Cajun Cuisine

As I mentioned awhile back, I resolved myself to bring a different dish to Bill and Sandra's Wednesday night small group each week for the duration of this semester. I wanted to try to make something different but delicious each week, forcing me to venture outside my culinary comfort zone a bit.  Some weeks were easier than others, but I have enjoyed the challenge and have gained a new love of preparing food for large groups of people. I was under the impression (incorrectly) this week that we were in our last session for the semester, so I figured that I'd swing for the fences and go to a place I had never been before. This week's dish was a true Cajun classic straight from the bowels of Louisiana: gumbo, served on white rice with a side of Cajun butter and cornbread.

Since I knew nothing about Cajun cooking, I decided to do some research before I tried making a pot of gumbo. The last thing that I wanted was to spend a lot of time and money putting the dish together only to end up with some subpar slop. I went to YouTube and watched a classic episode of Good Eats entitled "Bowl o' Bayou."  I love Good Eats, because the host, Alton Brown, goes above and beyond simply reciting recipes and preparing food. Alton explains the science behind the meal. I really like this because knowing why things do what they do in the bowl or oven helps me understand how to take my food to the next level - I come away knowing what to add and/or take away to make the dish my own. After my research was completed I went to the store for supplies.

Gumbo is traditionally a one-pot soup, but not just any pot will fit the bill. A cast iron dutch oven is basically mandatory because lighter aluminum or metal pans will not provide the even heat needed to make the roux come together and cook the soup evenly. I'd been looking for an excuse to go buy a good dutch oven anyways, so I went to TJ Maxx and found a nice Cuisinart model for 60 bucks. Armed with my new cast iron pot, I returned home to get started.

There are several important elements to a delicious, rich gumbo, but two stand out as crucial. Crucial element A is the roux.  A roux is a traditional French thickener made from flour and fat. A roux will vary in flavor and thickening capability based on how long it is cooked and isnamed based on its color. For this application I needed a brick, or dark brown roux.  I could have cooked the roux on the stovetop, but that ran the risk of overcooking and burning. Instead, I followed the aforementioned Alton Brown's advice and cooked it in the oven at 350 degrees. Using the indirect heat of the oven takes longer, but it provides even heat throughout which prevents burning. Once my roux was nice and brown, I transferred the pot to medium heat and started adding ingredients. In went the onions, celery, bell pepper (the "holy trinity"), garlic, and corn. After a few minutes, I added andouille sausage and my spices. A few minutes later the chicken broth was added.  I brought everything to a boil and then backed the heat off to a simmer and left the gumbo alone for an hour, stopping in a few times to stir. Next came the chicken. I cubed up a pound of chicken breast, seasoned them with Tony Chachere's, and added them to the gumbo. The heat from the soup cooks the chicken with no problem. After the chicken was added, I let the gumbo simmer for another 2 hours, returning every 15-20 minutes to skim fat off the top and give it a quick stir. After 2 hours, I dropped in the shrimp, stirred in the file(don't skip it!), and killed the heat. The residual heat easily cooked the shrimp within a couple of minutes. Crucial element B, as you probably guessed, is time. The gumbo took me about 4 hours to make, but all that cooking time is necessary to produce the rich, flavorful taste of the broth. As a side I made a batch of cornbread and whipped some butter with honey, cayenne pepper, and Tony Sachere's to spread on top.

The gumbo was served over a bed of white rice. I was really happy with how it came out. The flavors were rich and full, spicy but not overwhelming. The Cajun butter tasted great on top of the cornbread as well. It was a full-on Louisiana dining experience well worth the time it took to create. 

Chicken, Shrimp, and Sausage Gumbo

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Andouille sausage, cut crosswise into 1/2 in slices
• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 in. cubes
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 7 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup okra, preboiled for 5 min
• 1 cup onion, diced
• 1 cup celery, diced
• 1/2 cup corn
  
• 1 cup bell pepper, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 bay leaves
• 6 oz vegetable oil
• 6 oz AP flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne 
• 1 1/2 tbsp file powder
• Tony Chachere's or other cajun seasoning
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place flour and vegetable oil into 5 qt dutch oven and whisk to combine. Cook mixture for 1 1/2 hours, whisking every 30 minutes, until roux is the color of chocolate. Remove pot from oven and place over medium heat. Add in onions, garlic, celery, and bell pepper and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add sausage, bay leaves, spices, salt, and chicken stock, stir to combine, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Coat chicken with Cajun seasoning and add to pot. Add okra and cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Skim any fat off the top of the gumbo with a spoon and discard.

After 2 hours, add shrimp and turn off heat. Allow shrimp to poach for 2-3 minutes, then add file and stir to combine. Allow gumbo to sit for at least 10 minutes. Serve over white rice with bread on the side.

Upcoming posts

My sincerest apologies to the thousands of people who read this blog (HA), but I've been a little behind on the updates lately.  I have several things to post, including a gut-busting but delicious gameday sandwich and the forthcoming final Wednesday night small group dish. This one marks the end of my dish-a-week challenge, so I am considering it my opus magnum, if you will. No further hints, but it's gonna be DEEEEE-lightful, I do declare! Stay tuned!

Small Group Dish of the Week

 This week's dish for Bill and Sandra's small group came out of necessity - I forgot to plan something before I went to the grocery store for supplies. I had to scour my cabinets, see what I had, and make something out of what was handy. I'd grabbed some cream cheese while it was on sale a few weeks ago and had a good supply of butter, so I decided to prepare a gooey butter cake.  Despite having one of the dumbest (yet most accurate) names for a dessert ever conceived, the gooey butter cake is decadent, creamy, rich, and completely delicious. It's also really easy. The "crust" is made from a basic yellow cake batter. There's no reason to waste your time here - just go buy a box of yellow cake mix and save 30 minutes. I'd also recommend letting your sticks of butter and cream cheese sit at room temperature for 45 minutes or so - this will soften them enough to mix smoothly. Remember to keep a close eye on the cake while it's cooking. The crust should set up, but the middle should still be gooey (hence the name), much like a custard. This cake can be served after an hour of cooling, but I like to let it set up overnight and serve it at room temperature. By the way - no calorie-cutting stunts here, please. It's not called gooey margarine cake or gooey I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter cake.  Look on the bright side....butter doesn't have all those hydrogenated oils and trans-fatty acids that fill butter substitutes and cause heart disease.  So...an extra notch on the belt or triple bypass?  You decide.

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen, Foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

• For crust:
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• For Filling:
• 1 8oz pgk cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup (1stick) butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
  
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 16 oz confectioner's sugar
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, egg, and butter in a large bowl and beat on medium until combined. Butter a 9x13 pan and press cake batter into pan to form a crust. Set aside. Combine cream cheese, butter, and eggs in bowl and mix until smooth. Work in vanilla and confectioner's sugar, mix until completely combined. Spread filling onto crust and bake for 40 minutes. Turn off oven, crack oven door, and let cake cool in oven for 5 minutes. Remove cake to cooling rack and allow to cool for at least an hour or overnight. Cut into squares and serve.

Chili

I suppose it's due to the recent onset of cooler weather, but I've been on a soup kick lately.  There aren't many things that can beat a hot bowl of soup on a cold and rainy night. This week I was hankerin' for a hearty bowl of chili.  I've actually been making chili for a couple of weeks now, but I never felt like I got the recipe quite right....until last night.  Chili is really versatile - it can be prepared bare-bones simple all the way to borderline gourmet. I prefer the simpler chili recipes - after all, chili was conceived as a poor man's dish, and making it with $100 of ingredients just seems wrong. So, bearing this in mind, I went to the store and grabbed $20 or so in supplies - ground chuck, ground pork (on sale - $1.79/lb!), tomatoes, black beans, corn, and various other supplies.

All good chilis have one thing in common - time. The longer you can allow a batch of chili to simmer and cook, the better it's going to turn out. The flavors will be fuller and will have melded together nicely, and the spices will have a nicer kick. Some people only use ground beef, and this is certainly acceptable. I'd probably have gone this route if the pork hadn't been so cheap at the store.  Start by prepping everything - dice up the veggies in advance so they can be added quickly. Brown the meats 1 pound at a time in the pot you will cook the chili in so that you can deglaze the cooked fat later on. Now you'll notice that my chili contains an ingredient that might be somewhat...well...controversial for some folks. To me, the beer has to be in there - it adds a flavor that just can't be replicated. However, I don't want to be the "stumbling block" to anybody, so omit the beer if you must. Leftover coffee would probably be a suitable substitute. If you decide to include it, rest assured that the alcohol will cook off and that nobody will be staggering around the room after having a bowl.  It's sometimes desirable to use an immersion blender blend up the spices and tomatoes to get a smoother, more soup-like texture before adding the beans, meat, and corn. I skipped this step because I prefer a chunkier chili. After everything is in the bath, let it simmer for at least 30 minutes. After a half hour, add in some crumbled tortilla chips - they thicken the chili and add flavor - and let it simmer for 20 minutes more. This chili is even better if  you make it up ahead of time and let the slow cooker do the work - 6-8 hours on low would be perfect. Either way, you're going to end up with some tasty chili. Top it with cheese, sour cream, a pinch of cilantro, and a dash of paprika and serve.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 lb ground chuck
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can corn, drained and rinsed
  
• 3 medium tomatoes, diced
• 1 white onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 chipotle peppers, diced
• 3 tbsp adobo sauce (sauce from chipotle peppers)
  
• 1 bottle dark beer
  
• 1 10oz can tomato sauce
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
• 2 cups crushed tortilla chips
  
• 2 tbsp ancho chili powder
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp whole cumin seeds, toasted (cook in skillet over med heat until seeds start crackling)
  
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tbsp ground mustard
• 1/2 tbsp red pepper
• salt and pepper

Season meat with salt and pepper and brown in the pot you will cook the chili in, 1lb at a time. Drain meat and set aside, reserving 2 tbsp of fat from meat. Cook onions and garlic for 2-3 minutes or until tender. Pour in beer, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until beer is reduced to about 1/4 cup. Add chicken stock, chopped tomatoes, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, and tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Add spices.  Blend smooth with immersion blender if desired. Add corn, beans, and meat and simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add crushed tortilla chips, simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve topped with fresh cilantro, sour cream, cheese, and/or corn chips.

Comments appreciated

Hey guys. I, as all bloggers tend to do , sometimes wonder who (if anyone) is reading my musings. I appreciate comments of all kinds, so let me know what you think. Feedback about the recipes in particular is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Dinner and Bill's

Catch-up time!  I haven't posted in awhile, but I'm back with Tuesday night's dinner and the weekly small group dish. Recipes are at the bottom of the page.

After an extended stretch of "whatever" eating, I decided to try to get back to the healthier foods that helped me lose 20lbs at the beginning of the year. I opted for a chicken-based dish. Chicken is one of the mainstays of lean cooking, and for good reason. It's relatively low in fat and bad stuff, and it's versatile enough to work in multiple dishes. I went the Italian route Tuesday night and made chicken farfalle with fresh mint, basil, and arugula.

Chicken, even more so than most meats, has a very small window with which to work. If you don't cook it long enough, bacteria will make sure you don't have another dinner guest for a long time. Cook it too long and it turns into an leathery, barely edible hunk of meat.  Therefore, your best friend when cooking chicken is a meat thermometer. Chicken has to be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees in order to kill off any salmonella-carrying bacteria that might be floating around inside. If (like me) you don't have a good thermometer, cook over med-high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side. This will get the chicken to the desired internal temperature while not overcooking the meat.

After I cooked up my chicken, I cooked the farfalle pasta to al dente and drained it. I sauteed some onions and garlic for a few minutes then combined everything in the skillet and cooked over low heat until the arugula was nicely wilted. I topped everything with some shredded Parmesan cheese and served it up. This dish was nice and light but definitely full of flavor. An added bonus is that it tastes just as good when cold, so it made a great lunch the next day. I'm enjoying it as we speak....err...type.

For small group I made a quasi-casserole dish called upside-down pizza. I got the recipe from a lady at church a few years ago, made it a few times at home, then forgot about it,  probably because it has a massive amount of calories. Since my conscience concerning these types of things gets muted when multiple people are eating, I dusted the recipe off and made it again. And really, this dish is perfect for large gatherings. Everybody can have a small portion and enjoy it without overloading too much.

This dish comes about as close to "out of the box" cooking as I like to do.  It uses store bought pasta sauce, crescent rolls, pre-shredded mozzarella, and packaged pepperoni. In this application, those ingredients work well - thats the beauty of casseroles.  It assembles pretty easily and is done in about 30 or 40 minutes. The meat sauce in the bottom keeps the dish surprisingly warm for an hour or more. As for meats, I go with the "supreme"combo - sausage, hamburger, and pepperoni, but any traditional pizza ingredients will work just as well. I think this is really a fun dish - it has all the familiar pizza flavors in a new, group-friendly package. Try it out at your next gathering, party, or potluck.

Recipes

Chicken Farfalle with arugula, basil, and lemon dressing

Ingredients:

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast or tenderloin
• 1 pgk whole wheat farfalle pasta
• 1 cup arugula, tough stems removed
  
• 1/4 fresh basil, chopped
• 2 tbsp mint, chopped
  
• 1/2 cup onions, diced
• 2 tomatoes, diced 
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 tbsp EVOO
• 8 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Coat chicken with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cook chicken on skillet or grill over med-high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side. Cover and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Sprinkle water with salt and add pasta. Cook pasta for 13 minutes, remove, and drain. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining 6 tbsp olive oil with lemon juice, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper. Set aside. 

 In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp oil over medium heat and sautee onions until translucent. Add garlic and sautee for 1 minute. Add in tomatoes, basil, mint, chicken, pasta, and arugula and cook until arugula wilts. Cover with lemon dressing and stir to coat. Top with parmesan cheese and serve.

Upside Down Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb Italian sausage
• 8 oz pepperoni
• 16 oz pasta sauce of choice
• 2 tomatoes, pureed
• 4 oz. tomato sauce
• 1 white onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz sour cream
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 cans refrigerated crescent rolls
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Brown beef and sausage and drain, reserving 2 tbsp of oil. Sautee onions and garlic until onions are translucent.  Stir in pasta sauce, pureed tomatoes, pasta sauce, and meat.  Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Spoon meat sauce into 13X9 pan and top with whole pepperoni slices. Top pepperoni with sour cream.  Cover sour cream with mozzarella cheese. Roll out crescent rolls and place on top of cheese, overlapping so that no cheese is visible. Brush crust with olive oil. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until bubbly and crust is golden brown.

Slow Cooker revisited

As I have said on these pages before, the slow cooker is one of my favorite tools to use in the kitchen. Nothing beats throwing a few ingredients in before I leave for work and coming home to a finished soup or chili for dinner. Monday, I made up a chicken tortilla soup. I threw in some leftover chicken from the night before (precooked rotisserie chickens from Kroger are a cook's best friend) along with an assortment of veggies, spices, chicken stock, and beans. I set the cooker to low and walked away. I returned home later that day to a fragrant house and a delicious batch of chicken tortilla soup. I toasted off some corn tortillas in the oven and topped the bowl with some sour cream, cheese, and cilantro. Presto - warm, delicious, dinner in less than 10 minutes.

  

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla soup

Ingredients:

• 1lb cooked chicken meat, shredded
• 6 cups chicken broth (pref. low sodium)
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 2 tbsp jalapenos, diced
• 8 oz uncooked black beans
• 1 bag frozen corn
• 1 14.5 oz can diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 2 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
  
• corn tortillas
• sour cream, cilantro, chopped avocado, or other desired toppings

Combine chicken, stock, vegetables, and spices in slow cooker. Set cooker to low and cook for 6-8 hours. Before serving, coat tortillas with thin layer of vegetable oil, cut into strips, and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until crisp. Serve alongside tortilla strips and topped with sour cream, cheese, cilantro, and avocado.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

To me, the slow cooker (aka the Crock Pot) is one of the greatest tools in the kitchen. It can transform large cuts of meat or pots of soup into succulent dishes with very little effort. When it gets cold I like making chili, soup, cheese dip, and even oatmeal in my cooker, and I used it Wednesday to prepare some pulled pork for Bill's small group.

This dish really couldn't have been any easier. I bought an 8lb pork shoulder from Kroger, gave it a rub with some Rendezvous seasoning, and tossed it into the slow cooker. I covered about 3/4 of the meat with some beef broth, mixed in a little coffee, hot sauce, and worcestershire for flavor, and closed the lid. I cooked the meat all day on the "low" setting. When I say this couldn't be easier, I'm not kidding - I put everything in before I left for work and came back to a finished pork shoulder. After a quick shredding with a pair of forks I put the meat in a cast iron skillet, covered with some homemade bbq sauce, and cooked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees to firm the meat up and cook the sauce in a bit. I whipped up some slaw using the leftover chipotle mayo from the Football Feast and served the meat and slaw inside some storebought dinner rolls. Simple and delicious. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the finished product. Trust me though...it was good.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 8lb pork shoulder 
• 1/4 cup rub of choice
• 1 can beef broth
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp hot sauce
• Neely's Kansas City BBQ sauce:
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 5 tbsp light brown sugar
• 5 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 tbsp onion powder
• 1/2 tbsp black pepper
• 1/2 tbsp ground mustard seed
• 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• slaw of choice
• Dinner rolls

For meat: Coat all sides liberally with rub, wrap in aluminum foil, and place in refrigerator overnight. Place meat in slow cooker, fatty side down. Cover meat with beef broth, coffee, Worcestershire, and hot sauce and set dial to "low." Cover and cook for 6-8 hours.  Meat will be tender when done. Remove meat from cooker and transfer to tray or cutting board. Using two forks, remove fat and separate meat with the forks using a pulling motion.  Place pulled meat in a cast-iron skillet, cover with BBQ sauce (recipe below) and cook at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until meat firms and sauce cooks into meat. Serve on dinner rolls or buns topped with extra bbq sauce and slaw.

For sauce: Combine all ingredients in a saucepot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hr 15 minutes.