February 18, 2010

I "Roux" the day I had that idea

So, a few weeks ago Brett was perusing facebook and someone had posted pictures of some homemade etouffe they had made in honor of...something Louisiana related-it could be any number of things this time of year ;-)
Anyway, Brett was all,
"Yum! That looks good! I want some etouffe!"

And I was all,
"YAY! Finally Brett gives me some guidance when it comes to the dinner menu!"

( normally this is not an issue, but since I currently range between not having an appetite and wanting to eat mustard right out of the jar...make a grocery list/dinner menu for the week has become an excruciating task. ) and so I went about finding a good/reputable recipe for Etouffe. I finally settled upon this one and I went to the store and bought all the ingredients ( except the fish stock, which I could not find-and so instead I substituted vegetable stock and 1 Tbs of fish sauce-found in your oriental section...this worked well. )

Anyway, so yesterday at around 4:30 I decided to begin my process of making this brand new recipe-something I normal love.
I mean, I read all those reviews that said this recipe was hard because of the "roux making" but I scoffed. How hard could it be to stir nonstop for 15 minutes?!?! BIG DEAL! I can do it!!!

So, go ahead, ask me how many rouxs I had to make before I got it right?!?

THREEEE!

That's right! ARG! The first one was because the pan I was using had little bits of the teflon stuff coming off into my roux ( the dangers of not having your own kitchen and using very old pots and pans), and then after changing over to a pot, I ruined another roux because I think my arm was at a weird angle ( and already tired from having now mixed for a solid twenty minutes) and I was using too small of a spoon....third times the charm. I switched to a wisk and all was well. Roux success!!!
And after that the recipe was a breeze and super yummy ( if I do say so myself!)...

But, I'm not going to lie. I may have thrown some pots and pans around and I may have grumbled some noncoherent words under my breath. And Brett may have gotten worried and asked me to sit down more than once, and I may or may not have hated life for about forty-five minutes.

However, at the end of the day ( 6pm) we finally had dinner on the table and all was well...although I totally needed a nap at this point, and I had to watch Brett eat his second helping from a horizontal position on the couch.

3 comments:

Amy K. said...

Look for a pre-made roux sold at the grocery store. It's the way to go.

Lindsay said...

This reminds me of Julie and Julia hehe

Stacey said...

Forgot to mention this website for great recipes.... one of my favs!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/