Adjust The Amount Of Flour To Get Perfect Texture When Making Crawfish Étouffée

Once you eat the perfect crawfish étouffée, you never forget it. That velvety, piquant sauce with just the right amount of richness and heat marries tender crawfish to fluffy, steamed rice in a match made in heaven. You dream about recreating this dish at home, but forget about it; finding crawfish tails near you is just not going to happen. Until one day, there you are, in the freezer section of your favorite grocery store, staring through those frosty glass doors, and there they are. Your mind races just thinking about the best way to thaw frozen crawfish without ruining it. And then flashes of étouffée sauce dance in your head. Yes, it's totally possible. Making a great étouffée recipe at home is no longer a fever dream. 

Once you've properly thawed frozen crawfish, there are just a few more things to keep in mind when incorporating them into your étouffée. They retain more water than fresh crawfish, and the extra moisture can alter the thickness of the étouffée sauce when you add them. If the sauce is too watery, all that bold flavor loses its chance to marry the crawfish to the rice, and all the ingredients will be left swimming in a soup that just doesn't taste complete. Don't panic, ma chère. You can bring that crawfish étouffée back to life in no time by adding a bit of flour to thicken your sauce. In fact, there are a few ways to approach the situation.

First things, first. Commercial frozen crawfish is precooked, so add them at the end of your étouffée recipe. Next, assess the sauce. The moisture retained by frozen crawfish can vary based on how they were treated. Most companies treat crawfish by spraying them with water in a process called purging to improve their appearance (by plumping them up), and to make them smell and taste fresher. If the extra water in your crawfish leaves your étouffée sauce without its nappe (ability to coat the back of a spoon) like a yummy stew should, you can bolster its consistency by adding equal parts of flour and water. Whisk them together to form a slurry — this can also be accomplished with cornstarch). You can add two tablespoons of flour for each cup of liquid.

If your sauce becomes too thin and doesn't taste rich enough, thicken it with a beurre manie. This French term for "kneaded butter" involves mixing equal parts softened butter and flour and incorporating them into a paste. Start with two tablespoons of each, carefully and quickly whisking it into the stew as it simmers. If it doesn't thicken after a few minutes, add the same amount and repeat. Once you've wrangled the sauce's consistency, don't forget this advice: For the absolute best étouffée, patience is a virtue, so let that yummy crawfish étouffée sit in the refrigerator overnight to let all the flavors marinate in that perfectly thickened sauce.