Probably the best know Cajun/Creole spice is Tony Chachere’s, but I like Benoit’s Best and lately, Pat N Da Pot. I prefer those two because of lower salt and I like to add it more separately. Tony’s over time increased the amount of salt in it, but they have an extra spicy that is more like the old version.
I’m not the best at recipes, but I’ll give the gist of how I do it. There are 40-60 recipes of crawfish étouffée on Facebook's Cajun & Creole group, and anyone can join.
When I make a batch, I use two pounds of crawfish, so everything is based off of that. I’ve played with making the roux with oil instead of butter, and even a blend, but butter seems to be best, and it’s most people’s standard. The standard trinity is 2 parts onion, 1 part bell pepper, and 1 part celery. I cut these fairly fine and cook them down quite a bit. The quality of the crawfish is the most important thing. Don’t use Chinese crawfish. A lot of people use different Cajun or creole spice blends.
2 lbs. crawfish tails thawed.
1.5 sticks of butter, but the standard would be two sticks.
8 to 12 tablespoons of flour, but you don’t want it to be too thick, and you don’t want to need to thin it down, as that dilutes the flavor. Many people use less on this.
2 med lg onions, or 3 to 4 if they’re small.
1 bell pepper
Celery to equal about half the onion.
Red pepper flakes
3 cloves of garlic (optional)
2 bay leaves (optional, but we like it)
Tomato paste (optional) I used Cento in the tube, and only 1.5 to 3 inches worth.
Rotel tomatoes = 1 to 2 cans depending on your spice. My wife is a limiting factor on this. Draining the cans lowers the spice level. If we omit the Rotel, my wife thinks the dish is lacking, and she misses it.
I use chicken broth instead of water, but seafood stock would also work. I’ll use up to a quart normally, sometimes more.
Start with melting the butter and adding flour to make a roux. I like my stainless-steel pot with a somewhat heavy bottom and I use a big whisk. This works well for me. You need to get the flour cooked down, but you don’t have to make it very dark. I like getting it nuttier, but not really dark. I look for the nutty smell, but never let the butter start to burn. Add the trinity, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes to the hot roux and I switch to a spoon to stir at this point. It will tighten up at first but loosen as it goes. This is where I add the bay leaves and tomato paste. I cook the vegetables down quite a bit (wife likes this), but you really only need to get them softened. As that starts to reduce I add the Rotel and let it continue. As it reduces, I add chicken broth in small quantities gradually building it up, but not too thin. Read up on smothering vegetables and it might help. I taste this as I’m going and adjust salt and seasonings. Only add the crawfish with the bag liquid at the end, because you don’t want to overcook at all. The liquid will have some crawfish fat and bring some flavoring. You can strain the crawfish first and add the liquid before the crawfish. This gives you an idea, but there are better recipes to follow and then make changes. However, people I make this for think it’s excellent.