Shrimp and Chicken Etouffee

(adapted from www.simplyrecipes.com)


I have no idea if this tastes anything like a true etouffee, but I scarfed it down nonetheless. Maybe it's just because I love shrimp. Love it. But the other thing I loved about this was the flavor of the sweet paprika. And the addition of the tender chicken thighs (to placate my shrimp-neutral husband, tsk!) made it extra-savory and delicious. Plus, etouffee always makes me think of the Broadway Oyster Bar in St. Louis, which catered our wedding. Can't beat that!

I didn't have any Cajun seasoning, as the original recipe called for. A Google search found a recipe for Cajun seasoning that included salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, thyme, sweet basil, and bayleaf. I wasn't about to make five cups of the stuff, so I just sort of sprinkled a selection of those ingredients in at will. Which doesn't make this the most easy or, um, reliable recipe, but hey - season according to taste!

1/4 cup vegetable oil
Heaping 1/4 cup flour
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
1 large celery stalk, sliced thin
4 garlic cloves, chopped
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chopped into small bites
5 cups chicken broth, hot
A combination of cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, seasoned salt, and basil, totaling about 1 tbsp - plus more cayenne
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1/2-3/4 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed
Salt to taste
3 green onions, chopped

Start by making a roux (my friend David from Louisiana taught me this a few years back): heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium for 1-2 minutes. Stir in the flour, leaving no clumps. Let this cook, continually stirring, until it browns, 5-10 minutes.

Add the celery, green pepper, jalapeno, and onion, and stir into the roux to coat. Cook this over medium for another four minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Next, add the garlic and and the chicken, and sprinkle with garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, black pepper, seasoned salt, and dried basil - and cook another 2 minutes.


Slowly add the hot chicken stock, stirring constantly so it incorporates. Add enough stock to make a sauce about the thickness of syrup, about 5 cups. Add more cayenne, along with celery salt and paprika, and mix well. Sprinkle in more of the spices as desired. Add salt to taste, then stir in the shrimp. Cover the pot, turn the heat to its lowest setting, and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered. 

Add the green onions and hot sauce to taste for garnish. Serve over brown rice.

Three-Pepper Burmese Chicken Curry

(adapted from Dave DeWitt's 1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes)

Joef turned 29 this year, and to celebrate, we hosted a spicy potluck dinner party. We stocked our fridge with ice cream and whole milk, turned to Dave DeWitt, and used spice with reckless abandon. We even made spicy drinks - bloody Marys and (to be posted soon) habanero pina coladas (surprisingly great). Our friends all brought (delicious) spicy dishes, from peanut noodles to what was described to me as Indian "sloppy Joes". Seriously, our friends can cook - the food was awesome.

I randomly selected this Burmese Chicken Curry. I've been really promoting cookbooks lately, and I'll do it again - DeWitt's book is really, really good. We haven't had a so-so recipe from it yet. This was delicious. I probably wouldn't make it this spicy again (it won spiciest for the night) - Joef, of course, disagrees - and the flavors were awesome. Which is actually pretty lucky, because I accidentally swapped the proportions for the paprika and the turmeric...pretty significant error, which turned out totally OK. So - below is my (accidentally) adapted recipe, with the heat turned WAY up (to turn it down, substitute red pepper flakes for habanero, and regular oil for the Naga-Jolokia infused). Can't wait to make this one again.

(You could pretty easily make this vegetarian - just swap the chicken for cauliflower and/or potato, right?)

(Warning - the fish sauce smells awful. Really awful. I promise it will taste great.)

For eight or more servings:

5 chicken drumsticks, skin removed
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground turmeric
8 tbsp fish sauce
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
8 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
4 tbsp fresh ginger, sliced
1 tsp paprika, plus a little more
2 tsp habanero flakes
1 cup plus 4 tbsp water, divided
1 jalapeno, stems removed, minced
6 tbsp Naga Jolokia-infused peanut oil
2 large/medium tomatoes, chopped
2-3 cups brown rice
1 tbsp rice flour (optional and if needed)

Wash the chicken and pat it dry with a paper towel. Place the chicken in a deep dish. In a separate bowl, mix the salt, paprika, and fish sauce, then pour over the chicken. Marinate the chicken in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

In a food processor or blender, blend the onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, chile flakes, 4 tbsp of the water, and the jalapeno, plus a few shakes of paprika, until it turns into a coarse paste.

In a large, deep frying pan, heat the oil over medium. Add the paste and stir fry for about 2 minutes. Add the chicken and tomatoes, and stir fry for 15 minutes or so. Add the rest of the water, partially (mostly) cover the pan, and cook over medium-low for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is done and the sauce has thickened. (My friend Archana taught me a trick - if it's not thickening the way you want it to, you can take a little bit of the sauce out of the pan, add 1 tbsp or so of rice flour, stir them together until blended, and then return the combination to the pan and stir it in.)

When the chicken is ready, remove the drumsticks from the pan, remove the meat from the bone, and return to the pan. Allow to simmer for a few more minutes, then serve over rice. And wash it down with whole milk.

Pasta with Eggplant and Ricotta, Sicilian-Style

(adapted from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking)

I've raved about Marcella before, but man. She just never fails. I could randomly point to a recipe in her book, and it would be amazing. If I could have only one cookbook for the rest of my life, it'd be this one.

I obviously have a pasta bias, and this recipe was great, because it was a little different from the usual pastas I make. More steps than the usual pasta, too - but worth it.

Usually I follow Marcella's recipes to the letter, but I accidentally bought too little eggplant (one instead of two - although one ended up fine), and didn't have any romano cheese (substitute parmesan). I did, however, actually peel the tomatoes and remove the seeds, steps I usually would have skipped. Worth it!

1-2 Italian eggplants (preparation required)
Salt
Vegetable oil
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 onion, sliced very thin
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
5 Italian plum tomatoes, skinned with a peeler, split lengthwise to pick out the seeds, and cut into narrow strips
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp grated romano cheese (alt: parmesan)
3 tbsp skim ricotta (mmm, I am newly a big fan of ricotta)
8-10 fresh basil leaves
3/4 lb pasta
Grated parmesan for serving

Start by prepping the eggplant. Cut off the spiky cap. Peel the eggplant and cut into 1.5-inch cubes. Place the cubes in a colander and set over a paper towel, then sprinkle cubes liberally with salt. Let the eggplant sit for at least a 1/2 hour and up to 1 hour. This draws out the bitterness of the eggplant.

Rinse the eggplant cubes in cold water, then dry them in a paper towel in batches - you can put them in the paper towel and squeeze them gently, almost like you're wringing them out. Set aside once you've rinsed all of them.

Put enough vegetable oil in a large frying pan to come up about 1/2 an inch on the sides of the pan. Turn the heat to medium-high. Once the oil is very hot, slip in the eggplant pieces and fry them until the pieces feel tender when prodded with a fork. Transfer with a slotted spatula to a plate lined with a paper towel.

Pour the oil out of the frying pan and wipe clean with paper towels. Add the olive oil and sliced onion, and turn the heat to medium-high. Saute the onion until it turns light gold in color and begins to caramelize, then add the chopped garlic and cook for just a few seconds, stirring.

Add the tomato, turn the heat to high, and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring, until the oil floats free from the tomato (this will make sense when you see it).

Add the eggplant and a few grindings of pepper, stir, and turn the heat down to medium. Cook for just a minute or so more, stirring a couple times. Taste and add salt if needed.

Toss the cooked and drained pasta with the sauce, add the romano/parmesan, the ricotta, and the basil leaves. Toss again to coat the pasta, and serve with grated parmesan.

Coconut Chicken Curry

Well, I said to stay tuned for coconut chicken curry, in the style of the St. Louis Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Grand. They make absolutely the best coconut chicken curry I've ever had, and it's totally different from any other coconut curry I've had, too. It's...coconuttier...um...well, it's creamier. I don't know, it's just delicious.

So when I made the Chile Chicken with Lime and Coconut Milk, I had, for the first time, at least an inkling of how to even go about making a curry like that. (Yeah, this is a pretty close replica of that recipe.) I'm not going to say I totally got there. Maybe I didn't even get close. But it was good, and it was a start.

If anyone has eaten at Pho Grand, and has better ideas on how to do this, I'm wide open! For now:

1.5 cups brown rice
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1/2 white onion, cut in half and sliced
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp madras curry powder
1 can coconut milk
1 tsp salt, or to taste
2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
3-4 dried hot chile peppers, crushed
4 chicken thighs
Tomatoes slices for garnish
Cucumber slices for garnish

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pan, spooning the sauce over the chicken. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the chicken is cooked and tender. The sauce will thicken. Turn off the heat, remove the chicken thighs, and remove the meat from the bones. Return the chicken to the sauce in the pan, stir and heat again for a few minutes or until heated, over medium. Serve over brown rice, with tomatoes and cucumbers for garnish.