Tag: Louisiana recipes

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Louvain’s Grillades

My friend Rick Louvain from New Orleans loves going to supermarkets “to see what the Great Unwashed are consuming,” and insists on dragging me to my little neighborhood store for a scathing inventory when he’s in town.

On a recent outing he declared the entire produce aisle nothing more than a compost heap. His withering assessment of the floral department brought a tall bald queen around the corner clicking his nails like a scorpion. Rick had to buy a dozen roses to save us both from getting bitch slapped and owning it.

After declaring every can in the store a ptomaine grenade, we hit the meat section.

I was jittery because the butcher on duty was my buddy Charlie, who has the build of a Sumo wrestler and the disposition of a lamb. After a sweeping forensic analysis of the meat section as a whole, we came to the discount section where he grabbed a flat pack of thin round for two bucks and grinned.

Big Charlie was right next to him, humming to himself and marking down hamburger. Rick slapped Charlie on the shoulder. “Hey! Is this round steak?”

I tried to die three times. “It surely is,” Charlie said with the most bountiful smile in the known universe.

“Great!” Rick said. “Run three pounds fresh through the tenderizer for me. We’re gonna get some stuff in the deli, we’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Charlie winked at me when we got the meat, and I think he was thanking me for the customer, but I’m not sure. He goes out of his way to cut me t-bones to order, and if you ask me, I think he’s flirting. And that’s a big okay.

Once out of the store, Rick said, “We’re going to make grillades. This is what my gammy uses. She breads it, fries it, makes a roux in that, throws in some garlic and onion, bell pepper and celery, diced tomato, cooks it down in a casserole in the oven. Food of the gods, and you’re cooking.”

“You’ll never let up on me, will you, Rick?”

“You’re one lucky hoss, Jess.”

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Odom’s Redfish on the Half Shell

It’s hard to imagine the redfish that currently swim in bountiful numbers among our coastal waters going the way of the dodo and the mastodon, but it almost did, and it wasn’t seafaring Neanderthals with primitive Shimanos that nearly caused their extinction.

It was Paul Prudhomme.

Prudhomme created a recipe that was so obnoxious and novel with over-the-top flavors and clouds of noxious smoke that it had to be cooked outside. But for all that, blackened redfish became so popular that redfish was actually threatened with extinction, and the federal government was forced to step in and invoke catch limits before we could make a salad to accompany the very last of its kind.

But be at ease. This prized game fish is back and has been back. In fact, the local anglers in Destin, Florida call the huge “bull reds” a nuisance fish. I myself saw tens of thousands of them attacking bait fish in one football field-sized school near Ship Island, off the coast of Mississippi .

Folks who don’t saltwater fish only assume that an angler like me would surely target a redfish to throw on ice, but to their dismay I tell them I don’t fish them intentionally for the table. There are a couple good reasons for this: when you clean a redfish, the filet yield seems oddly low for such a large fish to be culled, and secondly it’s about as easy to clean a redfish as it is to filet an armadillo.

But as all starving anglers do we develop a plan: Instead of filleting the meat clean off the fish why don’t we just cut off one side of the red’s body, lay it scales down over a charcoal grill, drench the meat side with garlic butter and slam the lid till it’s done?

This technique accomplishes a couple of things and one by default. First, it ensures all the fresh fish meat is fully eaten. Secondly, you don’t wind up in the ER getting stitches fooling around trying to fillet an armadillo and by default this recipe is far more delicious than blackened redfish simply because it’s about the fresh fish and not spices.

The dicta of “Gulf to ice to knife to fire to plate” for this recipe in particular has anxious dinner guests staring in amazement at the cooking process. Redfish on the half shell, as this technique is called, is  the best way in my opinion to pay homage to this beautiful bronze resident in our coastal waters. Next time you have a chance to eat fresh redfish, try this particular preparation.

Heat your gas grill or charcoal grill to a medium high heat. In a saucepan heat a stick of butter, juice of a lemon, minced garlic and Tony Chachere’s to taste for a drenching baste.

Grease the grill a bit; lay on the redfish halves scales down and apply your drench liberally. Close the lid, but reapply the drench a couple of times in the cooking process. Remove when the meat is firm to the touch, add more fresh lemon and serve immediately.

David and Kim Odom are anglers par excellance along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

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Catfish Étouffée

In the world I inhabit–which, quite arguably, might be yours–the more time-consuming a recipe, the more people it should feed, and this is such a one.  Soak 5 lbs. halved 6 oz. catfish fillets in milk. To a cup of good brown roux add in dice 2 cloves garlic, 2 medium onions, 1 sweet pepper and 4 stalks celery. Mix with a 36-ounce can of diced tomatoes (with juice) and 2 cups water or so; you want it a little on the thin side. Add 2 tablespoons dried basil, 1 tablespoon dried thyme, and a teaspoon of dried oregano. Put on a low burner. Drain and bread catfish in finely-crumbled saltines well-seasoned with ground black pepper, some cayenne, if you like.  Fry until golden; drain and layer fried fillets with sauce. Bake in a medium oven until just bubbling.  Serve over rice.