Bonjour my fellow home chefs! 

Well we're through the spring garden growing, school is in and Labor Day is around the corner.

Hopefully you've had some time to do a little cooking in between all the fun.

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Pecan Pie in a Jar

Okay, here we go...A pie in a jar... yea, right. No kiddin', but, not the pie you're envisioning. It's only the pie filling. You just add egg and milk to it, put it in a pie shell and bake it. I first saw it at The Fruit Stand in Breaux Bridge. It was like $8 a jar and made locally. I did find one source on the internet here... 

This would make a great gift!

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 Trinity cooked down

The trinity - onions, celery and bell pepper - are the base for many a Cajun dish. For many dishes the trinity is only wilted, and, for others the trinity is cooked down to almost a mush. I like the mush method for gravy dishes like roast, gumbo, stew and jambalaya. I've explained this in a few places on the site but I figured if you saw it happen you'd better understand the process. Click Here... 

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Seasoning the Dish

Seasoning a dish in the pot confuses a lot of people when not using a recipe. Sometimes too much, sometimes not enough and sometimes you hit it right. You may have heard a technique called layering. Layering involves adding specific seasonings at specific times. What we want to do here is become a good judge of the proper amount of seasoning.

Sprinkle enough, that's the trick. Picture a fried egg and the amount of seasoning you normally put on it to make it taste the way you want. Given that knowledge you can make an informed decision on how much seasoning to sprinkle. Here's my rule of thumb: For every 1/2" of food in the pot sprinkle as much as you would put on an egg. It may not sound like much but it's a good start, and, you won't over-season in the process.

Here's another tip. Get the dish salty enough before you add other things. Salt heightens flavor by opening the taste buds of the tongue therefore it should be used first. If you add the pepper first, taste and it's not peppered enough you want to add more pepper. If you do that, then add the salt, the dish will likely be too peppered.

I season at least twice when doing a dish. The first seasoning will be what I think is about 3/4 of what I'll need. Once the dish is done I taste and add whatever it needs.

When doing a rice dish such as jambalaya, add a little more salt than normal, the rice will absorb some of it.

And for those who don't know, Cajun food is NOT hot! Cajun food is a little spicy and has a good body of flavor. If a bite of food makes you sweat, it's too hot and I won't eat it, and it's not true Cajun. Given that, when you season a dish let the person who is eating make the dish as hot as they like in their plate. The same goes with salt. Put the shakers and Louisiana hot sauce on the table. 

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Jambalaya

We breezed over this last year so I did another article explaining it more in depth and making a Shrimp Jambalaya in the process.

I'm also bringing this up now because the first phase of a Jambalaya is the trinity cooked down. We've covered that already so now you're ready to move on.

Think of a Jambalaya as a 3 step process, cooking the vegetables down, seasoning correctly and cooking the rice. The dish is cooked in that order. The Jambalaya I cook is a brown one. Many folks cook a red Jambalaya done with tomatoes. I've eaten both and I like both. Check it out.

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Boiled Okra

As simple as it may seem, this dish is a great one, but it has to be done right! Click here...

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Cooking Boudin

Boudin is cooked two ways. One way is to heat it in boiling water, the other is like this... Click 

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Cracklin' Cornbread

Whenever I have have some leftover cracklin's I try to fit this into the next meal. You can use regular crushed fried bacon also. 

Click Here...

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Cooking Louisiana wishes the best to the men and women of the military and to their families. We thank you for your service to the people of the United States. 

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You can contribute

If you've go a subject you'd like me to research, or, you've done a little fact finding yourself, don't hesitate to contact me... this is about us, not me!  Cooking is fun, and, that's what we do here... have fun cooking! 

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Till next time... eat well...be well.

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