Royal Garden Blues

Alonside wonders such as Alligator and Crawfish, it's easy to underestimate the more... normal ingredients. Take chicken, for example: half of every weird meat you'll ever try "tastes like chicken", yet all too often we underappreciate this cheap little gem.

Chicken Creole is a simple dish, and takes chicken into the forefront.

Chicken Creole
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour, ten minutes
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

1/2 stick butter
3 lbs chicken, mixed light and dark meat
1 onion
1 green bell pepper
several stalks celery
2 tbsp flour
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 clove garlic
2 bay leaves
cayenne pepper
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 1/2 cups chicken stock

Prep:

Chop the onion, bell pepper, and celery.

Mince the garlic.

Cook:

In a large pot, melt 1/2 stick of butter over medium heat, and sauté the chicken, until browned. Then remove the chicken and set aside. Place onions, bell peppers, and celery and sauté for five minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves, salt, cayenne pepper, and chicken stock. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes.

Produce a Roux:

Cook very slowly, stirring constantly. There's an art to this, and it takes patience. If you burn it, throw it out and try again. In about five minutes the mixture will be peanut butter colored. This mix, known as a Roux (pronounced "roo") will thicken your chicken creole.

Finish:

Add the roux and parsley and cook for an additional five minutes. Serve over rice.


And with that, we're done with Cajun/Creole food. We stepped out from Acadia richer, or at least fatter, and we're off to somewhere far away. Cajun and Creole cooking is certainly quite unlike American, as you might think of it in the midwest, and despite hurricanes and oil spills, it is unlikely to go away anytime soon.