You Tell Me Your Dream

Crawfish

Crawfish go by many names here in the US, Crayfish, Crawdad, Crawfish, etc, but when it comes right down to it, they're little, freshwater inseects easily found in streams all over America (as well as China, apparently). They look vaguely like tiny lobsters, minus the claws, and turn similarly red when cooked.

Of course, catching them yourself is a lot of worth, so I located precooked tails for about $14 a pound. My first introduction to Crawfish was the Crawfish Étouffée at Yat's Cajun Creole. While I couldn't locate their recipe, I did find this one, to try my hand at the little buggers.

Crawfish Étouffée
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 45 minutes to one hour
Serves: 6-8 people

Ingredients:

2 lbs crawfish tails
black pepper
cayenne pepper

3/4 stick butter
1 onion
1 green bell pepper
4 stalks celery
1 chili pepper

1 1/2 cups cold water
1/4 cup chopped scallion
1/4 cup fresh parsley

Pinch dried thyme
Pinch dried oregano
1 bay leaf

less than a half cup white flour (no substitutions!)
3/4 stick butter
creole seasoning

Prep:

Season the crawfish tails with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Mince up the onion, green pepper, celery, and chili pepper and put into one bowl.

Chop up the parsley and scallion, and put into another bowl together.

Cook:

Melt three quarters of a stick of butter in a pan, and sauté the onion, bell pepper, celery, and chili pepper in it for about 5 minutes, or until translucent. Then add a cup and a half of water, thyme, oregano, bay leaf, and crawfish tails. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Produce a Roux:

Melt the remaining butter in a pan over very low heat, and mix in an equal amount of flour. 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 étouffée.

Finish:

Add the scallions, parsley, and roux, and cook for an additional five minutes, stirring frequently.

Season with Creole seasoning and serve over rice.

The end result was promptly eaten by Katrina, myself, and several friends until we were all full. Delicious, I tell you I can't rave about how good it was enough.

Just a Closer Walk With Thee

While defining the difference between "Creole"and "Cajun" food might be, at best, difficult, some dishes do exist that clearly belong in one or the other camp. A dish infused with the flavor of catfish and parsley, rich in the flavor of green pepper and tomato would seem to fit the bill, I figured.

I can't claim I've made this "correctly". After all, I didn't catch my own catfish. Don't know what kind of catfish it was, either. I do know it was fantastic, peppery, and delicious. This is truely a gem of a dish, and certainly unique to Acadia.

Catfish

There's fish, and then there's catfish. Most fish swim around in the water, covered in scales. Most catfish hide in lower waters. Some eat live food, though many feed on dead or dying food. They're size varies, some species becoming enormous, while others remain quite small, and you'll find some species of them all over the world.

Farm raised catfish are cheap and readily available all over America, though the flavor and quality may vary.

Remember the basics of buying fish when buying catfish: if it's whole you want to see clear eyes, and the flesh should be totally odorless. A hint of a "fishy"smell means it's off, and you don't want to risk it!

Catfish Courtbouillon (adapted from this recipe)
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Serves: 6-8 people

Ingredients:

2 medium yellow onions
2 green peppers
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch pasley
1 bunch scallion (green onion) tops
1 8 ounce can crushed, stewed tomatos
1 cup water
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
2 lbs catfish

Prep:

Chop the yellow onions and green peppers. Mince the garlic cloves.

Also chop up the parsley and scallion tops.

Slice up your catfish into 2 inch chunks.

Cooking:

In a large pot, put a thin layer of vegetables. Follow by a layer of catfish. Then sprinkle with flour and spices. Then drizzle some tomato onto the catfish, and then water. Repeat this process, layering vegetables, catfish, flour, spices, stewed tomato, and water until it's all int he pot.

Do not stir it! Bring to a simmer, and cook over very low heat for 45 minutes, not stirring it at all. Then add parsley and scallion tops to the top, and cook another five minutes.

Serve, like most cajun food, over rice.

Storyville

Alligator

The 'gators hide out down in the swamp, and they're nice enough fellas, I guess. They mostly go about their business, and don't bother you none. That is, unless you annoy them. Then they tend to snap your hand off.

Ya wouldn't normally think of the guys as food, but down in the Louisiana swamps the critters the local Cajuns discovered they were tasty as anything else around, as long as you cleaned and tenderized it enough. Don't worry about them being protected, Alligator is commonly raised in farms for skin, and the meat may well be available at your local specialty meat market. Katrina and I located some off of 56th St. here in Indianapolis, pre-cleaned and marinated, and with a little help from our friend Bryan, who made sure it was extra tenderized by beating it with his bare fist into pulp, it was good to go.

The key to making gumbo is not to add too much liquid in the first place. You want your thickening to be done by the okra's soluble fiber. So barely cover the okra with enough liquid to boil it! The resulting gumbo is nothin'to sneer at.

Alligator Gumbo
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour, twenty minutes

Ingredients:

2 lbs alligator meat
1/4 lb andouille sausage (substitute any smoked sausage if you can't find it)
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
3 scallions
1 small white onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 20 oz can crushed and stewed tomatoes
2 pounds okra
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
2 tbsp cayenne pepper
12 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp filé seasoning (replace with 1 tbsp powdered thyme, if unavailable)

Prep:

Slice up okra, discarding stems.

Chop up the green bell pepper, being careful to discard the seeds and stem. Also chop up the scallions, white onion, parsley, and celery.

Slice up the andouille sausage and alligator meat into 1" chunks.

Cooking:

Put the okra into a pot and cover with water, and bring to a boil. Make sure to add water if it needs it, but add no more than you have to! The more you add the thinner this will be and you want a thick, rich gumbo.

Sauteé your celery, onion, scallion, and green bell pepper in a pan with a stick of butter. When soft, add your tomatoes and sauteé for another ten minutes. Pour into your okra/water mixture, and add the alligator and andouille, and then simmer it gently, being careful not to scorch it, for two hours.

Season with salt and hot sauce, and perhaps some capers.

The Result:

The result was delicious. I must confess alligator's flavor certainly doesn't warrant buying it every day. It tastes good enough, but one could get away with something more available, like chicken, for a cheaper and more readily available gumbo.

But then, this is a gumbo recipe! Play with it! Add some of your own ingredients, and throw out what you don't care for. This dish is all about mixing together what's in season and making a thick, tasty stew of it, so don't hold yourself back!

Chapter 2 : Louisiana and the Trinity

Taking on the task of making the most bizarre, insane, and unexpected food blog on the planet isn't easy, so Katrina and I left China tired, and in need of a rest. We decided to get back to something normal, a little closer to home, and we figured a stop by New Orleans would be a little more familiar. I lit a cigarette as we stepped off the boat, and grabbed her soft hands and pulled her up beside me. Down the docks I could see ships eagerly pulling in hauls of shrimp.

The last time a Katrina came through New Orleans it wasn't pretty, and we agreed we could keep her identity a secret, but with a giant plume of oil extending off the coast the inhabitants were sure to catch on so we needed to make our way out to the Acadian countryside quickly, and mingle with the immigrants who settled out there.

New Orleans is home to two seperate twin cuisines. The affluent French descendants who still practised Catholicism and spoke French led the charge in this strange land, adapting classical European styles to local ingredients, blending French, Spanish, Mediterranean, African, and Indian cuisines together into food fit for the city.

The Acadian countryside, however, housed something altogether different, despite sharing ingredients. The poor rustic communities would take what they could get, and blended their European heritage more directly with what the land and sea could give them, many dishes consisting of whatever they could find at the time.

The people out there worship the Holy Trinity, or maybe it's 'Da Trinity'. I'm not quite sure how to say it, but it's not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost like you might think. Turns out, it's a mix of onions, celery, and green peppers, derived from the 'Mir Poux' of their French ancestors. Many of the dishes are thick and stewy. Some, like Etouffe use the starch of wheat blended with butter in Roux. Others, like Gumbo use Okra, a mysterious long green fruit from Africa.

I rushed in without looking, as always, but I had a few important things to back me up. Some hot sauce is always helpful, but it also doesn't hurt to find yourself some capers and gumbo file seasoning. File seasoning takes a little searching for, but it's Sassafras, or a mix of Sassafras and Thyme, that will provide some dishes with a suitably 'Earthy' flavor.

It didn't take me long to find the Trinity in all its glory. The symmetry of the flavor adapts to any dish and makes it stand out, even in something basic like Red Beans and Rice. I recommend finding yourself some par boiled rice. Use Uncle Ben's if you gotta, but skip past the instant stuff. You'll thank me for it later.

Red Beans and Rice
Prep Time: Four hours to overnight
Cooking Time: Two Hours, 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 lb dry red beans
2 quarts water
1 lb sausage (preferably andouille, but kielbasa or italian sausage will do if you can't find it)
1 large onion
1 large green pepper
2 stalks celery
1 bay leaf
2 cups dry rice

Prep:

Soak the red beans for at least four hours in water. The longer, the better. Some people recommend a couple days, but make sure you change the water at least once a day.

Right before you begin, you'll want to chop up your onions, celery, and green pepper.

Cooking:

Drain the red beans and put them into a pot with fresh water. Add everything except the sausage and rice and boil for at least two hours.

Steam your sausage to the side and then slice it up, and toss it in about 15 minutes before it's done. Prepare your rice to the side, following its directions.

When it's done (the beans will be suitably mushy) drain it, and serve with rice.

You may want to pepper and salt it up a bit, but you'll have a delicious, and enormously filling, meal.