Jambalaya

I went to visit my parents for about a week and a half and picked up this little gem while I was back home. This is my dad's jambalaya recipe, which is more in the creole school of cooking than the cajun. (Here's a good article highlighting the strong points of both.) Jambalaya is a great dish to show the difference of the two cooking styles. Creole jambalaya is red and has an emphasis on tomatoes. Cajun jambalaya is a more grayish color and has an earthy, homey taste to it. Here we go:

Cook two cups raw rice in chicken stock.

1 stalk celery
1 large onion
2 bay leaves
3 cloves garlic
1/4 c bell pepper
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes (drained)
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 lb andouille sausage (kielbasa is an adequate substitute)
1 lb raw shrimp (peeled)
Chicken as desired

to taste:
salt
black pepper
white pepper
Tabasco
Tony Chachere's

Sauté vegetables until tender. Add sausage and shrimp. Sauté til shrimp are pink. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce. Bring to boil.

Mix sauce with cooked rice and let simmer over low fire for 10 minutes.

——

After I copied this recipe down from my dad's near-illegible scrawl, he asked me, "So you know how to make it now?"

"Yeah. I got the recipe, and I watched mom as she was cooking."

"No. It's made with love," was his response.

I groaned a little on the inside. My whole life he told me that "love" was the secret ingredient in his Nana's cooking, and I always chalked it up as sentimental southern mysticism. But then I started thinking about it, and I think my dad is right. There are three kinds of love that play into good cooking, and I feel like how my brother cooks fried chicken exemplifies them all: a love for the tradition of the dish, a love for the ingredients, and a love for the company. This is what makes his fried chicken the best I've ever tasted.

My brother calls his cooking "ancestor worship." I think all of us Wyatt kids have a deep love for the traditional cooking of our forbearers, and we feel a strong duty to get those dishes right. It's our job to pass down our great-grandmother's étouffée recipe and keep creole cooking alive in our family. You should see Jake fret over his fried chicken. He constantly reassesses the time that each cut of chicken should be in the oil and how best to cut the chicken. If he weren't so concerned with preserving and presenting the fried chicken recipe bequeathed to us by our ancestors, I don't think his chicken would be half as good as it is.

Next, Jake has a love and respect for the ingredients he's using. He does not buy the chicken already cut—he gets the chicken whole and parts it himself. This is probably is unnecessary, but it shows a love for the experience of cooking with chicken. This is how I cook my fricassee as well. Yes, it's more work to part a chicken yourself, but I feel that it's a more intimate way of cooking. And if you show that level of respect to such a pedestrian ingredient as chicken, you're going to give crab, crawfish, shrimp, and oysters the level of respect they deserve. And your dish will be all the better for it.

The third type of love is what my dad was trying to communicate to me through the years, and that is a love for the people that you serve. When Jake fries chicken, he invites all of his friends and family, and everyone rejoices together. He's incredibly open-handed with the chicken, and Kathryn is always right there with equally stunning potatoes and pies to back it up. Under these conditions, I think it's impossible for anyone to harbor ill will. Cooking for someone is helping them to fulfill a basic survival need in an elegant and satisfying way. In the grand scheme of things it may be a small contribution, but you're helping them to sustain their very existence. It is an inherently magnanimous endeavor.

Just because you've heard something all your life doesn't mean it's untrue. As cheesy as it sounds, I do think "love" is the secret ingredient in good cooking. Love of tradition, love of ingredients, and love of people. It's a difference you can taste.

Power Brownies

Some people prefer anemic, from-the-box brownies. I don't.

1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 c cocoa (use Hershey's)
2 c sugar
2/3 cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts (optional)


Mix dry ingredients. Mix the rest together. Grease pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Now was that hard? Nope. Not at all. So never make boxed brownies again. They really don't save time, and they're WEAK.

Trout (or Catfish) Meunuiere

4-5 filets
milk
salt and white pepper
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 lemons
flour
1 1/2 sticks butter

Soak filets in milk for a half hour. Dry off with paper towels. Coat in flour and sprinkle with salt and white pepper. In a non-stick pan, melt 1/2 stick of butter and pan fry the filets until they're brown on both sides (2-3 minutes on each side). Place the filets on a plate in the oven, set on warm while the sauce is made. Add the rest of the butter, Worcestershire sauce, and the juice of one lemon to the pan. Cook for a bit, then pour over the fish. Serve with a garnish of freshly sliced lemons and parsley.

Also, it's nice to serve this on a bed of mashed potatoes. I recommend cooking the potatoes in the regular fashion but don't add any butter. Then sauté some garlic and rosemary in butter on the side, then mix it all together. When you pour the meunuiere sauce over the potatoes, you get a wonderful combination of flavors—lemon, garlic, rosemary, Worcestershire—it's amazing.

Ronnie's Stuffed Mirliton

Mirliton is a delicious pear-shaped squash that grows in southern Louisiana. I used to think that you couldn't get it outside of Louisiana, but I recently found that the grocery out here in Utah is selling it under a different name—"chayote." So if your a displaced cajun, look around and you might be surprised. This recipe comes from Ronnie Abel (with a few modifications).

6 mirlitons
1/2 stick butter
1 medium onion
1/4 cup diced celery
1 T minced garlic
1 lb shrimp
2–3 cubes chicken bouillon
1 1/8 cup water
4 eggs
1 3/4 cups Italian bread crumbs


Boil the mirlitons for 15 minutes, then peal and cube (be sure to cut out the seeds). Sauté the onion, celery, and garlic in the butter for about five minutes. Add the shrimp and cook until pink. Then add the water/bouillon. Beat the eggs and temper them with the hot shrimp sauce. Mix it all together with the bread crumbs, and then bake for 30 minutes at 375. It's delicious.

Artichoke Balls

I made these for the first time last night, but I've already modified the recipe. I'll provide the original, and then my modifications underlined.


Original:
3 cans artichoke hearts
3 c Romano cheese
3 c Italian breadcrumbs
3 beaten eggs
1/4 c olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder

Modified
3 cans artichoke hearts
3 c shredded Parmesan
3 c Italian breadcrumbs
3 beaten eggs
1/4 c olive oil
1tsp garlic powder
1 c chopped parsley
Tobassco and Chacheres to taste

Mash or blend artichoke hearts. Mix cheese and breadcrumbs. Add artichokes, eggs, oil, parsley, and seasoning. Mix together. Roll into bite-sized balls and bake for five minutes.

That much Romano can come off being quite strong. I think Parmesan is a milder and more thrifty choice, and it gets the job done quite well. The parsley lifts the flavor of the dish, and the Tobassco and Chacheres give it a nice kick.

For a vegetarian meal, you can serve these instead of meatballs with the sans beef version of my Babushka Bolognese.

King Cake!

Mix:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. dry milk
1 package rapid rise yeast

Add: 1 cup hot water & stir


Add: 1 cup flour
1 egg
1/4 c. oil

Add: 1 to 1 1/4 cup flour. Knead until spongy. Let rise 25 minutes.

Separate the dough into two and roll them out until they're long and about 4 inches wide
Mix: ½ stick melted butter
1 cup brown sugar 
1 tsp cinnamon 
1 T flour
Roll up – pinch – seal well
Braid the two rolls together
Let rise 15 minutes. 


Bake at 350º, 17 min.

To decorate the cake, mix up a simple frosting with a lot of powdered sugar and a little milk (I also add vanilla extract). Add the frosting while the cake is still hot and sprinkle purple, gold, and green sugar on top. You can find the sugar at most craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby.

As for king cake babies, you can buy them online, or if you're lucky, you can find them in some party stores with the stuff for baby showers.

Georgia Scallops

I came up with this recipe a few weeks back and have made it three times now.


Sauce:
1/2 stick butter
1 T crushed garlic
2–3 shallots
6 small mushrooms, sliced
1 cup white wine
3 sprigs tarragon
1 pint cream
Worcestershire Sauce
Tabasco Sauce
dried basil


Scallops:
12–20 scallops
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 lime


Sauté the garlic, shallots, and mushrooms in the melted butter. When the shallots are translucent, add the wine and tarragon (tear the leaves off the stems, but don't worry about chopping the leaves). Gradually add the cream over the next ten minutes, stirring regularly. Season as you go along.


The trick is the scallops. You must use a non-stick pan. I tried to do it with the smoothest of cast iron pans, and it was a disaster. Get the pan literally smoking hot, then add the olive oil. I was going to write out all the details of how to sauté them, but it would just be a pain for you and me. So here's a video that shows you how to do it perfectly:








The only difference is that I use the lime to sprinkle the scallops instead of a lemon.


Plate rice and place 3–5 scallops on top. Then spoon the sauce on top of the rice. Garnish with torn parsley and serve. Serves four.


——


I first made these scallops for my sister, after whom they're named. She's the one that recommended I serve this over rice. I'm grateful for all my siblings, and I love to cook for them. I appreciate these lines by Christina Rossetti:


"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."