Kenneth Temple's Crawfish Etouffée | An Introduction to Cajun and Creole Cooking | Food Network

i'm kenneth temple and welcome to my cajun creole class today we're going to make crawfish etouffee a classic staple in the cajun cuisine we're going to cook it with some onion celery and bell pepper and then we're going to finish it off with a beautiful crawfish so before we begin you should already have four cups of cooked rice already ready and you should have two pounds of beautiful crawfish tails peeled and ready to go so we're going to add a half a cup of canola oil to our cast iron skillet and this is the base of our room if you've never made a room welcome to cajun creole cooking almost everything we do has a room we're going to go ahead on and cut our fire to medium high what we're doing is we're going to bring this up to a smoke point which is going to allow us to make a route in five minutes that's right no more 45 minutes to get a beautiful brown root we're going to keep cooking now we're going to take one onion and we're going to slice them and open them up now it's very important that you understand in creole cooking we use a spanish yellow onion now if you can't get a spanish yellow onion a white onion works too but if you can get a yellow onion which is readily available definitely get that that is part of the trinity onion celery and bell pepper now we're just going to go ahead on and dice them up this is perfect you always want to get your stuff in order when i was in culinary school they call this miss applause and that's order to move efficiently in the kitchen you want to always get everything you need down ready for you to grab now you may see some other chefs that's fancy and they cut different lids don't need to do all that just go ahead on and get your dice because the onion is already in layers so it automatically will peel to the dice you want so the trinity it's just like all classic cuisines it gets its name from this uh religion that's highly celebrated down there and just like all cultures you always have a base and in louisiana cajun creole cooking our bases onions celery and bell pepper the traditional french is onions celery and carrots but we swapped out the carrots for the bell pepper to get the sweetness that we're looking for so now we're going to go ahead on and just break down this celery we're going to dice them on up take your time don't feel pressured you can actually stop the video if you need to catch up with my knife skills okay but this is the trinity this is going to be the base if you ever make a louisiana dish and it doesn't have the trinity you're not making a louisiana dish so now let's do our bell peppers there are several ways you can cut a bell pepper i'm going to show you the easiest way so you don't have to worry about the seeds you will notice that the bell pepper has this nice edge around it right just follow it and comb it down follow i mean don't comb it but y'all get the point i'm making all right and this is your bell pepper see you don't have any seeds a few little seeds you don't have to worry about core picking out pith nobody got time for that so now we're going to go ahead on and dice down our bell peppers you can feel free to use a red a yellow or orange bell pepper have at it if you want to add a little bit more popping color to your etouffee okay now if all of that at once is too much just take your time take your time cooking should be fun especially with this cajun cream cuisine you you better be laid back and join yourself in the kitchen so when you're chopping down the bell pepper you don't have to have it and then have to fight with all of the seeds and getting out the pith if you just follow the grooves of the bell pepper it will really help you remove that obstacle of finding pith and seeds and trying to figure out where's the trash can you know all that other stuff i've watched my mama my grandma and my dad cut bell peppers like that and i tried to tell them but you can't teach your old dog new tricks you know what i'm saying okay so now we have everything that we need in our trinity and after we get this cooked we're going to add the relative garlic so now you can see this white smoke on the top of the oil coming out this is perfect this is exactly what we want so i'm going to add a half a cup of flour and you can use a whisk or a wooden spoon i'm a whis type of guy and as you can see soon as you add it you can start to see the roof begin to start to turn nice and brown all right for the sake of y'all ears i'm gonna switch to a wooden spoon and as you can see already you see this brown already happening you just saved 15 minutes off your time all right so you just want to keep it moving keep the room moving and always remember this center part right here is going to brown faster than your outside so you might want to try your figure eight or just keep it just keep stirring okay and don't worry about all of this smoke this is exactly what we want to see so pick a song in your head start singing it and this is going to help you get through your room a rule is very very important in cajun creole cuisine this is how we thicken but this is also how we add depths of flavor the toasted flavor of this is gonna add the body the flavor that what is this this is cajun creole cooking you can smell the nutty brown color that's how you know two visuals look and smell you can see this is brownie beautiful okay but also you can see on this outside he didn't get welcome to the family picnic let's bring him on in everybody get a plate here today so look at that looking all good and luxurious smelling nice and nutty when it says peanut brown it really means peanut brown peanut and color now you might want to go a little over roasted peanuts and that's only because once we add the liquid it's going to lighten up our sauce and we want to make sure people know this was made with love all right now very important this is ready cut your fire off now we're going to add our onions celery and bell pepper now be careful that you do not let some of this liquid napalm roof pop on you if not you're going to make the same sound al green made on his classic songs alright so now just stir to make sure this is nice and incorporated onions celery bell pepper and a nice peanut butter brown room love in the kitchen ladies and gentlemen now you just want to stir this to make sure that all of the vegetables are evenly coated with your room now as you begin to stir this you can cut your fire back up to about a medium medium low depending on how comfortable you are with this but just listen to the sound all that popping sizzling since we already had the room nice and hot now we're actually frying our vegetables okay now while this is cooking that's why you're gonna cut it on a nice medium low let's break down our garlic because look one thing about louisianans we love our garlic baby all right now all garlic isn't made the same some cloves are bigger some cloves are smaller i'm gonna get rid of this one big one here so the easiest way to take care of garlic take out your day's frustration smash it on down put it towards the back of your knife smash it on down and then we're just going to go ahead and chop it down until we get it nice and fine okay if you have a garlic press go ahead on and use a garlic press some people are fancier than others some of us still do this the hard way all right by chopping it for hand so you can smell your room you can smell your onions the best part is we haven't even put any seasoning in this thing yet but i'm excited i don't know if you're all excited i can smell it right now while i'm talking to y'all and you should be excited and also just make sure while you're watching me make sure you got a little soft music in the background whatever you love you want to bring that energy that love that peace that soul to your cooking all right so now we got our garlic you can go find them now i'm going to go ahead and add my garlic to my skillet along with two bay leaves now look it doesn't have to be fresh it just needs to be bay leaves okay add that in and stir that around until it's nice and fragrant you should be getting excited right now don't get happy yet because we still need to add some more love to this all right let's make our seasoning mix if there's one thing that always confuses people about louisiana cooking is everybody thinks that it's spicy it's not spicy it's just that we add more seasoning than everybody else let me show you what i'm talking about so we're going to take one teaspoon of kosher salt you can use sea salt if you love we're going to take one teaspoon of fresh black pepper we're going to take one teaspoon of cayenne if you can't handle the heat you can omit it or you can just use a pinch would be a quarter teaspoon now we're going to also add one teaspoon of dried thyme the last thing we're going to add to our salt black pepper cayenne dry thyme is our white pepper you might be thinking why white pepper in louisiana cooking we love to hit all of the spice notes the cayenne cayenne's going to give you the spicy the black pepper is going to give you a nice little mild heat and then a white pepper just going to lay across the palate like a little like it's on the beach somewhere all right that's how you blend and layer the seasoning now we're just going to go ahead on and add this a little bit at a time okay how much at a time you know that much a little bit more if you really need accurate measurements one teaspoon to two teaspoons at a time is perfect now we're going to go ahead on and add our next bit to our layer now look here's a little secret don't tell nobody you can take a little bit of the seasoning blend and you can put it over your crawfish and now the crawfish starts to marinate and taking on those beautiful spices too don't tell nobody all right and then just go ahead on and stir it and all it's doing is just layering the flavors layering the flavors have you ever tried something that was so good at the first bite you were like and then the second bite was like huh oh maybe it wasn't that good that's because they didn't layer their flavors and this is what we're doing that's what we're going to do anytime we cook cajun creole food all right now babe but we are almost there we're going to add our last little bit of left of seasoning put it all in there just put it all in it just bless it just bless it all right now in your eyes you may be saying and that's a lot of seasoning where i'm from we like that look just right that looks just right so you can smell all of this cayenne the black pepper just coming up and just doing this to your nose hey hey that's what you want all right now for the fun part now it's very important that you add your stock in layers and the reason why we add it in layers is so we make sure that we don't have any lumps because there's one thing you don't want people to talk about just having lumpy hair too thick all right so you just add about a cup at a time and then you just go ahead on and whisk it on up make sure that your heat is up to high so that it can begin to boil as you can see as dark of a root as we made as soon as we add the chicken stock it started to get lighter just another cup and this is going to happen it's going good going good all right and see that no lumps in our air to fake now once we get this where we want to i want you all to stop and say it with me to faith and to bait that's what i'm talking about that's what we're making today oh oh even the whisper on to some of that deliciousness throw them all to the side and now we're gonna go ahead on and add the rest of our stock this is total three cups three and a half cups just depending on you know how thick how loose you want it it's all the preference but it's going to actually cook down some as we cook this okay the million dollar question is what does that too fade mean etouffee is a french word that means smothered okay that's all it is so if you want to take you some pork chops you want to take you some chicken you want to take you some fish this is what you use you can actually serve this with some fish over it over top and call this a a grilled fish with etouffee sauce and rice boom you can take the crawfish put it in that now you got a crawfish that two fade over fish and rice people gonna be like man you're a genius just tell them that you always had the food network kitchen nap with kenneth temple and you was learning about that cajun creole cuisine you know what i'm talking about baby look at that look look you see that i'm getting excited i don't know if y'all my mouth is watering right now i ain't eat breakfast all day and eat lunch because i know we was hooking this up today look at it look at it so very important tip if y'all don't get anything that i've explained so far this is very important this is not a boil yet this is not a boil a real boil happens right here in the middle do not be deceived on the outside boiling that is not a rolling ball when we say ball as chefs and cooks giving you all recipes it's supposed to be right in the middle are you seeing in the middle yet i don't see it in the middle so we're not going to consider this a boil but the flavors the aromas the joy the jubilation all that should be happening right now almost there don't be deceived i'm about to say now we had a full rolling ball let me show you a little trick let's go ahead and just stir it on up and now it's really important that you use a wooden spoon because now you can scrape the bottom of your skillet to make sure that nothing is sticking okay we got a lot of love in this skillet right all right you just wanna make sure it all is good so we're gonna let this cook for about two minutes on a rolling ball until it gets nice and thick and you can start to see it with your eyes okay how thick this gravy is getting imma stop calling the grave in confusion y'all this ain't too big it's getting okay now another secret whatever this etouffee tastes like is what your crawfish is gonna taste like it's what your shrimp is gonna taste like okay so let's do a quick little taste test i'm gonna reduce my heat so i don't burn my mouth on camera while y'all watching sounds smells good i have a five rule blow before i burn my mouth on camera but it has a beautiful color all the vegetables are nice and cooked down wow nice and on point you can get a little bit of heat on the back end you have a beautiful nice thickness from that gravy oh yeah baby that's just on a point that's just on point now it's ready for the crawfish to take a swim now we're gonna add our two pounds of crawfish and we're just going to go ahead and stir those guys in and they're going to cook in a matter of minutes all right if it's kind of clumped up just smash it down and break it in don't smash it down just stir it down all right i gotta watch some of y'all know some of y'all really would smash the crawfish all right and so now we're just gonna let this cook for about two to three minutes until we see the crawfish tighten up but if it gets too tight and it looks like a marble you've over cooked it all you need is a couple of minutes you already got hot rolling ball and etouffee add the crawfish to the party they'll cook in no time it's very important if you can get your hands on louisiana crawfish and the reason is louisiana crawfish has this extra layer of fat that you can see in the package fat equals flavor now you can add shrimp you can add chicken you can add mushrooms anything you really want i've actually made a lobster and shrimp at two feet once one time for a client so let your heart go have fun my cajun friends they might add a little rabbit in here you never know some duck what whatever you got you want to do something different for thanksgiving turkey had two faves tell me we sent you from the food network kitchen that you know what i'm saying so this is looking fantastic so while we let this come up to a boil what we're going to do is we're going to chop down our green onions and get it ready for garnish so we're going to take about three stalks of green onions now we can be fancy or we can be simple let's be fancy we don't want to be simple so we're going to go ahead on and cut this on the bias so we just want to go ahead on you just want to cut this little back in on a 45 degree angle can you see that little bias right there that's what we want and now we're just going to slice it down no pressure just have some fun and if you want to you can cut it regular don't feel like you have to follow me 100 but i need your 99.9 some people get rid of the white parts of the green onion i don't know why i don't i don't know what it's ever done to them it just adds more flavor okay so now we have all this beautiful green onions we see we got a nice little rolling ball coming back with our etouffee and then let me show y'all can you see this curl right here on this crawfish this little curl right there this is exactly what we're looking for so between me you and our bellies we're going to cut the heat off because the residual heat is still going to cook it and now we're going to add about half of these green onions and just going to go ahead on and add this entire etouffee and just stir it and give it an extra pop of color at the end your two face shouldn't be thick your ed2 face shouldn't be loose your etude face should be just right all right now what does that mean after you make this one or two times you will understand exactly where you have your textures some people do like the f2 phase a little bit thicker some do like a little bit looser it's all on your preference and your flavor profile and how you love to serve this dish but let's get our plate so we can eat this so you should already have your pre-cooked rice but it's important to use a fork to make sure that you fluff the rice because the fork is going to comb through it and the spoon will actually smash the grains a fork will allow you to see all of the beautiful separated grains let's play it up and stop talking about it now this is completely up to you i am a more eczefe than rice guy you can be a more rice than a toufey or more blase blah however you like it that's how you serve it i'm over i like i like my etude fair okay you excited i hope so and do not be shy go head on and get this all on now i know i'm making it look cute but we're about to put some of this etouffee on this rice all right now you can serve it directly over it or you can just watch it just sauce it on up all right your job is done okay now garnish it with some green onions and you want to make sure you clean this up so it looks nice and presentable you want the people to get to edu fan them out not on their hands and on a nice clothes garnish it with some more green onions just in case and if it didn't have enough kick to it you can go ahead on and always add a little bit of that hot sauce all right now i know you may be looking at just like that's a big old plate but in louisiana we believe in land yapping land yap just mean a little bit extra this is a big boy plate big girl plate promise you after you finish eating this find your nice comfortable spot to go ahead on and relax look at that though this takes me back to typical louisiana nice rich thick consistency in our etouffee and then all those spices you see me adding you were scared because you're seeing all the cayenne the rice absorbs it the crawfish absorbs it so all of that extra heat really doesn't hit you on the palate and that's how simple it is to make a beautiful crawfish etouffee i hope you all enjoy learning with me today i'll see y'all next time you

Channel: Food Network

Views: 131,999

Keywords: food network, food, cooking, recipe, how to make, cook, chef, ingredients, eat, recipes, easy recipes, easy recipe, food network recipes, Kenneth temple, Louisiana classic, southern food, FN, family dinner, family meals, creole, Cajun food, Cajun recipes, Jambalaya, Louisiana food, Louisiana, Creole Seasoning, Southern, Cajun, Crawfish Etouffée, Crawfish, Etouffée, Creole cuisine, Shellfish, shellfish over rice, rice, South Louisiana, dinner, dinner ideas, southern recipes, southern cuisine

Id: RHWunh2FF60

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2022