Crawfish Etouffee And Black Eyed Peas

 One was a success, the other was a failure.

I've never liked my etouffees. The graininess of the flour in the roux always dominated the texture of the dish. I stumbled upon this video from the kitchen of Emeril Lagasse that changed the way I do them. The key was to make the roux, sautee the vegetables in it and then add stock and let it simmer for a while. The simmering softened whatever flour wasn't consumed in the making of the roux. The result was excellent.

I used this recipe, also from Emeril.

The end result was the best crawfish etouffee I've ever made.

I recently also made some black-eyed peas, using smoked turkey wings as the seasoning meat. I used this recipe from Southern Living, but I misjudged the amount of peas I had in the pot and it was coming out more like soup. I decided against adding more dried peas, the others having been soaked overnight, for fear of ending up with some soft peas and some that felt like pea gravel in your mouth. Instead, I added some rice to soak up the excess liquid.

Big mistake. Peas simmered become soft peas. Rice simmered becomes paste. The taste was fine, but the texture was dreadful. Oh well.