IT'S EDIBLE - random recipe thread

I'm a huge top chef fan. Have been since season 1.

 

Cajun titan rocks!

Another great crawfish recipe! Soon we'll have enough for an official gotitans cookbook!

I love the use of canned soup in recipes. Makes it so easy that way. Damn that's a great recipe!

Check out emeril's recipe for crawfish cardinale in puff pastry. I think you will like that. Crawfish cardinale originated at Galatoire's and has some similarities to your recipe except emeril adds tomato to his. A book i have doesn't have tomato but all cardinale recipes have some cognac or brandy.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_22149,00.html

I bet yours tastes as good as those other recipes or better.

Could you use lady fingers for your recipe?

Also do you cajun folks ever use nutmeg or cloves in cream based recipes like that?

 

Lady fingers as in Tiramisu lady fingers? If that is what you are talking about I don't think that will work. The rolls we use (Pistolettes) have a kind of soft doughy center with a crisp outside. They are also usually dusted with corn mill or sesame seeds. I guess you could do it with almost any kind of crispy outside roll. I don't know if a soft roll would hold up, but you could give it a try. I've included a picture

I've never used, or know of anyone using nutmeg and cloves in their food, but it could happen.



More recipes to come!

 

Here is a salad. Not cajun, but good all the same!

I like to bring this salad to office parties and other functions that I have to bring food to. It is easy and is really good.

Salad

1 bag of coleslaw mix
1 cup of slivered almonds
1 cup of sunflower seeds
1 bunch green onions chopped
2 packs of ramen noodles crushed (chicken flavor, save flavor packs for dressing)

Dressing

½ cup of canola oil
½ cup of sugar
1/3 cup of white vinegar
2 flavoring packs from ramen noodle


Mix all of the salad ingred. together is a large salad bowl. Make dressing in a separate container and refrigerate. Pour over salad and toss just before serving.

 

The gold standard

Back in 1977 two great things happend. First, I entered this world at 12:30 pm Sunday July 3rd.:ha: Second The Junior League of Lake Charles published a 448 page cookbook call "Pirate's Pantry." This Junior League patitioned the fine fokes of SW LA for their favorite recipes. They assemble all of these family handed down recipes and put them in a book. If you are interested in cajun cooking this book is the one to own. It is actually a gift that everyone from our area gets as a wedding gift. I don't know a single person that doesn't own this book. They sell it at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Pantry-Treasured-Southwest-Louisiana/dp/0882898655

It kind of funny if you read the reviews you see that most of the reviewers are on their second book because they use it so much that the first one fell apart.

 

Ordering my copy now..

Got it in the cart and will have it sent soon. I own a dozen louisiana cookbooks and this one might be the best yet. Sounds like a fantastic book. I have that cotton county book they show on that page and a jackson mississippi book that is similarly produced from local people. Both are excellent.

If i can't find a roll that will hold up to your crawfish recipe i'll just put it in puff pastry kind of like a crawfish pie. I'm sure you have a recipe for that also.


Nice crunchy asian salad recipe..

 

Fast Creole red beans & sausage..

This is the exact recipe we used in our restaurant. Not super hot and i used a very mild hot sauce(texas peete) to suit the columbia tennessee palate. I worked a lot on this recipe for taste, cost and convenience. A fellow who has been to louisiana many times told me this recipe was the best he every tasted and that he has had red beans in many restaurants in and around new orleans. He didn't even realize they were canned beans. I'm not making this up!

Unlike traditional red beans which require an over night soak and 3 hours cooking with a ham bone this can be made start to finish in one hour. serves 8..

8 cans red beans(Drained and rinsed with water)

1 lb 'hot' breakfast sausage.

1/2 lb bacon cut into little pieces

10 polish sausages

Trinity diced fine(2 onions-1 bell pepper- 4 celery stalks)


2/3 cup ketchup

3 tablespoons Worcestershire

1 1/2 tablespoon hot sauce

1 tablespoon seasoning salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

2 bay leaves(remove before eating..


Cook bacon, and hot sausage until bacon turns brown breaking up sausage with a spoon. Pour off 1/2 of the fat into a frying pan. Add veggies and 2 of the polish sausages diced up and saute until veggies are very soft. Then add remaining ingredients including beans and simmer with the lid closed for one hour. About 45 minutes into the cooking take a spoon or potato masher and mash up about half the beans.

While beans are cooking take the remaining 8 polish sausages and heat them in microwave for 2 minutes and then fry them until crisp on the outside with the fat you just drained. You can if you wish add remaining fat in frying pan back into beans.

The beans should be very moist but if they get a bit dry add water to them. they will keep very well in a slow cooker.

Serve by putting a cup of white rice in middle of plate and pouring the beans around it. Place a polish sausage on top of rice and garnish with parsley and paprika. I like to roll the sausage in some more hot sauce before plating.

At home i would use a better quality smoked sausage and a hotter sauce, red hot probably, and a bit of cayenne to boot..

 

The book has a couple crawfish pie recipes in it. I haven't personally tried them but I might have to give them a look.

Also, you don't have to fry the rolls. You can bake them, so if you need to use a softer roll (maybe a dinner roll) it could work if you just hollow it out and stuff it, then bake. I think 350 degrees until roll is golden brown.

Man, puff pastry never crossed my mind, but I bet that would be good. My wife every now and then makes a puff pastry (about the size of a buiscuit), cuts a cavity in it and stuffs it with eggs and sausage. Then she pours a hollandaise sause over it. It is excellent.

As far a red beans and rice go, I always slow cook mine after an over night soak. Next time I make it though I will try your recipe. Sounds very good.

 

I'm a little confused, where do you get the meatloaf fat?
I assume it's the grease that comes out while the meatloaf is baking, but with chuck I don't think there would be a lot. And if it is, how do you simmer the veggies for 30 mins in it, and then spoon it back on the meatloaf for 20 minutes, when the loaf is only in the oven for 60 minutes and if would take a little while for enough of the grease to cook off?

 

Meatloaf fat...

Even with chuck there is quite a bit that can be drained. Some of the drainage is water because that recipe has more than the typical amount of moisture in it but when you drain it and put it at room temp it will solidify..

The fat will saute the veggies just fine and then of course you add the other ingredients for the tomato gravy.

Many meatloafs will only take 45 minutes to cook but this one takes longer because rice is the starch used...