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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
:smith:
I'm not normally a GWS poster but I decided to come and post a little memorial.

I was born in New Orleans right at the time K-Paul's opened and Prudhomme got huge (:btroll: lol). My folks are complete yankees, and we moved away when I was young so I hardly remember it. But we were there in the middle of the cajun & creole food rage and my folks loved it. My mom took cooking classes and really got into it, so the food stuck with us long after. When I learned to cook this stuff became like half of what I do on the regular. Throwing together a jambalaya or red beans is what I make on autopilot when I don't know what else to do.


Here is Paul Prudhomme's favorite dish, the stuffed pork roast that "will knock your socks off". It's really good, I like this a lot too. Thanks Chef Paul, you glorious fat bastard. I hope you're eating your way back to 500 pounds wherever you are now.

code:
Prudhomme's Stuffed Pork Roast

1 small onion, chopped fine
½ med. green pepper, chopped fine
2 stalks celery, chopped fine
    2 tsp black pepper
    1 ½ tsp salt
    1 tsp white pepper
    scant 1 tsp cayenne pepper
    1 tsp paprika
    1 tsp thyme
    ½ tsp mustard
2 TBsp butter
2 TBsp veg oil
1 TBsp minced garlic

one 4-5 lb boneless pork loin

butter & oil in large skillet, high heat
saute veg & spices ~ 4 minutes
put aside to cool
preheat oven to 275°
cut pockets or center slits in pork loin. Stuff cuts with half of veg mixture, rub rest all over pork
pork on rack fat side up, spread any remaining veg on top
bake 3 hours at 275, finish 10 minutes at 425 or until top is browned
(note: last couple times I got pork loin they're center cut completely when deboned. So rather than making pockets on the outside I just stuff from the inside and tie it. IIRC this is the version from A Fork in the Road, which is why it's got vegtable oil rather than all butter or lard. Feel free to substitute.)

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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
One thing I've been experimenting with over the past year for things like jambalaya & creoles is reserving some of the veggie ingredients and sauteing them separately to throw in at the very end.

I started doing that because I've gotten completely obsessed by okra over the past year. It's not the easiest thing to find up here in new england, but they have frozen cut-piece okra in the more, um, urban grocery store. However over-cooked okra is terrible, and the frozen stuff has been blanched so it's already half cooked. So I work with it by putting it in at the end. Then I kept like half the bell pepper to do the same because I like that a little firmer as well.


It's a bit more hassle, but I find it's a good way to get a lot more vegetables into the dish without the whole thing turning to mush. I'm making a lot of my louisiana recipes with about twice the "traditional" quantity of vegetables, and if you do that following the standard methods you get a soup of overcooked veg.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

That Works posted:

Are you using Okra in other stuff besides gumbo? It's really all I've used it in (except for battering and frying it as a side dish). I live in the Boston area and end up getting the chopped frozen okra from Market Basket. Works fine for a gumbo at least.
Yeah I'm putting it in stuff like jamabalaya and chicken creole / miscellaneous improv creole. It goes really well with chicken and smoked sausage flavors. Jambalaya is a bit tricky if you have a perfect moisture consistency in mind, because adding more vegetables at the end is also introducing more water. So I guess you have to either aim on the dry side to start or just be happy with a slightly moist jambalaya.

I put the okra straight from the freezer into a nice hot pan -- that way it gets a bit of fried flavor on the outside by the time it's unfrozen, without overcooking it. Same deal for some non-new orleans stuff, like indian curries and this really awesome Caribbean sweet potato stew (add a little coconut milk to that recipe, really pulls it together).

Gumbo is actually my least frequent thing to make because I rarely have a bird carcass to start it with. Yeah I know you can do a gumbo with boxed stock but it's not the same, I can't make gumbo without a real stock and all the extra bits of bird meat that cook off the bones.


I don't do fried okra myself for two reasons. First, I don't deep fry stuff at home ever. Too much hassle, and I'd rather save the unhealthy stuff to enjoy when I go out to eat. Second I'm the laziest cook ever and side dishes more complicated than a salad are :effort:. That's one of the reasons I came up with this method, I wanted to put a full portion of veg into a one-pot meal.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

holttho posted:

However, the thickening power is greatly dependent on how far you take the roux. The most basic, white roux will have 4-5x the thickening power of a very dark roux.
Oh man that explains some things. I once made an etoufee for an event where I was working in an unfamiliar kitchen, and between not having great equipment and cooking for people that I didn't know all that well, I stopped it at kinda medium. I ended up only putting like half the roux in and it was still a bit over-thick.


6oz of flour is also a lot more than 1 cup, so unless you're doing a really big pot of gumbo that sounds like an awful lot.

And can you even make a new olreans dark roux with butter? It would scorch the butter fat when the flour starts browning, wouldn't it?

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

That Works posted:

Super simple gumbo recipe by one of the greats.

I can never seem to get my roux quite that dark without the flavor going too bitter, even if I get it there very very slowly on a low heat. I wonder if some of that is due to the poor lighting / video quality or not.

It looks like crude oil in the pot so at least a bit must be the video, but he describes it as dutch chocolate so still pretty drat dark. I'm a coward so I go just a shade beyond peanut butter color then turn off the heat (though I also use a heavy pan that holds heat so it gets a bit darker before I add stock to stop it).


So this is just a guess, but the bitter flavor might not be the flour getting "burned"; it could be the oil getting rancid aka oxidized. Normally oil going rancid takes a long time but heat makes it happen much faster. And if it's more about the oil chemistry than the flour you may actually need to use higher heat. That cooks it faster = less time for the chemical oxidation reaction to happen. That could be the reason that the normal instructions for cajun roux is to use high heat.

He's using olive oil, which seemed odd to me but if it's regular or light rather than EVOO that might be good. Regular olive oil is pretty stable, which is why isn't not good for seasoning your pans. (I've been reading up on oil chemistry because I got a carbon steel pan. Finding out exactly what the "seasoning" is and why it works was enlightening.)








Alternate explanation: his roux got totally burned while telling the long joke and he kept going because he wasn't gonna eat it anyways.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Comb Your Beard posted:

Ate 2 big lobsters as sort of a celebratory thing and boiled down the bodies afterward to make lobster stock. Thinking of using it for something Cajun-esque. I usually make Gumbo but I'm thinking going for Jumbalaya from-scratch. Would that be good?

Also, is Jasmine rice acceptable? I also have Basmati on hand, but I figure the former would be better.

lobster stock seems kinda wasted for a chicken & sausage jambalaya, like it would get overpowered. I've done a seafood jambalaya one time that was pretty good though (kinda half jambalaya half paella). Or a shrimp / seafood etouffee?



For me, the best rice for jambalaya is good old uncle ben's converted. Parboiled rice stays firm despite the longer cooking time, and stands up to more abuse. With regular rice the grains break down if you need to give it a stir halfway and you get glue. Converted takes it and stays intact, and there's way less loose starch to begin with. I like my jambalaya heavy on the veggies, which can make the finished product a bit moist. So I want my rice to hold nice firm grains and not make that moisture into paste.

Don't really see the point of jasmina or basmati, the flavor they have on their own is gonna be overwhelmed.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Are those carrots?

sounds good to me
pretty sure cajun food would have carrots in it keeping with french tradition, except for the fact that carrots don't grow in a swamp.



also, if any other northeast goons happen to be reading this thread, lemme recommend north country smokehouse andouille sausage ("cajun style - made in NH"). it's reasonably good for something made north of the mason dixon line. not as peppery as the real thing but otherwise much better than anything else I've found in grocery stores up here.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
No kale in my gumbo!

http://www.gumbopages.com/food/soups/gumboz.html
?????

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
When I make jambalaya with raw chicken, I quickly sear the chicken in a frying pan while my veggies & sausage are sauteeing in the main pot. Get some color on them, then chop em to bite-size and add just before the rice.

+ More flavor
+ Easier to cut up cooked chicken
+ I always use chicken thighs so this gets most of the fat cooked out in the pan
- More work, dirties an additional pan (if you have a cast-iron dutch oven you can do the chicken first and take it out, dutch ovens are the best for jambalaya)


I'd feel comfortable using this method with having a moderate few hours break between assembling the pot and finishing later.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

poemdexter posted:

Someone have a decent recipe for jambalaya?
The third post on the first page is a pretty easy standard jambalaya. You don't need a lot of extra fat like that recipe you found, just enough veg oil to brown the meat. The sausage and chicken fat should be enough (particularly if you're using thighs). In the middle of winter I just use a can of diced tomato rather than whole tomatoes.

Oven-finished is way easier than cooking it the whole time on the stovetop -- stovetop is easy to scorch the bottom if you don't stir occasionally or have a super-low heat setting.


I brown my chicken in a separate pan at the same time as my veg & sausage sauteing in the main pot, cause I use more veg in my recipe than That Works. Also you can throw some ham in a jambalaya if you have leftovers or get a small ham steak. It's an anything goes thing.

quote:

It's hard finding pork sausage in Texas
??? Just normal kielbasa / smoked sausage in the grocery store will do the job.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

poemdexter posted:

Everything is beef sausage and I find it has a different texture and taste compared to pork. We always used pork sausage growing up and I'm trying to get a taste of back home.

Huh, even the generic smithfield / hillshire farms stuff is beef? Weird.

I agree that beef sausage isn't the same though. For a while I had a jewish roommate and made stuff with beef, just wasn't as good. Trying to make kosher new orleans food is a good joke.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
Weird coincidence, I just made a shrimp and sausage gumbo last night myself.

(I swear there are more shrimp in there than that makes it look like!)

I was originally aiming for more like a shrimp etouffee, but halfway in it got out of control because I am totally unable to stop adding more stuff. So I audibled to a gumbo and it was good.

I wish I could get good shrimp with heads on to make a quality shrimp stock. One time I got some at the grocery store but it ended up being a rip-off because they sold them to me at the same price they were selling the shrimp with heads removed.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Mushika posted:

I think I might be a terrible person. I actually prefer duck and sausage (or other kinds of game) gumbo to seafood gumbo. Yours looks delicious, though.

Heh, I don't disagree! I've never had duck gumbo, but I'm sure it's awesome. Everything else made from duck is great.

I kinda prefer a gumbo that starts with a bird carcass, but I never make a whole roast chicken or turkey for myself. So I don't have a bird to make a good rich stock with. But that's what my family does every thanksgiving: turkey on tgiving, gumbo on saturday or sunday once we've demolished the leftovers.


The main thing with a shrimp gumbo is it's easy, you don't need the dead bird, and you can make a passable stock with the shells in an hour.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

I want to pickle me some pork for red beans this weekend, I see two methods, one just distilled white vinegar and the other has apple cider and water. What's better?

if you're looking at the two top hits on google, alton brown & nola cuisine, also observe the difference in how much salt they use. The 100% white vinegar one is doing all it's work with the vinegar. The alton brown one is a more traditional salt pickling, with 1/4 cup salt in less liquid / a smaller batch of meat.

I think which one depends on whether you like salt or vinegar. The salt pickle is probably safer. Modern meat is different than what they got in 1900, it's got more water in it. I'd be a bit leery of relying on pure vinegar: standard 5% acidity vinegar is just barely enough to inhibit bacteria, but as water leaches out from the meat that concentration will dip.

But if you're putting fresh pork in the pickle today and using it on saturday, safety isn't as huge of a concern -- the pork would have been fine with no preservatives. The vinegar one feels like it'd be faster at changing the pork from raw to "preserved". Acid attacks protein and kinda cooks it.

If you use the alton brown one make sure you use kosher / pickling salt, not iodized table salt.

From a cool old 1970s book I have about canning, pickling, and preserving, Putting Food By:

quote:

Have the mean thoroughly chilled, and hold it as closely as possible to 38F during the process of curing: salt penetrates less well in tissues below 36F, and spoilage occurs with increasing speed in meat at temperatures above 38F.
(though they're talking about pickling an entire ham, it's still important that both meat and brine is cold at the start)

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
Poemdexter's pics looked way too good, so I'm gonna Do the Daube this weekend.

I got some shoulder chuck rather than rump after poem saying that trimming the fat off would have been a good change. Shoulder is tougher so it may need more cook time, but that's ok. I'm also thinking about including a light roux in the mix like this recipe does.


My one problem: I don't have a proper cast iron dutch oven or stovetop-safe casserole.
What I have for options:
- use the same heavy weight steel stockpot that I use for most everything else
- do the first part on the stovetop, transfer everything to a standard ceramic casserole and finish in the oven
- possibly borrow an electric crockpot from a friend, if they still have it?
- make a trip to buy the right thing

What do people think?

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
DAUBE ON 'EM

Chuck roast before cooking, I think shoulder is the way to go. Less fat on it, and the fact that it's not a single piece doesn't matter for this use. Cut off the string it comes held together with and just have a couple big chunks. Just more surface area for spices & stuffing garlic into!


No in-progress pics cause I can't multitask for poo poo while cooking. But I did do a roux. My process was: brown meat in 1/3c of oil, then just take the meat out and add the flour to the same already hot oil. I was a bit worried because browning the meat leaves stuff stuck to my stainless pot, and everyone always says your roux is dead if there's black stuff. But it seems that burnt meat bits don't interfere with the process. After that, put veg in to stop the roux, saute, added some stock canned tomato and paste, meat back in and put it in the oven. Oven was pre-heated to 300 but immediately turned down to 275. 4 hours, turned the meat over once to keep it even.

Anyways,

oh yes

keep going

:vince:





Thanks GEEKABALL for the recipe and poemdexter for the first report!

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

That Works posted:

This is awesome. I'm gonna have to do one of these soon.

The main thing I learned for next time is that the roast has a *ton* of water in it that comes out as it's cooking. Despite the fact that I used a roux, my sauce ended up a bit soupy because I added liquids for what felt like the right balance at the start.

(also next time I will get a slightly larger cut of roast, this one was just under 3 lbs and ended up a bit small.)


Phil Moscowitz posted:

evidence of warcrimes

I am a UN inspector and I will need to come to your house to investigate very serious reports of mass killings. Please do not tamper with the evidence seen in these photos before my plane arrives.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
I always pre-cook my shrimp, cause they're much easier to shell when they're at least lightly cooked. So boil em, quick dunk in cold water, pull shells and set aside at room temp while cooking the rest of the gumbo. Then they go in at the very end, when there's just enough heat left to firm the shrimps up.

Living up here I don't get the nice big shrimps very much, and they've always been frozen. That makes shells a bit of a PITA unless they're cooked.

Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:

About how long should I let the stock slow-cook for before I take it off the heat? I was thinking about 3 hours or so, but I could go longer.
3 is more than enough, seafood stock doesn't have stuff like gelatin or marrow to pull out so it's way faster than regular stocks.

also most seafood stocks you keep at a true simmer. really you only need 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what your seafood is. (if you have whole fish and use the heads for stock, Joy says only 15 minutes because they can produce a bitter flavor if they cook too long.)

Klyith fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 30, 2017

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
oh geez :sympathy:


If your roux produced a burnt flavor, the most likely explanation is that it didn't keep moving enough. A cajun roux is touchy and needs constant motion, because there isn't the natural convection that water-based cooking has. I would say that a flat whisk is a required tool for the job. That allows you to keep it moving, and scrape* along the bottom and edges of the pot to prevent overcooking. Maybe the real cajuns who make roux once a week can make do with a wooden spoon, but I would never attempt a dark hot roux without the flat whisk.

Also required: a heavy gauge pot to do roux in. Cast iron is best, but I don't have any cast iron myself and a heavy stainless steel with a full spreader disk base works fine. Again, if all I had was thin steel saucepans I would not attempt a cajun roux.


Adding the vegetables to the roux is supposed to be the thing that stops it from cooking. This seems to be the traditional thing to do, but the easier alternative is how my mom learned to do it: instead add hot stock to the roux, carefully, a spoonful at a time. This is easiest if you have two people (one to spoon stock in and one to stir / keep it controlled). This is much faster at bringing the roux temperature down and stopping it. It's a bit more violent and you have to saute the veg separately, but it 100% halts the roux. I think the method of sauteing veg in the roux may still allow the flour to burn if you're not paying enough attention.


*this can be important because a roux can have weird phase changes where it goes from liquid to sort of clumpy and back as it cooks. I have no idea why it does, and sometimes it doesn't happen. I think it's related to how how you're cooking it. Anyways the flat whisk is crucial when it goes clumpy.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
Welcome to america, the majority of the stuff sold in our grocery stores is for people who can't cook.

(Honestly I'd also say the same thing about the pre-made roux Rand Ecliptic asked about. A cajun roux isn't that difficult, it's just flour + oil + attention. But it's possible to screw up, and it burns like a motherfucker, so it's not great for inexperienced cooks. It's also one of those things that's way easier to learn by demonstration.)

Ben Nevis posted:

And french fries.

Also really good on popcorn, if you have a air popper or something else that produces unsalted popcorn.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
Another thing to know: roux is the maillard reaction. That works fastest at ~300F, which is not very far up the dial of most stoves. The smoke point of canola oil is 400F. At that temperature, the maillard reaction is being out-run by caramelization and burning. If you are heating the point that you get smoke, it's too hot. Either it's oil 'smoke' (vapor) and your temperature is too high, or it's real smoke smoke and your roux is burnt.

Maybe you can start that high and immediately turn down the heat, to drive off the moisture in the flour quickly and get things going faster. But that also depends on your pan, stove, and quantity of flour that's going in as to how much temp it loses.


Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:

Ahhhh, okay. So about the color of hot chocolate.

Thanks, that gives me a better idea.

I like to look for some definite red tones in the brown color, not just plain tan or light brown. Phil's first pic shows that really well.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Apr 6, 2017

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:

When I make the roux in the oven, should the pot be covered or uncovered? My pot lid is glass, so I'm not sure if I can do it covered.
uncovered

quote:

EDIT: Also how much salt should I add if I'm doing Fuckabees's recipe? Last time I made gumbo I over-salted it and it tasted nasty.
if you're making it with commercial chicken stock I wouldn't add any extra salt until the end. maybe some salt on the chicken if you're seasoning it in advance.

for a soup type thing like gumbo there's zero downside to doing salt at the end, when you can taste it.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

kloa posted:

Hey new posts, must be a new reci- :yikes:

Coincidentally, I made a really great shrimp creole while visiting family a couple weeks ago. Based mostly on this recipe:

http://www.nolacuisine.com/2008/04/13/shrimp-creole-recipe/

It turned out really good, the sauce was just brilliant despite using less butter than the 2 tbsp that recipe has. The two things I did:
1. Based on my mom's advice, peeled the shrimp while still part-frozen. This worked better than my previous method of lightly pre-cooking them before shelling. Then did a tiny shrimp stock -- just enough for the resulting creole. Just cram the shells from 2 pounds of shrimp into a small saucepan with like 2 cups of water.

2. Used 2 big onions, but had them in the pot sauteing while still working on other stuff. They got like 2/3rds of the way to fully caramelized before other stuff went in, which I think contributed to how rich and smooth the final sauce was.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Mushika posted:

Interesting, I've never tried that. It sounds like it would work well breaking down a bunch of onions for a classic French onion soup (among other things). Or is that common practice and I'm just unaware?

The baking soda thing works because the maillard reaction goes faster in a basic environment. Caramelized onions are brown partly because the sugars get caramelized, but also because because the protein gets maillard'ed into tasty brown goo.


These tricks aren't exactly common knowledge these days, which is funny because really really old traditional cooking used stuff like lye (a hazardously strong base) as an ingredient. But in the 20th century we got rid of all that stuff because we didn't understand it. ("WTF, lye? They must have been putting that on their food to sanitize it or something. Yuck, get rid of that.") But now food chemistry is finding explanations for all that stuff and it turns out people weren't crazy or eating tainted meat all the time, they actually were ingenious cooks who knew what worked even if they didn't know why and thus were really bad at passing knowledge down.


VVVVV
edit: high heat speeds things up, but not by all that much and it means you have to be a lot more attentive. doing them the regular way you can wander off for 10 or 5 minutes at a time and do other stuff. I think the pressure cooker thing sounds like the best way to get caramelized onions fast, but even that looks better for soups or other things where you don't mind the end result being pretty wet.
VVVVV

Klyith fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Sep 2, 2017

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
I never knew what to do with leftover shrimp stock, because if I was gonna make another thing with shrimp I'd make more shrimp stock with that as well. Result = infinite shrimp stock.


Then I tried making homemade ramen soup and that turned out to be the perfect answer. If you wanna be fancy, keep a couple shrimp back from the main thing you're making and freeze them with the stock. Unfreeze it later when you want soup, add some veg and noodles, and bam single serving really good ramen.


(As for the shrimp etouffee, looks great! Definitely try taking the roux a bit darker next time, but for your first roux it's hard to go all the way. But etouffee doesn't need as dark a roux as gumbo anyways.)

Klyith fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Sep 3, 2017

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Phil Moscowitz posted:

The recipe actually calls for two sticks...
    \|

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
I dunno about what places to go, but as for things to eat definitely get Barbecue Shrimp. It's got nothing to do with what the rest of the country calls "barbecue", but it's admn good and they bring you a bib before you dig in.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
for some reason my grocery store had redfish, which I've never seen all the way up here in a regular grocery fish counter. must have been a big catch this year or something.


I've just realized that blackened redfish is a terrible idea because my kitchen does not have a vent and it will fill my house with smoke. So I guess I'll just bread them and fry em hot but not blackened hot. Any other suggestions?

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
Welp, turns out my initial reaction of "why would a new york grocery have southern gulf redfish?" was accurate and this is a totally different atlantic ocean redfish. get more creative with your fish names people! yes it's a fish that is red, can't you think of anything else to call it?

OTOH looking up what this other redfish is like, I think
might still be really good. just gotta cook way shorter since I have smallish fillets not whole fish.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

poemdexter posted:

I'm glad I'm not the only one that does the potato salad in the gumbo. There's something about the creamy cool potato salad with the scalding hot spicy gumbo that's just a match made in heaven.

I don't make gumbos super-spicy, so that's not really a thing I'd need. But I have done gumbo with mashed potato instead of rice, which is pretty good. Also my mom used to make a version of grillades, but as a dinner meal and with mashed potato rather than grits. Pressure cookers make mashed potatoes a snap.


Speaking of condiments, half my family now live in North Carolina and I've started bringing back jars of carolina chow-chow when I visit. It is some weird intermediate between sauerkraut and kimchi, it's good with jambalaya and loving amazing with red beans & rice.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
For jambalaya and really anything other than dishes that involve whole pieces of meat, I really don't find much difference between cayenne at the start and hot sauce when served. So if I'm making food to share I generally aim on the low side. (Though I have one friend that considers black pepper to be too spicy, he gets to just deal with it.)

It only feels like missing out when you have a roast or something and want that heat cooked all the way in.



Speaking of which, I did another creole daube. That stuff is the poo poo and I think will be in my winter rotation forever. hosed it up a bit by adding too much tomato. I really gotta remember how much water the meat puts out while it cooks, don't add more liquid ingredients just because it looks way too thick at the start. You loving idiot.

Still really good even though the over-emphasis on tomato gave it a kinda italian taste. No pics, but refer to page 18 if you are new to the thread and want an amazing recipe.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
I would probably de-case it and brown it separately? I do french lentil stew with fresh sausage like that, then use some of the leftover grease to saute veggies and dispose of the rest so there's not an oil slick on top of the pot. Fresh sausage produces more oils than smoked, most of the time. Though if this is chicken sausage that might not be a problem.


That Works posted:

If you decide it's lacking the smoky flavor too much you can always throw in some smoked paprika into your trinity when sweating that down.

just take the roux 1 notch darker :)

e:

Phil Moscowitz posted:

I wouldn’t throw raw sausage in the gumbo.
100% this, probably wouldn't fully cook unless you got it in way early in which case it'd get kinda waterlogged

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

A Tasteful Nude posted:

This thread inspired me to try making legit gumbo. I have no idea if what I've nearly created is authentic or correct

New orleans food is probably the least concerned with "authentic or correct" of any cuisine which is why it's so brilliant. It was fusion before the word fusion was invented. does it taste good? then eat it up.



you absolutely need to go low and slow with a roux using butter, the smoke point is much lower. probably the same with natural bacon fat versus lard. the flour will cook anywhere above 300-ish degrees iirc, which is achievable with any fat you care to use. just takes a while.

a 15 minute roux using high heat is for impatient moderns who use modern canola / vegetable oil.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Zaepho posted:

Quick Soak. In a stockpot, bring 10 cups water to a boil. Add 1-pound dry beans and return to a boil; let boil 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and set aside at room temperature for 1 hour. Use as you would normally soaked beans.

also add a bay leaf, coarse ground black pepper, thyme twig, garlic, etc while boiling

I actually prefer the quick soak because of that (plus it makes the beans a bit less farty)


Doom Rooster posted:

On another note, has anyone tried the America's Test Kitchen baked flour roux method? Seems like heresy, but the result looks pretty loving legit.

Huh.

A 425 oven for 45 minutes to an hour is not what I want to do unless it's mid-winter, or had something else to do at the same time.

OTOH I wonder if that toasted flour would keep well? You could do a big batch then.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
if you make your roux from vegetable oil or even processed lard it's not a big loss tbqh

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

That Works posted:

1488 Spice Co. - Spices brought to you by the success and superiority of European colonialism.

We must secure the existence of our spices and a future for our white cuisine.



The white cone-shaped container says "spice mix", but the ingredient list is just salt and a little bit of parsley.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

I. M. Gei posted:

Are there any particularly good places to find whole shrimps with heads included for making stock, or do I need the heads at all? I don’t think any grocery stores in my area sell shrimp with the heads still on.


EDIT: Yes I am going to actually peel them this time, because I know you assholes are going to bring that up.

Look for a dedicated fish market store in your area. You may have to buy them frozen in bulk to get head on -- this was my experience (in upstate NY). That kinda sucked because thawing them was difficult and there were just too many, plus I was paying basically the same price. So I would only recommend getting whole shrimp if you can also get them fresh.

If you do find head-on shrimp you may want to turn making the stock into a separate cooking day, cleaning a whole mess of shrimp will take time for someone new to it. Heads on shrimp also need to be de-veined. But you'll end up with way more stock that can be used for a couple different things!


You can do an acceptable shrimp stock with just the shells and no heads. The thing is to use a small pot and pretty much jam 'em in there, with only enough water to cover.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
Guy Fieri took a day out of his life to humiliate a goon for charity. He is good, despite dressing in shirts from the walmart collection.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

The_Doctor posted:

This got posted on Reddit in the BR sub, and dang that gumbo looks good at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5XXU47q9js

god that man loving loved food

the way he talks about the jambalaya while he's cooking is like the parody orson welles from the critic. but for real.


The_Doctor posted:

Yeah, that’s pretty genius. I’m generally bad at making a roux for some reason, but that looks like it might help me some.

when the Daube Craze hit the thread a year ago I did a roux in the same oil I browned meat in and it worked great. I thought it was hosed up because bits of meat were stuck to the pot and blackening, and black bits are supposed to mean your roux is bad. but it was fine, blackened meat bits are not the same as blackened flour bits.


The_Doctor posted:

I’ve also never seen fried chicken used in gumbo?
everyone that ate it died of heart disease before now

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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

What has the gumbo I've been eating my whole life been thickened with?

That's the roux, the flour is what thickens it. Rouxs also are used for thick soups like clam chowder, but those are french light roux. AFAIK the cajun dark roux is pretty unique, I don't think any other cuisine does it.


Okra can thicken but okra slime isn't very appetizing imho. I like okra but most of the ways I'd cook it are methods that minimize the slime factor. And filé also thickens but my mom always told me it goes weird if you ever reheat it.

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