::digitaldefection::

although i never finished my memoir of my trip to new orleans to volunteer in st. bernard parish (pronounced ’saint behnaahd’) i will tell you that the food there was totally amazing. spicy, complex, and delicious.

since going there, i have been trying to find a place to enjoy cajun food but have not been able to find such a thing in dc. everything here so far has been bland (although sbc cafe in herndon had a damn good bowl of gumbo). i have decided to start learning how to make this crap myself, and i started out with etouffee (prounounced EH-too-FAY), which is a dish derived mostly from the cajun’s french influence. etouffee is the french word for ‘braise’.

first of all, lets go over the ingredients:

1 cup rice (i prefer brown, because it is healthier, but white rice will taste better and be fluffier. if you use brown, i recommend cooking it a day in advance, it will make it softer)
1 pound shrimp - peeled, deveined, and washed. Technically one should use crawfish, but I was too lazy for that.
3 celery stalks
1/2 large white or yellow onion
1 green pepper
cayanne pepper (or, if you don’t have any, franks red hot sauce will do in a pinch)
salt
pepper
old bay seasoning
1 1/4 stick butter
flour
parsley (fresh is better, but dried will work)first, put on a pot of rice (use your rice cooker if you please), using instructions on the package.
while the rice is cooking, peel and devein your shrimp (if necessary), place on ice and put in the refrigerator (shrimp decomposes VERY quickly, so you want to keep it as cold as possible).
clean your prep area well to remove the shrimp contamination (using bleach is a good idea), and dice all of your vegetables. try to keep them about the same size so they will cook at a similar rate. these three ingredients are one of the essential parts of most cajun foods, and are called the ‘holy trinity’ of cajun cuisine. this is derived from the french ‘mirepoix’, consisting of carrots, onions, and celery. the holy trinity combines roughly equal parts of green pepper, celery, and onion, all of which are aromatics.

next, toss 1/4 stick of butter in a large skillet. as soon as the butter melts, throw in your vegetables. stir/toss them continuously to cook them evenly. cook them for about 4 minutes over medium-high heat. set them aside, leaving as much butter behind as you can.

put in the remaining stick of butter into the pan, still over medium-high heat. after it melts, add 2 tablespoons flour and begin stirring them together. you are going to make a ‘roux’. the idea here is to basically brown the flour and thicken the butter into a sauce. just keep stirring until the mixture is brown, about 5 minutes.

add the vegetables back to the mixture, then toss in a cup of shrimp stock (light-ish beer also works well here - i recommend abita amber), 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon old bay, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon black pepper.  add the uncooked shrimp, bring to a boil and cook for 8 minutes.  the shrimp will turn bright pink.  remove from the heat and the sauce should thicken.

serve over the rice, garnish with parsley.