shellfishfiend
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Posts posted by shellfishfiend
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I've been wondering about the pea relish myself. Granddaddy loved chow chow, and taught me to scoop it up with the bacon, and follow with a spoon of peas. But I get the impression that the pea relish would be red. Chow is based upon green tomatoes.
Any other insights shellfishfiend? Is it a ketchup, or is there more of a texture?
Racheld's description sounds close. There might have been some cloves in it. I don't remember pickling spices. The texture was a little like slightly runny jam. It was a dark, brown-red color. It had a strong flavor. My momma, who loves peas, hates it. My daddy and my husband can't get enough of it.
I wish I could find a recipe so I could tell you exactly what was in it.
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Purple hull peas are our favorite. They really need a fresh sliced tomato and sliced cantaloupe on the side becasue that is what my grandmother always served with hers.
I cook mine long and slow, at least an hour. I also hate machine shelled peas. They are too mushed.
Growing up, my grandparents had a huge garden and always grew some peas. During pea season, my great aunts would come over and all the women would gather in the living room with paper bags for the shells and big bowls for the peas and we would watch sopa operas and visit. By the time the bushel or two was shelled, I would have purple fingers and new, wonderful family stories.
We often put pea relish on our peas. It is tomato based and is kind of sweet and sour. Good but hard to find unless you know someone who cans their own.
That relish sounds like "Chow Chow".
No, the flavor profile might be similar, but not chow chow. There is tomato, sugar, vinegar, maybe a little pepper and garlic. It is cooked down and is thick and dark.
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Purple hull peas are our favorite. They really need a fresh sliced tomato and sliced cantaloupe on the side becasue that is what my grandmother always served with hers.
I cook mine long and slow, at least an hour. I also hate machine shelled peas. They are too mushed.
Growing up, my grandparents had a huge garden and always grew some peas. During pea season, my great aunts would come over and all the women would gather in the living room with paper bags for the shells and big bowls for the peas and we would watch sopa operas and visit. By the time the bushel or two was shelled, I would have purple fingers and new, wonderful family stories.
We often put pea relish on our peas. It is tomato based and is kind of sweet and sour. Good but hard to find unless you know someone who cans their own.
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A big pot of spicy boiled gulf shrimp, with corn, potatoes and mushrooms. Lots of cold beer on the side.
Like petite tête de chou, I plan on being really skinny when I get off that island, with the need to fatten up. And I hope I have a great tan. Nothing pairs as well with boiled shrimp as a great tan.
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My husband was down in south Louisiana last week working and brought back 4 lbs. of huge, head-on fresh shrimp. I couldn't believe the price. $4 a lb. We boiled them up that night and they were divine. He laughs at me becasue I say fresh head-on shrimp is " a whole 'nother kind of good." I love Louisiana shrimp. Nothing else like it.
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What??? No mention of Blue Plate mayo???? It's *the* mayonnaise of New Orleans, where the per-capita consumption of mayo is probably highest in the world.
I believe Racheld has Blue Plate on the top shelf of her refrigerator!
MMM-HMMM I do!!! Just looked back in on this, and had a look at the label---made by Reilly Foods in New Orleans. If you got any more Southern, you'd need a snorkel to keep from drowning in the Gulf.
I'd also forgotten to mention that I did learn, years ago, to make "dinner plate" mayo, with a fork. It was my own Mammaw's recipe, with an egg yolk, dry mustard, some white or tarragon vinegar, a dash of salt, beaten with plain old "Wesson Oil"---which is, of course, one word where I come from. "Wessinoahl"---the frying, mayo-making, poppyseed dressing whirling, be-all, end-all of the gourmet market of the 60's and 70's South.
You just tilt that plate, throw in the egg and a little sift of the McCormick dry mustard (somehow that's been a standby in kitchens all across the South---kitchens which otherwise boasted no more daring a seasoning than ground cinnamon for the sweet tater pie---and grocery-store McCormick took over when the Watkins man retired from his weekly route).
Dash of salt, slurp of vinegar---tarragon (tare'-gun) especially prized for its exotic nature all around. It's nice to have a friend to help; otherwise you have to prop the plate on a high-folded towel to have one hand free for pouring the oil, which is rightfully poured from the one-cup Pyrex with the red lettering, part of a three-piece set native to every Southern woman's dowry, along with three dozen embroidered pillowslips and the nesting bowls.
Drip drip drip, then thread, then, as it thickens, more volume, more vigorous beating, clanging that fork onto the china like a roundup dinnerbell. And some kind of magic happens; it begins with the first stirring, using the unknown principles of cling and surface tension and centrifugal force or some such, and somehow, nothing escapes that plate; not a drop is lost.
When it's at its perfect fluffiness, with all or most of the oil absorbed---don't be persnickety about getting in the last drop; whole makings have been lost trying to even up the damage done by over-oiling an already-perfect mixture. You just KNOW when.
THEN. Lay the plate down flat and pick up that nice halved sweet onion you've got waiting. Hold it sorta diagonal up several inches from the plate of mayo, and scrape a sharp little knife across the cut surface, counting the drops as they fall from the edge. Exactly ten. No more, no less. Stir them in thoroughly, pinky-tip a teensy blob into your mouth, and check for seasoning. Perfect.
Scrape it into a pretty little bowl and serve alongside some thick, perfect tomato slices, or a nice wedge of tangy aspic (especially a Blood Mary one), or on a gelled Waldorf. Spread it onto crust-cut bread, lay on some watercress or thin pink curls of Co-Cola baked ham or smoked salmon and roll into little cigarettes.
Make a still-warm 'mater sandwich with a big red round one, right off the vine. Set that bowl out on a lace tablecloth and call it good.
My Mammaw's kitchen forks were like a four-fingered hand---the pinky-tine on one side beaten half-an-inch-shorter than the other three by constant banging against a plate, whipping up that Sunday mayonnaise.
Mayo-You are telling a simple story about making mayo and you do it in a way that transports me back to my gramma's kitchen. Gramma is not in her kitchen, or her house, anymore, but you take me back with the magical way you write. Thank you.
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Sadly, crawfish season is almost over. Here, we should be able to buy them till July 4. They are down to 99 cents a pound at one or two places, if you buy a 30-40 lb. sack. However, a few weeks ago we paid $1.79 a pound for a sack of the smallest crawfish I have ever seen. I big rip-off. For our big boil back at the end of April, we paid $1.69 a pound for select and they were beautiful.
The place we buy them cooked from every week charges $2.99 a pound and I don't mind paying it since they are large and seasoned better than anywhere else I have ever eaten them besides my own back yard.
Prices did stay higher longer this year before the drop, and still didn't drop across the baord like they usually do.
The only thing that would make crawfish season better in my opinion, is if it occured at the same time as football season.
I posted about this in the southeast board for Atlanta. We went to get some bugs and the market didn't get their shipment. But if they did have them it would have cost $1.75/lb by the sack. there is a place that is selling them cooked here named Boudreaux's for $3.99/lb and they were tiny. I suspect maybe frozen chinese bugs.
We ended up buying a 50lb case of 12-14ct head on shrimps for $5.50/lb instead.
We were gonna boil something!
Where are you at in LA? My friends and I always stop in Slidell on the way back to ATL and pick up 20-50 lbs. and some poboys too. We also like to get some community Ice Teas and Barq's in the bottle. You can't find that stuff up here.
I am in Shreveport. A lot of crawfish gets eaten here during the season. Mudbug Madness, a yearly festival on Memorial Day weekend, sees 80,000 pounds boiled.
That is a good price you got on those shrrimp. I love head on shrimp and can't find them often around here, although I can get good gulf shrimp. My husband works in south Louisiana a lot and I often have him carry an ice chest so he can bring back head on shrimp.
I kind of feel like crawfish are going to be like gas...the prices we paid a couple of years ago will probably never be seen again.
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Sadly, crawfish season is almost over. Here, we should be able to buy them till July 4. They are down to 99 cents a pound at one or two places, if you buy a 30-40 lb. sack. However, a few weeks ago we paid $1.79 a pound for a sack of the smallest crawfish I have ever seen. I big rip-off. For our big boil back at the end of April, we paid $1.69 a pound for select and they were beautiful.
The place we buy them cooked from every week charges $2.99 a pound and I don't mind paying it since they are large and seasoned better than anywhere else I have ever eaten them besides my own back yard.
Prices did stay higher longer this year before the drop, and still didn't drop across the baord like they usually do.
The only thing that would make crawfish season better in my opinion, is if it occured at the same time as football season.
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10/10, but I have actually seen a few of those pieces when browsing in antique stores with my mom and grandma. Utensils today certainly do multitask.
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Thanks for the great report. We always try one or two new places when we are in LAfayette, but we always compare them to Don's Seafood Hut and it comes out on top. It is one of our all time favorites.
Poor Boy's Riverside Inn sounds really good. I checked out the menu online and it will be on our list the next time we head down there.
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Just wanted to add a funny story I heard yesterday while visiting with family. My mother and uncle were thnking back on the wonderful fried chicken my grandmother used to make. A few Sundays every month, she would fry chicken after church and serve it with what seemed like gallons of purplehull peas, mashed potaoes and gravy.
My mom never fried much, but periodicly through the years tried to get her fried chicken to taste like her moms—to no avail. Finally, they were in the kitchen together once when my mom was frying chicken and lamenting to my grandmother that she had to be missisng something because her fried chicken never tasted like my gramma's.
My grandmother watched her for a few minutes and then said she was missing something—patience.
Nobody fried chicken like my gramma did. The stuff dreams are made of.
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I live in Louisiana and very few homes have basements. I have always wanted a root cellar and am envious of those of you who have them. There is something so old fashioned and romantic about them (in my mind). If anyone wants to post pics, I would love to drool over them.
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I don't know anything about the fiber slices but will have to try them if I can find them here.
I have never tried dried squid, but I feel certain someone here can help with recommendations.
As for the nori strips, I love them and can empty a container in no time. I like them straight out of the container, but have also eaten them shredded on rice and on top of cold soba noodles. They have really great umami, and sense I know you love cheese, I think you will love those.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but let us know what you think about the products.
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My husband and I married very young. We were so poor we didn't take a honeymoon until five years later (and we could barley afford that). We went to Cozumel, Mexico with four of my husbands friends. Most nights we did the group club thing. But one night, my husband and I went out alone for a special meal. We thought this was very extravagent as the resort was all inclusive.
We went to this lobster place on the beach. Candles in conch shells, low lights, light music. The sun was just setting and the dining room was open to the beach. There was lightening way off on the water and the stars started peeking out. Then, a huge old schooner (sp.) drifts by.
I walked over to the iced bin where they had the fresh lobster tails and picked one that cost four times what I normally spent on a meal. My husband did the same. They prepared our lobsters in our choosen methods and served them with a flourish. It was so different from the one or two lobsters I had eaten at Red Lobster
I even got to have a baked potato, something that I had trouble finding in Cozumel. (I really love baked potatoes.) The whole experience was magical and I still think of it. Four years later, we went back with our best freinds. Same amazing feeling and best of all, we got to share it with others.
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I often buy flour on sale and freeze it. I have never noticed a problem. Now I don't bake bread, so I don't know how freezing would affect flour used for bread.
I have only frozen cooked rice, never tried freezing it raw. I also freeze nuts and have really good luck with keeping those for a much longer period than they would last outside the freezer.
A bonus to freezing flour is that you don't have to worry about bugs.
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Dots candy and pickled okra.
With the Dots, I squish each one until it is soft and flat and will eat half the box in no time flat. At that point, I have been known to tape or staple the box shut to keep me out of it. Of course, I will later break through the tape or staples and finish the box and feel really sick from the sugar.
I have loved pickled okra since I was a child. My mom didn't buy it often as it was kinda pricey and I would eat the whole jar in one sitting. They are such small undersized jars.
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John Folse lists it as 7 different greens but if by any chance you can get head on shrimp, boil the heads for 20-30 minutes for a great quick stock that will also give you some great color.
The odd number is traditionally very important and I believe that it goes way back to when the catholics prohibited meat on every friday not just during lent. As it is now, lent just means that you are "forced" to eat crawfish on fridays. We sure got it bad in LA.
Thanks Graham. I had been wondering about a seafood version of this soup since I recall seeing somewhere recipes for various West African soups featuring some type of greens and the inclusion of either fish, crab, shrimp, crawfish or even some type of local dried or smoked fish. I can't recall whether or not this version originates in Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, or more likely each country in that part of the world has it's own version.
What jumps out at me in reviewing the various recipes for this soup is the non-inclusion of okra. I thought that one of the "rules" of gumbo is that it always contains okra, which is one my favorite
vegetables. Actually I think adding a few slices of tender, young okra near the end of the cooking process might be quite tasty indeed.I bet okra would be really good in a Gumbo Z'Herbes. None of my recipes call for it. In "Cajun-Creole Cooking," Terry Thompson includes oysters. Haven't made it, but I would imagine the oysters pair really well with the greens. Most gumbo recipes that don't include okra call for adding file powder at the end of cooking or to individual servings. Thompson's recipe calls for stirring it in at the end. File goes really well with greens (IMO). Thompson's recipe also calls for ham and pork, so I guess it wouldn't really work for Lent.
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Boiled peel and eat, head-on gulf shrimp
Boiled crawfish (spicy and heavy on the lemon)
Steamed king crab legs
Tuna sashimi
Baby octopus salad
And, either a bowl of steamed Japanese rice, or a perfectly baked potato with s and p and hot sauce
And all the corona I can drink
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I've never tried it that way but would love to. I eat miso soup for lunch often and would love having a dashi supply in the refrigerator. Let us know when you have the amounts of raw ingredients.
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Your question got me thinking and I think I will try file in my next batch of red beans and rice. I often also do white beans and rice, both with sausage. I think the herbal qualities of file might go nicely with the mild taste of the beans.
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My husband has always said he didn't like cauliflower. He didn't think it had any flavor. Well, it shouldn't suprise anyone here that after eating roasted cauliflower, he has become a convert. "Wow, this has so much flavor," he said.
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My father swears that triangular tortilla chips taste better than round trotilla chips. They can be made by the same company, with the same type of cornmeal and with the same best by date. He will still say the trinagular one tastes better-not that he prefers it-but that it tastes better.
Mind you, the man will eat just about anything put in front of him, so he does not refuse to eat the rounds. Maybe not neurotic, but quirky.
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Very clever. I never realized sausage making was so full of anxiety inducing problems.
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Just got back from a weekend trip to Lafayette. Great food was the mian reason for the trip (okay-the only reason.)
The first night we ate at Don's Seafood Hut. It was as wonderful as usual. It was 7:30 on a Friday during Mardi Gras, but we called ahead and only had to wait 25 minutes. The raw oysters were cold and briny. Very good. They did have a lot of shell in them, though. Husband got the friend alligator and loved it. For mains, we both got boiled crawfish. Very very good. The were decent sized for this time of year and had a good spice to them. They were firm and not mushy at all.
For lunch, we decided to try Tsunami on Jefferson Street. I am so glad we did. We don't have very good sushi here in Shreveport and it is always a treat to find a good place when we travel. We sat at the bar and Leon was our sushi chef. He was fabulous. We had sashimi and nigiri (great octopus) and a few rolls. We also had one of the best, most refreshing, sunomono salads I have ever had. They have real, groud wasabi and it was great. I do think they did something to preserve it though. It was so much better than powdered. He threw in a few baby octopus with one of my rolls and won all kinds of points with me since I love baby octopus. If they had been on the menu I would have ordred them. The space is very cool and loft-like. We will be back.
Saurday night we tried a new place, Randol's. They have live music and a dance floor. I had raw oysters again and my husband had the crawfish bisque. The oysters were the best of the trip. Perfectly shucked and the delightful coombination of sweet and briny. We ordered crawfish again. They were small, not very spicy and very soft. They say they steam their seafood instead of boiling and maybe that makes them softer. I ate them all, but Don's was better by a mile. My husband's bread pudding was "okay."
I would recommend this place for the music, cold beer and oysters. Not so much for the food.
For lunch our final day, we went to the Original Don's Seafood. We have a branch of this family-run business in Shreveport. They are reliable. Most anyone could find something they liked here. I had oysters again. They were sweet and shucked pretty well. My husband had really good fried soft shell crabs and I had boiled shrimp. They don't over cook shrimp here so they get extra points from me for that.
While down there, we managed to go by Hebert's in Maurice and bought 11 stuffed chickens. That place is always so busy and I know why. Really, if you are in the area, you should stop by.
We also went by Poupart's Bakery. My parents bought some of their basil bread years ago and wanted more. The bakery is charming and the bread is great. It looks like a thick crust perosnal pizza. Try the olive.
It was a great trip and I am ready to go back. Thank heavens crawfish seson is fianlly here.
Gumbo, Jambalaya, Etouffee, Creole...
in Louisiana: Cooking & Baking
Posted
This is from my favorite cajun cookbook, Cajun-Creole Cooking by Terry Thompson.
I am not sure of the rules of posting cookbook recipes, so I will give an approximation.
Saute corn kernels (fresh or 2 cans whole kernel canned), large onion, garlic, and bell peppers in bacon drippings until wilted and slightly browned. Stir often. Add 2 chopped tomatoes (peeled), salt, pepper, a touch of sugar and cayenne. Stir to combine and add 1 cup of chicken stock. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid has evaporated. Turn heat up a little and add 1 cup of milk. She then calls for adding 2 beaten eggs and cooking till thick. I never add the eggs. I bet cream instead of milk would be good too.
PM me if you need more detail.
Okra and tomatoes are a popular cajun dish and the main ingredients are in season right now (if you can find okra where you live).