Frog Leg and Sausage Étouffée
A Cajun étouffée built at a car-camp kitchen, roux and all, over frog legs from that evening's gigging.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 16 oz
- cal / oz
- 45
- protein
- 45 g
- serves
- 5, scales
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 60 min
- total time
- 90 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Frog legs, skinned | 1 1/2 lb | shrimp works the same way if the gigging went badly |
|---|---|---|
| Smoked sausage | 1 lb | sliced into coins; fully cooked and cured, so it rides in a cooler well |
| Butter | 4 tbsp | |
| Onion | 1 1/2 cups diced | |
| Celery | 1 cup chopped | |
| Green pepper | 1 cup diced | |
| Okra | 1/2 cup sliced | |
| Garlic | 1 tbsp minced | |
| Tomato paste | 1 tbsp | a tube travels better than a can |
| All-purpose flour | 1/4 cup | |
| Cajun or Creole seasoning | 2 tsp | |
| Dried thyme | 1 tsp | |
| Bay leaves | 2 | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1 tsp | |
| Chicken broth | 3 cups | boxed, or bouillon and 3 cups water |
| White rice | 1 cup dry | cooked separately, or ahead at home |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going, or set the stove to a steady medium. This whole thing happens in one Dutch oven.
- Melt the butter in the oven and stir in the flour. Keep it moving with a flat spoon for 10 to 15 minutes until the roux goes the color of peanut butter. Scrape the bottom constantly. A burnt roux is bitter and cannot be saved.
- Add the onion, celery, and green pepper. They will hiss and stop the roux from darkening further, which is the point. Cook until the onion goes soft, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the garlic, okra, and tomato paste. One minute, no longer.
- Pour in the broth a cup at a time, stirring each addition smooth before the next. Add the seasoning, thyme, bay leaves, salt, and pepper.
- Drop in the sausage coins. Move the oven to the edge of the coals and let it simmer 25 minutes, uncovered, until it thickens enough to coat the spoon.
- Lay the frog legs on top and push them under. Cover and cook 12 to 15 minutes, until the meat pulls off the bone easily. Do not stir hard after this or the legs shred.
- Fish out the bay leaves. Serve over the rice.
An étouffée is a roux with vegetables in it and something tender cooked on top. Everything here happens in one Dutch oven, which is the only real reason this belongs at a camp kitchen instead of a home stove. The roux is the part that demands attention: butter and flour over steady heat, stirred without pause, for a quarter hour. Coals give you more even heat than a burner does, but they also keep giving heat after you want them to stop, so pull the oven off the fire the moment the color is right.
Frog legs cook fast and go rubbery faster. They go in last, on top of an already-finished sauce, and they only need long enough for the meat to loosen from the bone. The sausage is the opposite: it is already cooked and cured, so it can simmer the full half hour and spend its fat into the sauce. That fat plus the roux is what makes this hold together on a plate rather than running off the rice.
Packing
Dice the onion, celery, and pepper at home and bag them together; that is the slow part of the prep and it does not want doing by headlamp. Premix the seasoning, thyme, salt, and pepper in one small jar. Frog legs and sausage stay on ice at the bottom of the cooler. Cook the rice at home and reheat it in a foil pouch if you would rather not run two pots.
Variations
- No frog legs: peeled shrimp go in at the same stage for the same time. Chicken thigh chunks need 20 minutes instead of 12.
- Skip the flour roux and thicken with a slurry of instant potato flakes at the end. Faster, less depth, gluten-free.
- A quarter cup of dry vermouth or beer stirred in with the first cup of broth cuts the richness.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/frog-leg-and-sausage-etouffee-recipe