FistFullaRoux

http://www.nbc13.com/irresistible/4429978/detail.html And here's another flavor in the works... Coffee. I dunno about that one. Anyone in Spain care to try it out? It's supposedly being tested there...

I like the subtle hint of lime. Less astringent than the lemon Cokes that were out a while back (or was it lemon Pepsi?). It's far better than the bottles of cherry Coke. Those are just unbearable. I accidentally grabbed a cherry Coke a few days ago. I at least won a free Coke product with the bottle cap, so I could ditch the cherry nausea and get the real thing... I've just switched back to Coke after drinking Pepsi for the last 4 or 5 years. I think Coke in general is a better product, with better flavor and carbonation. Again, except for the cherry. I've had them from fountains with the fountain Coke and a shot of cherry syrup ( or whatever they use), and they are great. The bottled ones are simply horrid. edited for typos

http://www.detnews.com/2005/business/0504/30/biz-166876.htm They are added to the Wild American Shrimp movement. It's a government campaign to increase the demand for gulf shrimp, trying to elevate them to the level of Maine lobster and Alaskan salmon. Emeril has his own brand of Tony Chacherie frozen shrimp for about 12 bucks a pound. I think it's cool they are trying to increase the demand for these shrimp, and maybe trying to drive the price up a little bit for the shrimpers and processors to make a few more bucks. Kind of a shame that they have to use Emeril's name to do it, though.

*You* get cash back, but the business taking that Discover card gets charged more per transaction for Discover than by Visa/MC/Amex. Which is why a lot of businesses won't take them. At least that was the case when I first opened up my charge processing account...I was discouraged (by the CC processing company, no less) not to sign up for accepting Discover unless I expected to be doing very high volume sales. ← And as another aside, Sam's Club only accepts Discover. They stopped taking Visa/MC/Amex a while back. And Wal Mart (of which Sam's is part) IIRC issues their own Visa cards. Strangeness.

Just a note that Waffle House (a popular chain with a lot of locations) does not accept credit cards. The vast majority of the locations do not acccept checks. This is a chain running on prety much a cash only basis. And thriving. Cash is real. Checks can be forged or fake. Credit cards can be stolen or otherwise invalid. Cash will always be accepted. And the customer is always right. Unless the customer is dead wrong, and the business cares so little about said customer that they will tell him that he is wrong.

I have given various recomendations on this topic before, usually ending with "eat something while naked". Although I still stand by that bit of advice I'll offer another option. Soup. It can take lots of prep time, depending on the recipe, and it makes the home smell alive again. Nothing says life and comfort more than the aroma of a long simmering soup. Well, maybe bread, but it's so much more stringent in it's needs. Soup is as easy or as complicated as you want it to be, and can be as cheap or expensive as you want to get. The soup, while naked, is a bit of a task, fraught with the danger of scalding important bits of anatomy. If that's your thing, go for it, but I wouldn't...

I jump in with almost everything except for dishes that require a roux. If you don't have your mise done for a gumbo or a fricassee, you are going to blow it. I'll sometimes do mise for an unfamiliar recipe as well. Mostly, if it's a dish I've done before, I'll know that I have x amount of time while this is coming toa boil to prepare the next item. But I also cheat a bit. I've got ziplock bags of onion, celery, carrot, and bell pepper already chopped sitting in the freezer. That would probably be my secret weapon in the kitchen. Just grab and go...

Damn. Now I'm hungry. Rasin bagel and a schmear, please...

Ever see the TV commercial where the breakfast foods wind up attached to the outside of the body? Same thing should happen here with the remains of their devilish handiwork. I recommend epoxy.

When it comes to great food destinations, New Orleans has to be at least near the top on anyone's list. And guess what? It's French. It's Italian. It's Spanish. It's Asian. It's African. It's a little of everything, showing that some good can be taken from anywhere. The French (and those of us with French names) have taken a beating (figuratevely, at least) in the US because of the French government's policies and decisions. I wonder if some of that may factor in to this... Oddly enough, it seems that the way France is viewed by the States is the same that the US is seen throughout most of the rest of the world. I'm going back to my pasta now. It's got tasso and French olive oil in it. edited becuase Fance does not equal France.

I think it is somewhat of a pyramid scheme, from my POV. The goal of holding one of the "parties" is to encourage one of the guests to have their own party, and so forth. The host gets to choose several items from the catalog for themselves and get a discount on other items, depending on how many people order something from their party. There are also other incentives for holding a party. The company is now owned by Warren Buffet, probably the only single person in America rich enough to give Bill Gates a run. His politics are well known, and won't get mentioned here. That being said, some of the stuff is of decent quality, though some are completely useless. I have a rather nice digital probe thermometer that was reasonably priced at about $25 (I think), and the pizza stones are nice. They have served me well. The rest of it is close to the same price you will find at a BB&B, Williams-Sonoma, etc. The only advantage this method has is the fact that it is delivered to your door. It boils down to a personal choice.

A story I've told before: The city was repairing the street in front of my apartment, and had run the big grinder through, which roughens up the surface so the next layer of asphalt will stick. Whan I saw them lay down the first thin layer, I thought, "crumb coat." The fact that I could make a connection between asphalt and buttercream pretty much says it all...

Any color bell pepper will do. Green is usually the cheapest in the states, and the most prevalent in the garden, which makes them the most popular. But the only real difference is color. And I have issues with the Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice. Plain old long (or short) grain white rice is so easy to make, why mess around with something that will not absorb anything properly? You'll pay more and get less. Get some (my personal favorite) Mahatama, or any other long grain rice, and try a couple of batches. Even if you screw it up, it's only cost you 59 cents. Edited because I've eevidently forgotten how to type.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this cook-off. It's really been enjoyable reading about first-timers experiences with roux. Regarding the next cook-off item, how about a baked item? Specifically a baguette or if you really want to get into it, croissants. It's cheap, it's all about the technique, and I can almost guarantee that not too many have made their own croissant. This would teach a valuable skill, especially for those with fear of the oven. Plus lots of room for variations on the theme.

Hushpuppie Recipe here. Sure they could go with Gumbo. Who's gonna complain! Although I think that I would prefer french bread or hot water cornbread. As for the caviar, it comes from a native sturgeon type fish called the bowfin or chopique (choo-pick) It is remarkably good. I was able to taste it at the Fancy Food Show in SF, and although I have had it many times this was the first time that I have ever been able to compare it to the real deal. It's good. Processed correctly, tastes good, interesting tecture. I would eat it as a stand alone, even though most of the time here you see it as an addtion to something or other. Emeril uses it on alot of stuff as garnish. ← What next, gaspergou in a can?

You're making my brain hurt.... (muttering to self) Change is good. Change is good. Change is good. Change is good. Change is good...

Just as a side note, Blacks sits one block from the Vermilion River. Bayou Teche runs through New Iberia, 20 some odd miles away. But Black's certainly does a good job. Although, in Acadiana, you would have to look hard to find a bad gumbo. The places that don't know how to do it right usually don't stay in business long...

I'd say it could be called Cajun style. I haven't seen venison used like that in gumbo before, but I have used deer sausage.

Andouille is for all intents and purposes smoked sausage, but with bigger chunks of meat and slightly different seasoning. Smoked sausage will work just as well, and the lack of andouille should not be a hindrance to making gumbo. Whatever smoked sausage you can get your hands on will do just fine. I've even been known to make it with turkey smoked sausage for certain friends who have pork issues. It does make a less greasy product, reducing the amount of skimming time. If you have any doubts, spend a couple of more dollars and get some plain old smoked sausage. It will be just fine. Don't let this be a roadblock

Actually, very little garlic is used in traditional Cajun cooking. The garlic comes in as more of a Creole influence. It's New Orleans vs New Iberia. As far as what people put in "Cajun seasoning", I have no idea. Many add sugar, they are too salty, and there's very little depth of flavor. The sauteed trinity plus hot pepper (in whatever amount you choose) plus the proper amount of salt is what they are trying to duplicate. It's hard to do that with something mass marketed that you can shake out of a can. Cajun or Creole does not mean hot. It can, but it does not have to. Depth of flavor is the key, not something that makes your hair sweat. If you are comfortable with that level of heat, go for it. But it's up to the individual. I think that's why you don't often see hot peppers as a whole in a Cajun dish. Prepared pepper sauces or ground pepper, sure. But it's a lot harder to control whole peppers. Edited to add that the heathen part references my wife's hatred of the smell of cooking roux. It does hang around for a while...

So, in a proper gumbo, the trinity should still have some body to them when you sit down to eat? I would assume given the time it takes to make gumbo, they would be throroughly devoid of any guise of their former selves having done their duty for God and country. ← With either kind of roux, or with okra, all vegetable matter should be unrecognizable in the final product. Just little bits of sweet that are slightly more solid than the liquid they float/sink in. Just my way of adding that if you can still tell that the trinity was ever in there texturewise, it needs to simmer some more. edited to add - Or whatever floats your boat.

My gumbo report. First, sorry about the lack/quality of the pictures. My digital camera is MIA, so this was a cheap disposable camera. Fixed as best I could in Photoshop. Last night, the forecast low for Birmingham was 24 degrees. Gumbo weather. As I said before, living with a heathen and having the flu makes for a difficult roux environment. So I had to cheat. I used Tony Chachere's Instant Roux. It worked, but I wanted a slightly darker roux. This was very good gumbo, however. Two of the keys to a good gumbo. The trinity and the rice. The cup with the green things is half celery and half bell pepper. The white is onion. It's the easy way to make sure you have the 2:1:1 ratio right. Here's the before and after on the vegetables. The before is the bottom half. Since I was using instant roux, I tried to render out a bit of fat from the andouille (which really should have been called smoked sausage, but it tasted OK), but got very little, not enough to really sweat the vegetables. So I added a couple tablespoons of butter. Once they were "clear" as my grandmother would say, I deglazed the pan with chicken broth and added water to the level I wanted. Brought to a boil, added the chicken and added the instant roux until the color was right. Like this. What you see in the above pic is the finished product with a little bit of green onions added at the last moment. Those green onions really did look flourescent againt the roux, but they darkened in just a few minutes. Heat was added in the form of Tabasco and a jalapeno pepper sauce I got for Christmas. Served over rice, it made the night a little warmer. Unfortunately, the closeup pics that I took of the cooked down vegetables and the plating did not work. The onion, celery, and bell pepper were cooked down completely. They had no crunchiness whatsoever, and very little color. It is the essence of the Cajun gumbo. Warm, cheap, comforting, and makes the place smell like home. Not a bad thing from a basic brown dish. edited because I can't count.

Hmmm.... One advantage to good crabmeat (again, rare in these parts) is that it doesn't really dry out the way that fish can if you're not careful. Is that the reason you're so adamant, FFR, or another, or do you just feel like fish is a bastardization? ← I grew up on the stuff, had it at least once a week during the winter, and often during the summer. I've never had it with fish, and I can't think of a way that it would make a better gumbo than traditional ingredients. That's not to say that fish has never been added to gumbo. Same with crawfish. I think the delicate flavors of most fish, other than crab, shrimp, and oysters is wasted. It wouldn't reheat well. I think that the flaky texture of cooked fish takes away from the dish, and makes it easier to screw up. Crawfish is too strong of a flavor, and does not play well with roux. It's back to what I said before about not being sure about authenticity vs. the sprit of the dish. I know what I grew up with. I also realize that not many people grew up that way. It's like if you are from Italy and visiting America, then someone takes you to Olive Garden. If you order something there, you'll get the Americanized version of it, certainly not the way Mama made it. My way, learned it at my grandmother's knee, is without fish, and I'll try to steer people away from it. But, yet again, whatever floats yer boat...

Regarding fish - I haven't, and I wouldn't. Once again, I'm speaking for myself. Oysters, crab, and shrimp - absolutely. And I also take back everything I said about instant roux. If you handle it right, it's pretty good. Not quite like the traditional, but darn fine stuff. At least it's another method added to the proceedings.

Waiul.... I'm going for it. I'm making chicken and andouille gumbo. Using the last of the freezer stash of andouille. Please note a couple of things. 1) My wife has somehow misplaced our digital camera. rrrr. I'll be working with a disposable thingy. Pictures should be available by tomorrow. 2) I'm not up to waiting for a roux. So I'm cheating. Tony Chacerie's instant. It'll have to do. Pics and report to follow.