Crawfish Étouffée

I got this recipe from my brother Bernie. The way Cajuns used to make crawfish étouffée (etouffee) was to use "crawfish fat" instead of cream or soup. Fat came from the head of the crawfish. I'm sure some Cajuns still cook it that way.

Ingredients

• 4 tblsp all-purpose flour
• 4 tblsp vegetable oil
• 1 small bell pepper
• 1 small yellow onion
• 2 stalks of celery
• 2 cloves garlic
• 4 tblsp butter
• 1 can of Campbell's Cream of Celery Soup
• 1 cup of water or heavy cream
• 1 tblsp Paul Prudhomme's Seafood Seasoning
• 2 tsp of Season All
• 2 tsp of black pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 cup of tomato sauce
• 1 pound of crawfish tails

Instructions

1. Make roux with oil and flour.
2. Add bell pepper, onion, celery, garlic and butter to roux.
3. Simmer on medium heat for ten minutes.
4. Add in the water or cream. (I use cream.)
5. Add in seafood seasoning, season all, pepper, paprika and tomato sauce.
6. Simmer for ten minutes.
7. Add crawfish and simmer another fifteen minutes.
8. Serve over rice.

NOTE: You can replace the crawfish with shrimp or crab, or any combination of the three.