patti

Today I made crawfish etouffee, and may I just say, "Poo-yie! C'est bon!" I made it as simple as possible. I've said in previous posts that I miss the little containers of crawfish fat that used to accompany the 1 lb. packages of crawfish tails when you bought them in the stores. That's where I think all of the good flavor of crawfish etouffee comes from. They don't sell it anymore, but the 2 lbs. I bought recently seemed to have some good fat in the bags of tail meat. I melted one stick of butter and added 2 T. of flour, stirring for about five minutes, not really even waiting for it to change colors before adding my chopped veggies. I let the veggies simmer til almost tender (I had to add a little water midway through), and then I added the crawfish tails. I seasoned with Tony Chachere's once and let it simmer for 10 minutes, gave it a taste and seasoned again. Here it is.

The difference between "Cajun-style" roux and traditional roux is simply the name the vendor has chosen to give it. Ya gotta have a marketing angle, don't you? It's also a locally made, authentically Cajun trademarked product. The so-called instant, powdered rouxs are another marketing angle, aimed at people who are trying to choose 'healthier' foods and want to use less oil in cooking. The flour is toasted and supposedly no oil is needed. Hey, Cajun vendors follow trends, too. They want to cash in on as many markets as they can. Edited to add: Alternatively, it's what FistFullaRoux said.

Just to second, once again, that bit of advice. The stuff ain't just as hot as frying oil can get; it also bonds to whatever it hits, especially skin. It's bad news. ← So, if one is inclined to find jarred roux, where would one find it? Especially in a place like southern California? Not that I would use it but if I need that option, I want to know where I might look. I am thinking of joining this project. ← How 'bout right here: Roux

Kids want their parents to buy cookies, but us parents don't mind buying generous slices of layer cake, like coconut with lemon filling, or chocolate chocolate chocolate.

I went through a phase of over seasoning the food I was cooking. I'm not sure why I lost my touch, but I did. Since then, I've tried to season less, and then if others need to, they can adjust to their taste. It's easy to add after the fact, but once you've overdone it, you're screwed. Also, as my mother got older, she liked less salt, and if she was my guest, I made sure to salt it less than I liked so that she could enjoy it. Everyone else could adjust as needed. One of my bad habits is the use of Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning. I can't seem to stop using it, even if I'm cooking other cuisines. I loves me some Tony's.

I used a dark roux. I'm certainly not dissing Gumbo Z'Herbes itself. I love it. I'm just disssing MY Gumbo Z'Herbes.

What about smoked ham hocks? Is that available to you, torakris? It could work. As others have said before me, there's no hard and fast rule that you MUST have sausage with chicken gumbo. Like FistFullaRoux, I'm torn between arguing for authenticity and using what's available, which is the basis of Cajun cooking. I couldn't help but cringe when one out of state friend reported his substitution of brussels sprouts for okra in his gumbo. Because I don't have a family interested in game gumbos, I make only three: chicken and sausage (andouille or other smoked), seafood (usually shrimp, crab, oyster), and shrimp 'n okra. Of the three I make, shrimp 'n okra gumbo is the only one that includes tomatoes and/or okra. Your mileage may vary. HighChef, John Folse doesn't have a restaurant in Lafayette. He's got Lafitte's Landing in Donaldsonville and I'm not sure what else, but nothing here.

I made gumbo z'herbes once and I probably won't try again. Unlike other gumbos, which improve overnight, my gumbo z'herbes turned into a big ole pot o' greens. NTTTAWT, but that's not what I was after.

I'm not in Vermilion Parish, I'm in the neighboring parish of Lafayette. You've pretty much covered how I like to make shrimp and okra gumbo, and I don't use okra in any other version of gumbo. Smothered okra and tomatoes is also a tasty dish all by itself.

Food Man, beautiful photos of beautifully plated food. You are very creative.

Brooks, I'd perused your gumbo making photos sometime in the recent past, and I was compelled to race over to eBay and search for a drip drop baster roasting pan. I didn't find the exact one up for auction at the time, but I'm still looking (and halfway hoping I never find one, because I don't *need* one). I lust after your pot!

Caribbean Pork from Molly Stevens' All About Braising. Delicious!

About 15 years or more ago, I had the great good fortune to spend about two hours sitting next to Justin Wilson at dinner. I was a speaker at an industry symposium in Baton Rouge and he had been engaged to do the after dinner speech. We were seated on the dais together. Years before, when his comedy albums were selling like crawfish pies, my dad was a huge fan and bought every one that was produced. We got into a discussion about gumbo, partly because he didn't particularly care for the version we had been served. He was doing some further research on gumbo for a series of TV shows on the subject and I told him about The Gumbo Goddess. I did hear that he went and spent a day with her, she was really up in years at the time, but I don't know whatever happened about the TV shows. What a gracious gentleman he was. And he did know his gumbo. I turns out that of all of the wonderful Cajun foods he loved, gumbo was his absolutely gar-ron-teed favorite. So, we are in good company here. ← What I liked most about Justin's cooking show was that it was really, really what people cook and eat down here. Not only what we cook and eat, but also in the same pots most Cajun cooks love, which is Magnalite. However, eGullet sure is making me learn to love other pots <looks at empty pocketbook>. Sigh.

Here's what my roux looked like a few minutes before I added the trinity. It's kind of blurry because I took a one handed pic as quickly as I could while still stirring the pot.

Thanks. Believe me, at the last second I was cussing like a sailor. I thought sure I'd burned it all. Whew!

Here's my chicken and andouille gumbo from a week or two ago. It was very tasty. (Right before snapping the pic, I dropped the camera, the batteries fell out, and I had to spend 20 minutes putting in fresh batteries and re-doing the date on the camera so it would work. In the meantime, the artfully arranged scoop of rice sort of slid into the bowl of gumbo. Sheesh.)

Thanks to this thread, I have been baptized into the religion of Larb, and here's my second offering to the Larb gods: I posted about it on the Thai cooking thread here.

I made larb again, but this time with pork. I think my picture taking skills need work, because this larb was much tastier than the picture looks. I might've used a few too many Thai chiles, but yum, it hurts so good. Both of my local Thai restaurants serve larb with cabbage wedges instead of lettuce, so that is also how I served it (wedges not pictured). The toasted sticky rice I made this time, was MUCH tastier than the regular medium grain white rice I used last time. Or, maybe I toasted it better. Don't know, but will be sure to use sticky rice from now on. Would it be wrong to crosspost this on the larb thread, or at least the picture? I was afraid to post my chicken larb picture there last time because it looked so pink and not right. About the fish sauce. I've now used both Golden Boy (aka Baby) fish sauce and Tiparos and I have no complaints about either. It's all good. Bilrus, that Glass Noodle Salad with Chicken and Shrimp looks scary good.

Upthread I added these 6: Jeffery Alford & Naomi Duguid: Hot Sour Salty Sweet Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook Alton Brown: I'm Just Here for the Food John Folse: The Evolution of Cajun and Creole Cuisine Madhur Jaffrey: Indian Cooking Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Vegetables And a few days later, I asked to remove them from the total, as I'd returned them to Barnes & Noble. Of course, I've now replaced five of them (all but the John Folse one) by ordering from Amazon, and today I purchased 3 more: Mark Bittman: How to Cook Everything Molly Stevens: All About Braising John Uglesich: Uglesich's Restaurant Cookbook Now, have I totally screwed things up? (If it makes it any easier, I retabulated and I'm pretty sure you never subtracted the 6, so that would mean adding only two to the total list.)

Damn, that's where we went wrong. Talk about some tough and crunchy brownies! We figured it out in time for the second ceiling staring batch, though. Taco Bell. Always the perfect munchie, way way back in the day.

Looks great, all red 'n white 'n cheery! I really like the way you've created a pot rack from the Metro (like) shelving. Inspiring.

I really love the appetizing pictures y'all are posting. Susan, that quail looks divine! Yesterday I paid a visit to my local Asian market and was very pleased by the outcome. I asked the shopkeeper a few questions about making larb, specifically which kind of rice she used for toasting, and she got a zip lock bag and made a trip to the back of the store to give me a sample of her sticky rice of choice. It was so sweet of her. Also, she was friendlier and more helpful than she's ever been. I usually feel like she just wants to get me out of the store with my purchases, but not this time. She made my day, as did another customer, who joined in the larb making discussion. On the downside, I asked if they had Tiparos fish sauce (per snowangel's recommendation in another thread, I think) and she pointed it out to me. I'd have never known it was Tiparos because all of the writing (I thought) was in Thai. Once I got home and examined the bottle more carefully, I did find an English ingredient list: Anchovies, brine, sugar. I guess Tiparos makes more than one variety of fish sauce, because I know snowangel specified NO SUGAR. Phooey.

Um. Diet coke IN the cereal? ← Isn't this from Laverne & Shirley? Didn't she have cereal with pepsi or something strange like that...not to say you're strange. ← My grandma would put a little coffee in our rice krispies 'n milk 'n sugar. Sort of a cafe au lait rice krispies. It was good! My faves now are old faithfuls, Frosted Flakes, Raisin Bran, Honey Nut Cheerios, all sans coffee milk.

Oh, my, that looks absolutely delicious!

Varmint, have your in-laws ever said just how this kitchen came to be (from what I've read, I gather that you and your wife bought it from them)? Did it start off this way or was there an add on here and there that created the maze? I love the plans for the new kitchen and am looking forward to watching it evolve.