Has Anyone Ever Made Real Cajun/ Creole Food?

Elisia S on Thu, 4th Feb 2010 1:18 pm 



I am from New Orleans and these are some of the easier creole recipes you can make. Enjoy them.
CHICKEN AND SAUSAGE GUMBO
4 pounds chicken
10 cups chicken broth
1 cup vegetable oil
½ teaspoon thyme
1 cup flour
1 pound smoked sausage, sliced
2 medium onions, chopped
1 pint drained oysters (optional)
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 Tablespoons green onions, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 Tablespoon parsley, chopped
Season the chicken with garlic salt and red pepper. Set aside. In a large pot, make a dark roux by combining flour and oil, stirring constantly. Add bell pepper, onion and celery to the roux and cook until soft (5-6 minutes). Add chicken broth and chicken pieces. Bring to boil, reduce heat to medium, stir in thyme and cook for 1 hour. Add sausage and cook for another hour until chicken tender. Adjust seasoning if needed. Add green onion and parsley. Stir well. Add oysters if you choose to add them (Actually, I usually don’t!)
CREAM OF CRAWFISH SOUP
1 stick butter
½ cup grated onion
½ cup flour
1 pound crawfish tails
½ bunch green onions
2 cups Half and Half
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon red pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in onion and sauté for five minutes. Stir in flour. Cook about 2 minutes until mixture thickens. Add hot chicken stock and stir well. Simmer for 5 minutes stirring constantly.
In a food processor, grind crawfish and green onions. Add to soup base. Mix well and simmer for 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Add Half and Half and cream and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in seasonings and remove pot from heat.
SHRIMP REMOULADE
The Old Roosevelt Hotel’s recipe
2 egg yolks
1 cup Creole mustard
¼ cup vinegar
Juice of 1 lemon
2 cups salad oil
1 bunch minced green onions
½ stalk celery, minced
4 pounds boiled shrimp, peeled, deveined
Blend the egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Slowly add oil, beating constantly. Once thickened, add green onions and celery. Mix sauce with shrimp and refrigerate for 4 hours before serving.
BLACK EYED PEAS
Fresh will be out of season, so look for dried or look in your freeezer section and you may find them frozen by Pic’d Sweet.
2 quarts. water (or chicken broth)
1 # hickory bacon, cut in pieces
1 # smoked sausage, chunked
1 smoked ham hock
2 cups diced onions
¾ cup diced celery
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon thyme
1 Tablespoon sweet basil
4 bay leaves
1 # black eyed peas
3 Tablespoons bacon drippings
Salt and black pepper to taste
6 cups cooked long-grain rice
Rinse the peas well under cold running water and set them aside to drain. In a 5-quart heavy aluminum Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid bring the two quarts of water or broth to a rapid boil. Drop into the water the bacon, smoked sausage and ham hock.
Bring the water to a slow boil and cook the meats for 15 minutes (covered) until they form a rich flavored stock. Stir in the onions, celery, garlic powder, thyme, sweet basil, and bay leaves, cover and cook over medium heat until the vegetables soften —about 15 minutes.
Stir in the black eyed peas and the bacon drippings well, making sure the mixture is uniformly blended. Bring the peas to a boil, but immediately reduce to a simmer, cover and cook until rich and creamy, stirring so they don’t stick. (dried peas take about two hours on a very low fire).
About 20 minutes before serving, sprinkle in the salt and pepper and season the peas to taste. Remember—you already have salt in the bacon as well as in the smoked sausage, so you may not need to add much more.
“Fresh” blackeyed peas, unlike the dried variety, need to be cooked for only 20 to 30 minutes before they are ready to serve.
Serve over rice
JAMBALAYA
This is a great short cut version of jambalaya that uses canned broths and is one of the easiest recipes you will ever make. It is great for pot luck lunches/dinners because it is not expensive to make and serves a lot of people. Just don’t tell my grandma I am taking short cuts!
1 pound sausage
2 pounds peeled shrimp or 3-4 cooked, chopped chicken
1 can Campbell’s beef bouillon
1 can Campbell’s french onion soup
8 ounces tomato sauce
1 stick butter
1 ¼ cups chopped bell pepper
¼ cup chopped green onion
¼ cup chopped parsley
1 pound (orange box) Uncle Ben’s
season to taste
Mix cubed chicken and sliced sausage and all other ingredients in baking pan, bake covered 350 for 1 hour and 15 min. Stir every 15-20 min.
SHRIMP CREOLE
2 pounds peeled/deveined shrimp
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
1 large onion (finely chopped)
1 clove of garlic (chopped)
2 Tablespoons chopped green pepper
1 Tablespoon flour
8 ounces tomato sauce
12- 16 ounces of water
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
thyme
salt and pepper
Heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until soft. Add garlic and green pepper, sauté two minutes. Stir in flour until well blended. Stir in tomato sauce. Simmer for five minutes. Stir in water, thyme, salt, pepper, parsley and shrimp. Simmer covered for 30 minutes. Serve over rice.
And if you want an authentic creole dessert:
Pralines
2 1/4 c sugar
1 c whole milk
3/4 can evap milk
1 heaping c pecans
1 tea vanilla
2 Table butter
Cook sugar, milk, evaporated milk and butter, stirring constantly, over medium heat to soft ball stage. Add vanilla. Slowly add pecans stirring constantly. Cool 15 minutes. Pour 2″ apart on waxed paper and cool.
or
Buttered Pecan Pie
¼ cup unsalted butter
½ cup light corn syrup
¾ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
3 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups toasted pecans
9” pie shell
Preheat oven to 375. In a medium saucepan, heat butter over low heat until it turns golden-amber; do not burn. Immediately pour in cream to stop cooking and pour mixture into a mixing bowl. Blend in brown sugar, salt, corn syrup and vanilla. Beat in eggs by hand until well blended. Stir in pecans.
Pour into shell (crimp edges as high as possible) and cover edges with foil. Bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes or until filling is set and pastry golden. Cool at least 2 hours before serving.
To toast pecans: spread pecans on cookie sheet and bake in 375 degree oven for 5-10 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes.

Halawa on Thu, 4th Feb 2010 3:13 pm 



well I am cajun so I cook cajun food all the time…. what type of recipe are you looking for? email me let me know and I will send you some k

shagee41 on Thu, 4th Feb 2010 5:45 pm 



I’ll help you as much as i can. let me know what kind of recipes you would like. i was born and breed in Cajun country and love to cook. so let clog some arteries

Karisa B on Thu, 4th Feb 2010 7:00 pm 



jambalaya baby…all the way! my recipe is “addicting”, no one has ever not liked it, and it makes enough for a big crowd, so you have to start with an extremely large pot that has a lid.
You can make a quickie version, by browning hot links in a couple TBSP of olive oil. Then add 2 cups (each) of all the following vegetables, chopped finely:
celery, green onions, green peppers, parsley. Sweat the vegetables then add 2 boxes of Zataran’s jambalaya mix, 2 cans of stewed tomatoes any variety and the amount of liquid called for on the mix directions. Liquid can be water, but recipe is enhanced if you use wine or chicken stock instead. Stir and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, turn down heat to medium low and cover and cook for at least 30 minutes. During this time, I peel and devein a pound or two of fresh prawns and thinly slice a couple of chicken breasts. Once the rice is tender and cooked through as above, I add the chicken and shrimp and stir well. Heat through, but only until chicken and shrimp are no longer pink. I am not kidding you, people will swarm over this, it serves about 12, Remember BIG PAN!!!! with snug cover.
Serve with garlic french bread and a salad…

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