Cajun Archives - The FrangloSaxon Cooks

Andouille Stuffed Pumpkin

October 26, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Hog butchering and pumpkin picking both happen in autumn and what better way to celebrate great ingredients than combining them in an andouille stuffed pumpkin.

I’ve made this every fall for years and have tried all kinds of stuffings but these are the ingredients that seem to accent the pumpkin with true Louisiana flavors.

And there are only ingredients – no measurements – since the amount of the stuffing will depend on the size of the pumpkin. So the first order of the day is to get a compact little pumpkin, in this case about three pounds, which should yield approximately four slices and then some tart fall apples and herbs for the stuffing.

The first order of business is to cut a hole in the top big enough to extract the seeds and attached strings. And don’t toss the seeds. You can save and toast them for snacking.

Now slice the andouille into rounds and saute till they start to color up. Remove and blot the rendered fat. Then cut them into quarters and dump them into a big bowl and add to taste celery, garlic, bell pepper and onion that has been sauteed in some butter. When you’re dicing the celery use the leaves if you have them since they are packed with flavor. Next add the croutons, diced apple, and the thyme and finally some salt, pepper, dash of cayenne, and a little grated nutmeg to the heavy cream and pour it into the pumpkin till it comes up almost to the top. You want to leave some space up there since the croutons will expand a bit in cooking.

The amounts of onion, celery, and garlic vary according to the size of the pumpkin, but for this three pounder I used about a heaping tablespoon of each.

Put it in a 350 degree oven and started checking it at the hour and a half mark. Depending on how firm you like the pumpkin you might want to remove it then or let it go another thirty minutes or so. Just keep checking by lightly pressing the outside or by seeing if you can pierce it with a fork.

If you’re serving it by itself you might want to put it in a bowl as I did below and attack it with a spoon. It keeps all the delicious stuffing on top preventing your less health conscious family members from noticing that they’re eating something that’s really good for them!

The last piece….R.I.P…..(and you can see some of the toasted pumpkin seeds made a nice garnish for the leftovers.)

Andouille Stuffed Pumpkin

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Cajun

Ingredients

1 Pumpkin
Andouille (or other sausage of your choice) sliced into rounds
Onion or Scallions, finely diced
Garlic, finely diced
Celery, finely diced
Bell Pepper, finely diced
Croutons (or cubed herb stuffing)
Tart Apple, peeled & diced
Thyme
Heavy Cream
Nutmeg
Cayenne

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.
Cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin and remove the stem. Cut the strings off the bottom of the stem end and set aside.
Using a serving spoon, thoroughly scrape out the insides and then add some salt & pepper.
Finely dice the onion, garlic, bell pepper, and celery and saute in a little butter or oil until slightly softened, about 2 or 3 minutes.
Put in a bowl and add the croutons, diced peeled apple, and thyme.
Saute the the sliced rounds of andouille until lightly brown, remove, blot grease and cut up. Add to the bowl with the other ingredients and give it a good stir.
Spoon it into the pumpkin's cavity leaving a little space at the top.
Add some nutmeg, cayenne, and salt to the heavy cream and pour it into the pumpkin. The cream can be a little below the top since it will bubble up while cooking.
Place the stuffed pumpkin in a greased or parchment lined pan, put the stem end back on top and cook till the pumpkin is soft, about and hour and a half.

Notes

A good alternative to the sausage rounds is to use loose sausage or remove the sausage from its casing, crumble it and saute.
Use croutons made from dense breads that have been well toasted, Pepperidge Farm loose or cubed stuffing is good. If you're using your homemade croutons don't use ones made from a soft white or egg bread as they will go slimy on you.
An alternative filling would be substituting slightly under cooked rice for the croutons.
You can use fresh or dried thyme just remember that it's powerful so don't use too much.
If you decide to use the seeds you'll notice that they're covered with slimy strings. To destring and deslime them just rinse them in a pan then dump them in a salad spinner and they will be ready to toast in a pan on the stove or in the oven.

Bastille Day Brisket

July 20, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Brisket, Fourth of July and Bastille Day all sort of merged together in my childhood mind. Fourth of July always included the obvious picnic but Bastille Day was my grandmother’s birthday and my aunt used to fix brisket for the family members who’d be dropping by during the day. Her version was one of those less common types that had no bbq sauce or catsup. She died before I could ask her how she made it, but I was confident that I could recreate it through trial and error.

My first assay at Mt. Brisket contained all the things that I liked and thought would enhance the meat. I’d had some wonderful coffee dusted fajitas in Texas so a shot of strong coffee went in. Her original brisket had had a sweet flavor so I added some cane syrup and the usual garlic, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke and bay leaf. I put all this in the blender with some vegetable oil, poured it over the brisket, and waited for the magic to happen.

The first indication of trouble in paradise was the slightly sour smell emanating from the oven. I assumed (incorrectly) that something had bubbled over and was burning on the bottom. After hours of low temp braising I took my masterpiece out and removed the cover.

Ever had a crawfish boil, dumped the shells in the garbage and it’s a week in the heat before garbage pick up? Remember what that smelled like? Well, this smelled almost as bad. Not rotting bad, but real sour and off bad. I couldn’t figure it out. After all, the ingredients were so good but they seemed to have had a weird negative synergy going on. Kinda like a divorce between really nice people. Everyone thinks, but they were so great – what happened? You’ll never know. And I still don’t know why coffee/syrup/spice brisket was so bad but it was. I even tried rinsing it off…hah!…it laughed in my face. The sour foulness had penetrated too deeply.

What to do? No original recipe. Memory and creativity had clearly failed. I just wanted good brisket and I was now ready to steal.

Enter Marcelle Bienvenu, Gulf Coast Goddess of cuisine. Did she have a catsup free marinade? Yes she did. And I took it as a good omen that hers also came from an aunt. My only real changes to it were substituting butter for margarine, parsley for basil and adding a bay leaf.

Best of all it neither smells nor tastes like sour shellfish garbage!

So make your marinade:

Pour it over your brisket:

Braise for forever, et voila!

Bastille Day Brisket

Author: Carine Clary

Recipe type: Beef

Cuisine: Cajun

Serves: 4

Ingredients

3 to 4 lbs. brisket
1 cup butter, melted
⅓ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup orange juice
3 medium cloves garlic, smashed
1 tsp. coarse ground black pepper (plus a small amount to sprinkle directly on the brisket)
¼ tsp. cayenne
2 tsps. liquid smoke
½ tsp. powdered bay leaf (or one crushed bay leaf)
2 tablespoons minced parsley

Instructions

Lay brisket in a glass or non reactive pan. Leave the fat cap on and salt and pepper it well.
Melt butter then add orange juice, soy sauce, liquid smoke, garlic, pepper, bay leaf and cayenne and mix well. Pour over brisket, cover and marinate for several hours or overnight in the fridge.
Bake covered at 250 till it is easily pierced by a fork, probably several hours, but this can vary. Count on at least 3 hours.
Remove the brisket from the gravy and slice off the fat.
Strain the gravy and refrigerate for several hours or until the fat congeals at the top. Remove the fat.
Taste the juices. They will probably be too tart. This is where you improvise. I usually add some white sugar and/or tomato paste, but remember, you're just looking to smooth out the tartness a bit not eliminate it. After you've perfected the flavor, reduce the sauce by boiling. You can thicken it by dissolving a teaspoon of cornstarch in an equal amount of water and stirring that into the sauce and letting it boil a bit longer.

Notes

This recipe easily doubles or triples for larger groups. However the marinade doesn't scale down for smaller pieces of brisket. That means that even if there is only 1.5 lbs of meat (about the smallest brisket you'll find) it will still need the full amount of marinade.

To Texify or New Mexify this recipe just drop in a smoked chili.

Crawfish Monica

April 29, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

What says Jazz Fest to you right after the music? The food! And besides the smoked turkey wings and gumbo what says it the most? Crawfish Monica. So if you can’t make it to the food tent consider your kitchen your very own tent and make it like this.

Invented on a whim by chef Pierre Hilzim and named after his wife Monica, Crawfish Monica was born in the 80s and is now served at Jazz Fest and available to order from their company Kajun Kettle.

My version is very similar but since I also love fennel in all its forms I decided to add it and it’s good (if you like fennel.)

I also did a version with leeks instead of green onions but the taste wasn’t different enough to warrant the trouble and expense of the leeks so it was back to green onions. The only other variation was the use of lemon juice only instead of wine and lemon juice. If you have wine by all means use it but the lemon serves well. And one other thing – I like lots of crawfish so I only use half a pound of the rotini instead of the whole box, but you can always add more if you need or want to stretch it.

To get started you will chop up all the choppable items including the root of the fennel bulb as you see below:

There’s a hard part at the base that needs to be removed, the rest you just chop into small pieces so it will cook quickly. You’ll want to keep the feathery top for garnish and extra flavor.

Once the veg has softened add the cream, spices and crawfish (I get the bagged kind) and set it aside to let the flavors meld while you boil the pasta. I use rotini because it’s traditional and those little kinks hold the sauce well. However, it’s also great for parties while eating on the hoof since you can eat it with a spoon like this:

So happy listening & Crawfish Monica eating during this latest Jazz Fest season!

Crawfish Monica

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Creole Italian

Ingredients

For the sauce:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup sliced green onions (white part, reserve green tops)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 diced fennel bulb (retain tops)
½ cup chopped parsley
1 tsp. ground fennel
1 tsp. ground thyme
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
¼ cup lemon juice, scant (or half lemon juice/half white wine)
2 cups heavy cream
1 lb. crawfish meat tail meat
1 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, civided, half for sauce, half for topping
For the Pasta:
½ lb. Rotini

Instructions

For the sauce:
In a large pot melt the butter and add the green onions, garlic, and fennel. Cook over medium heat until softened but not brown, about 5 to 7 minutes.
Add parsley, ground spices, salt and red pepper flakes and cream.
Stir in crawfish meat with the fat and gradually add the lemon juice tasting it along the way. You may prefer a little less than ¼ cup.
Once the crawfish is heated through add the cheese.
For the pasta:
Boil the rotini in salted water according to package directions, let drain for several minutes and add to the sauce.
To serve:
Place in serving dish or individual bowls and add reserved parsley & cheese to taste.

Soup Maque Choux

June 17, 2016 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Maque Choux is the traditional south Louisiana dish that lets you eat your way through all the corn, bell peppers, and tomatoes that summer generously provides. Sauteed in a little bacon fat and cooked down in chicken broth it’s a side dish that even the vegetable phobic will like. In short, if your backyard vegetable garden looks like the Little Shop of Horrors this will give you an incentive to harvest and cook.

My original thought was to post the traditional recipe minus the weirder modern accretions like toasted sesame oil, heavy cream and jalapenos. Ideally be prepared with ingredients already in your garden or kitchen. Once you’ve picked or bought them it’s time to start making the Soup Maque Choux. The idea for transforming it into a soup came to mind in mid prep and it turned out to be a good one. I went for a light base (no heavy cream) but with plenty of veg to make it filling.

To start you need to roast the corn which I did in the oven. Just rinse or soak the unshucked cobs for a minute and lay them directly on the rack in a medium oven. No need to wrap in foil, the damp shuck will provide enough cover to steam. If anyone nearby has the bbq pit fired up you could throw the cobs on for some extra flavor. After about 30 minutes they’ll come out looking like this after which you’ll cut the kernels off and transfer to a bowl.

While the corn is roasting (wherever it is roasting), throw the bacon in a big soup pot and cook until brown. Remove & set aside. Then add the butter and throw in all the veg you’ve chopped (except for the tomato) and saute for over medium heat for five minutes or so.

Next add the flour and stir in well. When that’s done gradually add half the chicken broth and half the corn kernels.

Stir to incorporate and then for the last step dump the remaining chicken broth into a blender with the rest of the corn. Puree the hell out of it and put a strainer over the pot and pour. Press down and try to extract as much corn goodness as you can out of the broth before you toss the remains. Add the seasonings, stir well and cover. You should let it bubble over low heat for at least twenty minutes but it can go for longer.

To serve ladle it into the bowl and mound the fresh chopped tomato in the middle with the crispy bacon on top. Anoint with paprika or cayenne or both and be sure and position your head directly above the bowl as there will be drips as you slurp your way to the bottom.

Soup Maque Choux

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Cajun & Southern

Ingredients

4 ears of corn
2 rashers of bacon
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
½ cup onion, diced
½ cup green bell pepper, diced
½ cup red bell pepper, diced
4 cups chicken broth (canned or homemade, if canned, use 2 cans)
2 inch piece of thyme or ½ tsp. dried
salt & cayenne pepper to taste
several gratings of nutmeg
1 bay leaf
1 cup diced tomatoes for garnishing

Instructions

Soak the partially shucked corn in water and place in a 350 oven for 20 minutes.
While the corn is cooking cut the bacon into small pieces, place in a pot over medium heat and fry until brown.
Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and add butter then stir in onion and bell pepper.
Add flour & cook for a minute then gradually add chicken broth.
When the corn is cooked cut the kernels off of 2 ears.
Put one can (2 cups) of chicken broth into a blender, add the corn and puree.
Put a strainer over the soup pot and add. Discard the contents of the strainer.
Add the remaining two cups of broth and cut corn, season to taste, cover and let simmer on low for 20 to 30 minutes.
Garnish with diced tomato and serve.

Notes

If you have some bird's eye peppers feel free to slice one and drop in the pot.