Maw Maw Toups’ Gulf Seafood Couvillion
This is my grandmother’s seafood stew recipe. She was hell on wheels with a fishing pole. If she was making couvillion, she’d catch the fish and clean it herself. In fact, she liked fishing so much she stocked her swimming pool with fish to catch. No joke. It was a legit cement pond. Yeah, we’re country.She’d put a whole fish in this couvillion, usually speckled trout or redfish, scaled and gutted but with the head on. The fish would break down in the pot and thicken and season the broth. Once the fish fell apart, she knew the couvillion was done.
If you have a big enough pot, you can easily multiply the recipe. We’ve got a big ole family, so Maw Maw Toups was always doubling it—she never knew who might show up.
- 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, divided
- 1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced
- 1 small red bell pepper, finely diced
- 1 large rib celery, finely diced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 bay leaves
- 7 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup tomato paste
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- 6 cups fish, crab, or shrimp stock
- 1 teaspoon picked and minced fresh thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 3 to 4 pounds mixed seafood (see note below)
- Jasmine rice or any medium grain white rice, for serving
In a Dutch oven over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter until it quits bubbling. Add the trinity (onion, bell pepper, celery), salt, and bay leaves, and cook until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sweat for 1 more minute. Remove the vegetables from the pan and reserve. Make sure you get all the vegetables out, but there’s no need to wipe or clean the pan. There’s still a lot of flavor in the fat that’s left over.
In the same Dutch oven over medium heat, make a brick roux (recipe below), using the remaining 4 tablespoons butter and the flour and adding the tomato paste once the roux hits blonde. When the tomato paste begins to brown, add the vegetables back to the pot and stir.
Add the wine and scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon until all the brown bits have come up. Add the stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until fully incorporated after each addition. Add the thyme, paprika, cayenne, and white pepper, and stir.
Bring the mixture up to a simmer over medium heat and cook uncovered for 45 minutes.
Add the seafood and cook for 15 minutes, until the fish breaks apart easily. (If you are using a whole fish instead of fish filets, cook the fish for an hour, until it breaks down, and add the rest of the seafood 15 minutes before it is done.)
Brick Roux
Makes 3/4 cup- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup tomato paste
Once the butter stops bubbling, dump the flour in—no need to sprinkle it like it’s precious. Stir well to combine the butter and flour. Cook the roux a minute or two, stirring often, until it darkens by one shade and starts to smell nutty.
Once the roux is ready, add the tomato paste. Stir that in and let it caramelize until it starts sticking to the bottom. Cook it until it browns a little. I smash down the tomato paste evenly across the bottom of the pot to increase the surface area that is caramelized by the heat. This should take about 10 minutes total, and results in a brick red roux with a charred tomato flavor.