It occurs to me that I write often about the foods and drinks of New Orleans. I’m not sure why the city and its food has left such an indelible on me. I only spent about 6 months living there, while doing a culinary internship, but there is something about the food of that city that has made a lasting impression. The city is proud of its culinary heritage, a meld of Old World and New. The cuisine is a true American invention, a blend of cuisines from France, Spain, Africa, and the Caribbean along with the bounty of New World food stuffs. I think this is what has captured…and kept my interest for so long. I know of no other cuisine that draws from so many diverse cultures, blends those influences together, and creates something that is so wholly new, yet still reminiscent of each cuisine it has drawn from.

One of my favorite dishes, from New Orleans and Cajun folk who settled in the area, is Gumbo. A combination of European and African technique, along with the foods of Africa and the New World, this soup is the apex of that melding of so many cuisines and cultures, in my opinion. In fact, the word gumbo, itself comes from Africa and is an African word for okra, a traditional thickener used in the soup.

Gumbos come in a wide variety of styles, some containing only seafood for the protein, some containing chicken and andouille (sausage), while others contain all three, and some, eaten during lent are completely meatless. Some contain tomatoes while others do not. The creole versions tend to use a lightly browned roux, while Cajun versions use a very dark roux that adds an incredible depth of flavor to the dish. Traditionally okra or file powder (ground sassafras leaves) were used as the main thickener, though traditionally cooks always used one or the other, never both. Seafood gumbos were usually thickened with okra while chicken and sausage gumbos were thickened with file. This had more to do with timing than any great culinary revelation. Okra was available during the summer when one could go crabbing and shrimping. In winter, when okra was not available file was used, a time when chicken and sausages were easier to come by then seafood.

The version I offer up below, is a Cajun style gumbo using shrimp, chicken and andouille sausage. It’s a rich,and hearty soup but not overly thick so while it will warm you up in winter it is not too heavy to enjoy in summer. In other words it makes a great meal year round. Ladle it into a bowl as is, or spoon it over rice for a more “stick to your ribs” meal.

Gumbo
serves 4-6

1 pound shrimp (2 pounds if you can get head on shrimp)
8 cups water
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups flour
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
1 pound chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, diced
1 pound andouille sausage (if you can’t find andouille a spicy smoked sausage such as kielbasa will do)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
hot sauce
salt
1/2 pound okra, sliced

Peel the shrimp, removing the tails also. Place the shells, tail, and heads (if you got head on shrimp) into a pot and cover with the water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large pot, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add the flour to make a roux. Stirring almost constantly cook the roux until it is dark brown.

Do not allow the roux to burn or the gumbo will taste bitter and burnt. Also, they don’t call dark roux “Cajun napalm” for no reason. This stuff is HOT and it sticks like crazy. Getting this stuff on you burns like crazy so be careful! Once you have achieved the color above add the vegetables and cook 5 minutes longer.

Strain the shrimp shells from the stock you just made and add the stock to the pot, discarding the shells. Add the chicken, sausage and seasonings, adding salt to taste. Bring gumbo to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Add the okra and cook 15 minutes longer. If the shrimp are large cut them into bite sized pieces, if they are small just add them as is along with the hot sauce to taste (gumbo should have a little kick to it, but it shouldn’t be overly spicy). Allow to cook a few minutes longer, just until the shrimp are cooked through, then serve

It’s just a few days away from the Super Bowl and with the Saints headed to the big game my thoughts have once again turned towards my time in New Orleans and the foods of that town and region. I spent my first culinary internship at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, in the French Quarter. There I experienced a wide range of the foods New Orleans has to offer. At Begue’s, the hotel’s fine dining restaurant I was taught many of the more refined creole dishes from Oysters Bienville and Shrimp Etouffe to modern twists on things such as Shrimp and Grits, Tomato Tasso Bisque, and Souffles. Desire oyster bar, with frontage on Bourbon St., gave me a crash course in all things cajun, from oysters on the half shell to corn meal crusted fried oysters, to jambalaya, gumbo and po boys. It was here, in New Orleans, that my life long love of all foods Southern (from the BBQ and tamales of Texas to Red Eye Gravy to Frogmore Stew of the Low Country) got its start. While Southwestern cuisine may play a more important role in my style of cooking, it is the food of New Orleans though that captivates my heart.

There are so many great foods that come out of the cajun and creole tradition, but my two favorite are gumbo and jambalaya. Of course there are also Muffulettas, one of The Best sandwiches in the world. A true New Orleans tradition, but not cajun or creole, instead coming from the Italian part of New Orleans history.

While all of these deserve a blog post, and believe me, I will get to each one in due time, it is Jambalaya that I had a craving for this week. Jambalaya is New Orleans answer to Spanish Paella. It’s a wonderful rice dish studded with sausage, seafood, vegetables and, oftentimes, chicken. Unlike paella, it doesn’t rely on saffron for it’s flavor, instead relying on the Trinity of cajun and creole cuisine (onions, celery and peppers). A good jambalaya also has a nice amount of heat provided by cayenne, hot sauce or both, though the heat is usually more on the mild side. Jambalaya can either be cooked on the stove top or in the oven like a rice pilaf. I’ve seen many recipes for both, though people will fiercely defend (and oppose) one or the other.

Like so many of the recipes I offer, as is the case with many family style, peasant type foods, there are a million recipes out there, each family having their own, and each family claiming that theirs is the proper way to make the dish. The recipe I offer below is a great all round jambalya recipe. It contains sausage, chicken and shrimp and has a fair amount of heat to it. You can easily tone the heat down by omitting the cayenne and decreasing the amount of hot sauce used, but leave it with a little kick to it or the dish just seems to lack that something.

Jambalaya

2 medium onions, peeled and diced
2 ribs celery, diced
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
12oz. Andouille sausage, large dice
1 pound chicken breast, large dice
1 28oz can diced tomato, with juice
2 1/2 cups rice, long grain
3 cups water
2 Tbsp. hot sauce (New Orleans style such as Tabasco, Crystal, Louisiana, etc.)
1 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves

In large pot over medium heat, heat 2 Tbsp. of oil. Add the vegetables and saute until starting to wilt. Add the sausage and garlic, cooking until the vegetables are tender, but not allow them to brown.

Add the chicken and cook for 5 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients.

Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until the rice is done and all the liquid has been absorbed. Fluff the rice and serve.

One January 1st, I posted about the dish, Hoppin’ John, and how, in many households, it is eaten on New Year’s Day to bring good luck. I could have chosen any number of recipes, from around the world, that are eaten for the same reason- to bring luck in the new year. I think one of the reasons I chose Hoppin’ John is because I’ve been thinking about my time down South for a few weeks. What got me thinking about my time living in Atlanta and New Orleans is the fact that a few weeks ago I got a craving for Hurricanes.

Anyone who has spent any time in New Orleans should be familiar with the bright red, potent drink carried all through the French Quarter in gigantic plastic “to-go” cups. It’s the drink that made Pat O’briens famous. The story goes, that in the early 40′s Scotch and Whiskey were hard to come by because of the war. Liquor distributors down south would force bar owners to purchase numerous cases of cheap rum, from the Caribbean just to get a case or two of the other liquors. Pat O’brien, facing a mountain of rum created a new drink using rum, orange juice, passion fruit syrup and lime juice, put it into hurricane shaped glasses (so named because they resembled hurricane lamps) and thus created the Hurricane. The drink became very popular among sailors as it was cheap and potent and remains popular today, not because it is cheap-Pat O’briens charges a hefty price-but because they still pack a mean kick.

As a young cook in New Orleans, me and my friends usually tried to stay away from the touristy spots in the Quarter, most often seeking out those shady, less wholesome (and that’s saying a lot in a town not known for its wholesomeness) bars that border the Quarter. Occasionally though, we would venture into the the heart of the Quarter in search of young ladies who had come to New Orleans to party. Hey….I was 23 years old, unattached, and we lived by the motto “work hard, play hard.” We struck out way more often than not, but that was okay in our minds. We still had a great time….I think. Many of these nights found us hanging out at Pat O’briens, throwing back hurricanes with wild abandon. Luckily, my roommate and I lived just off of one of the major bus lines that ran 24/7 so we always had a ride home no matter what time of night or morning.

Looking back on those nights, at Pat O’briens, those hurricanes were pretty nasty. All alcohol bite with a lot of sugar and just enough fruit juice to make them palatable. The drink has come a long way from it’s early days and unfortunately it hasn’t weathered well. Nowadays, you can even purchase a powdered drink mix so that you can take the taste of New Orleans home with you. Don’t bother unless you are the kind of person who also doesn’t mind subsitituing orange Kool-aid for orange juice in your Screwdrivers, Mimosas, or Captain & OJ.

Searching the web for recipes is quite confusing also. While there are a number of sites that give some great recipes, there are also a ton of sites out there that are offering up recipes, for Hurricanes, made with vodka, gin, tequila, amaretto, or worse, all of those alcohols together, in the same drink.

Just because a Hurricane is potent doesn’t mean it’s an “everything but the kitchen sink” kind of drink like a Long Island Iced Tea, Bahama Mama, or Alabama Slammer. Like so many of the cocktails created in the first half of the 20th century, the Hurricane requires only a handful of ingredients, mixed in proper proportion to create a well balanced drink. Be careful though, this drink is still quite potent and it’s easy to overdo it as they don’t taste nearly as strong as they are.

Hurricane
4 ounces gold rum*
3 ounces passion fruit juice or puree (I use Looza brand juice as that is what I can get most often, if you can get puree, then even better though if you use puree you might want to also add a splash of simple syrup as the puree is rather tart)
2 ounces orange juice
1/4 each lime
2 Tbsp. grenadine

Fill a hurricane glass or pint glass with ice and set aside. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add all the ingredients. Shake to mix then strain into prepared glass. Garnish with a cherry and orange slice.

*Many tropical style cocktails benefit from the use of gold or dark rums as opposed to white rums as gold and dark rums bring much more flavor to the drink and add a nice complexity. While this drink would still be good made with white rum, personally I would never substitute more than half the rum with white rum.

As I stated a few days ago, I had wanted to post this recipe just before Christmas, but weather forced us to change our travel plans and leave early. Leaving early didn’t really make much of a difference anyway, as, instead of missing the crappy weather, we drove right into it! Snow, sleet, freezing rain, we had it all, and the mixture was coming down so hard the highway was covered in about 3 inches of nasty, slippery slush. We watched 2 cars slide off of the road right in front of us and saw numerous others in the ditch. Luckily we only had about 60 miles of that stuff, then it turned completely over to rain a few miles south of the Illinois/Wisconsin border and we were able to continue our travels relatively stress-free, which is more than I can say for the thousands stranded by the storms over the holidays. I hope that each and every one of you made it to your destination safely and had an enjoyable holiday.

As for the recipe, for someone who doesn’t care for eggnog too much I sure seem to have a number of recipes that use it as a flavoring agent. Go figure! I first served this for Christmas a few years ago and it was a big hit. Since then I have made a few times for groups both big and small, with positive reactions every time.

While I consider this a “Christmas” meal, it is a great breakfast anytime during the holidays as it is simple to prepare and seems rather upscale-you don’t have to tell anyone how simple it is! This would also make a great breakfast for New Year’s Day, after a night of imbibing a little too much. Nothing in the recipe is a real assault on the tastebuds-a good thing when nursing a hangover, and in fact the little alcohol left in the dish after flambeing the rum helps with a little “hair of the dog.” You could serve this any time of year actually, if you made your own eggnog, but keep it simple on yourself and serve this during the holidays when store bought eggnog is readily available.

Eggnog French Toast with Bananas Foster Sauce

12 slices French or Italian Bread, cut on a bias, 1″ thick
3 cups Eggnog, store bought is fine
1 cup milk
3 each eggs, beaten

4 each bananas, peeled and sliced 1/2″ thick
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/3 cup dark rum
3 Tbsp. butter

Combine the milk, eggnog, and eggs and mix together. Soak both sides of the bread slices in mixture and saute on a griddle set over medium heat and brushed with a little butter. Cook until golden brown on both sides and cooked all the way through, about 5 minutes per side. Don’t let the french toast brown too quickly or the middle will be soggy when the outside is done. Meanwhile combine the butter, and brown sugar in a saute pan and heat over medium high until the brown sugar melts. Add the rum and carefully flame it. Do this by allowing the rum to heat up then igniting it with a long handled lighter. Be careful as it can ignite rather quickly and in bright light the alcohol flame can be almost invisible. Lean back as you light it so as to not, accidentally, light your hair on fire!!! Once the flames die down add the sliced bananas and spices. Cook just until the bananas are warmed through. Add the butter, remove from heat and swirl until the butter has melted into the sauce. Serve each person 3 slices of the french toast topped with the banana sauce. Garnish with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and maybe a strawberry or two if you want some color.