish shells without making a stock. It improves all seafood dishes tremendously. If you use shrimp stock in your gumbo I promise you will never go back to adding water.