I never used to be a fan of stuffed peppers. I would come across them once a year or so, stare distastefully at the green blobs simmering in their own juices, and would do my best to avoid seconds. My Subway orders often included the words, "...and everything EXCEPT the green peppers".
We weren't friends.
As one grows older and (at least in my case) generally more adventurous, foods which were once shunned find their way into a diet. A great example: Brussels sprouts with bite.
When I learned that Erin would be coming to visit me for a few days back in late May, I was inspired to give stuffed peppers another shot. In searching for a recipe that we could make together (and in true Conquistador fashion, basing most of my decision off what I had in the refrigerator at the time), I consulted my Epicurious iPhone app. Bunch of zucchini? Check. Sweet Italian sausage that I best use up before leaving home for a couple of months? You know it. A red onion the size of my sister's head? Oddly, yes. Get some rosemary sprigs, a few big peppers, and we're in business. Done.
I'll go on a tangent for a moment - Epicurious, whether accessed via said iPhone app or Epicurious.com, is a great place to look up recipes when you have a general idea what you might like to try... or at least what main ingredients you have. I suggest checking out their site, some of our CulinaryFTW Twitter friends, or the other sites we have listed in the right-hand sidebar of the blog if you ever need suggestions.
While there are a lot of stuffed pepper recipes out there, the one that we made can be found here and originated in the May of 1999 Bon Appetit magazine issue as far as I can tell.
I'll leave the cooking instructions to the recipe author this time and focus more on our experience. While we didn't struggle with creating this dish, I will highlight one part of the instructions to which I wish we'd paid more attention... the stuffing can be PREPARED A DAY AHEAD! The required mincing, grating, and sausage skinning may not seem like much, but with a cook time of around an hour, you may not want to spend all of that time cooking at once.
The construction of the dish is not difficult once the stuffing is prepared - you basically mush everything up, stick it in a halved pepper, and bake it. Once out of the oven you can transfer everything to a plate and stick a few rosemary sprigs in for decoration... the result of which was Caesar Pepper once we were finished. A few roses for matching color, a bottle of Rieseling, and you have a romantic dinner.
The peppers were, in our opinion, delicious. We made two peppers (that is four halves, for those of you counting on your fingers), and it was more than enough... We could only eat three halves in one sitting. Presentation-wise, I thought they looked great as well - not the bubbling muck I remembered from my childhood. The idea of using red peppers instead of green was a new one for me, but worked. I have to wonder if one could use green, red, orange and yellow side by side for a neat presentation. Let us know if any of you do as I am curious now!
In the end, this was an all-around success. We may not have come up with the recipe ourselves this time, but if we made them without a struggle, you can too! The way I look at it, discussing culinary arts is as much about sharing good experiences with tasty recipes as it is about disseminating original ideas. We found the dish delicious; let us know your thoughts as well.
When we started this blog back in the summer, we never really expected it to go much of anywhere. We were bored, to be honest. I had graduated from Wittenberg University, Matty was out of school for the summer, and we hadn’t written much of anything for a while. Never did we think we'd post anything that could be considered overly useful let alone “timely”.
Oh, how we’ve grown. *sniff*
If you watched our Chicken Crab Valentine video, you know that we assigned February a theme: Soup Month. Unlike Austrian Month where we actually created a few Austrian dishes before becoming simply too lazy to post our findings, this month we fully intend to follow through on our promise. Today's dish IS a soup of sorts: Shrimp, Chicken, and Andouille Gumbo.
Our decision to feature gumbo, when combined with our previous arbitrary selection of jambalaya, might lead one to believe that we possess some semblance of clairvoyant powers. Pursuing two of New Orleans’ most iconic dishes directly prior to the Saints upset victory against the favored Colts in the Super Bowl last week does seem suspicious. Can it be that we truly have the gift of future sight?
I wish. Or maybe I don’t wish. What if the future is a terrible place and knowledge of its existence sank us so deeply into a pit of depression that we never wrote again? What if we realized that all of our time spent writing this blog never got us anywhere? No, I suspect one doesn’t require the ability to see the future to glean that bit of info.
I'd hope that if we were clairvoyant we'd have a better use for our time than messing up recipes and writing about it every now and then. To be honest, I watched the big game surrounded by a sea of blue Colts jerseys in Indianapolis a few hours ago actually. I was as surprised as anyone that New Orleans won.
ANYWAY [back to the actual cooking part of this blog], our true reason for featuring Cajun food of late is simply because it is delicious. If you need one more reason to make gumbo, "Fat Tuesday" is less a week away! Make your Mardi Gras awesome* and get you some gumbo. *Gumbo probably won’t make your Mardi Gras awesome. More likely you’ll feel vaguely authentic, as if you were wearing a grass skirt in a Hawaiian hotel.
Now before you read this recipe and think, "Hot diggity! How am I gonna afford all of this?? 12 cups of onions? Daggum! Bump this malarkey**!", take a deep breath.
**Using proper cooking language, of course.
We know. It says it serves 16 for a reasons. If you live somewhere other than an Army base and/or on Bourbon Street,we expect you to be halving or even quartering this recipe. Yes, this requires division and multiplication, something that we are notably poor at (see Chicken Crab Valentine as a reference point). We managed well enough though, so take heart. We made half the recipe for 4 people and ended up eating it on 3-4 separate occasions, so consider yourself warned. This recipe makes a ton no matter how you look at it.
Also note that you can prepare this stuff ahead of time. We didn't read that part and Matty spent a woeful few hours chopping vegetables with our special guest stars (ok, it's our mom and sister) before I ever even made it home from work. Don't make this mistake - split the task of making gumbo up and it will be much, much less stressful for you than it was for us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From Epicurious.Com. If you're interested, here is the recipe as listed on that site.
Shrimp, Chicken, and Andouille Gumbo As described in the December 2006 issue of Bon Appétit magazine
“A cook's dream: The base is made ahead, and the shrimp are added at the last minute. Best of all, the gumbo tastes even better the second day.” <-- Unlike us, I suggest you actually read this part ahead of time.
Yield: Makes 16 servings --YES, SIXTEEN.
Ingredients
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup all purpose flour
6 large onions, chopped (about 12 cups)
6 red bell peppers, seeded, chopped (about 7 cups)
8 celery stalks, chopped (about 3 cups)
16 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chopped fresh thyme
6 bay leaves
2 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes with juice
4 8-ounce bottles clam juice
4 cups low-salt chicken broth
4 pounds andouille sausage, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices
3 pounds skinless boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch cubes
Phase I : This phase can be done up to two days ahead of the intended consumption date.
Step 1: The Vegetables: Cut the heck outta some vegetables. There's a lot of 'em, so take them out as best you can.
Step 2: The Base - Heat oil in heavy 13-quart pot over medium-high heat until very hot and almost smoking. Add flour and stir constantly until mixture is dark reddish brown, about 5 minutes. Add chopped onions, chopped bell peppers, and chopped celery and cook until onions are soft and brown, stirring frequently, about 20 minutes. Add garlic and cayenne and stir 2 minutes. Add wine, thyme, and bay leaves; bring to boil, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes with juice, clam juice, broth, sausage, and chicken; simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes. Add okra and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes.
If you are making the soup base ahead of time, cool slightly at this point. Chill uncovered until cold, then cover and keep chilled. Bring base to simmer before eventually continuing.
Phase II : Finishing Up
Add shrimp to pot and cook shrimp until just opaque in center, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Season gumbo to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with minced parsley and serve with steamed rice alongside / underneath.
This recipe is pretty straight-forward. You chop, you make the base, you toss in the shrimp at the end. IF you follow the directions and don't do everything at once, you'll have fun. Learn from our mistakes.
Also, make sure you really have all of the supplies that you need. We had to substitute Italian sausage (NOT the same, mind you) for half of the andouille because Heinen's only had one pound when we went. Be prepared.
We recommended this recipe to someone on Twitter who made it for 15 people and had huge success with it. He said he added a Tablespoon of extra cayenne pepper to kick it up a notch - you may want to as well.
Do not reheat too many times once the shrimp is in! They quickly become soft to the point of becoming a pretty gross texture.
It was pretty good, we both decided, though we made our share of mistakes (see the Tips).We would make it again, assuming we got it right. After all, it has okra in it. Mmmm... okra.If you made this recipe as we now have it edited, we believe you'll have a hootin'-good, delicious time. I estimate it will go something like this:
We certainly hope you have a blast.
We anticipate this being the last publicly available recipe we'll be using for a while because, to be honest, things are a lot more interesting when we either find some obscure recipe in an ancient tome or straight-up invent a dish based on what we found in our cupboards. Expect a return to our roots...
Until next time.
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P.S. If you're REALLY bored, feel free to watch our step-by-step video of the undertaking! It gets... interesting.
The Treu household has always* had a great and amazing tradition; when we're really hungry and don't know what to eat, we can always count on some good ol' Zatarain's Jambalaya mix. We usually have a few boxes on hand, and we'll add kielbasa slices or shrimp along with lots and lots of Frank's Hot Sauce. This week we decided to channel our love and appreciation of this simple meal into a more exciting and original jambalya that we make ourselves! *Not actually always. I'm pretty sure Luke's girlfriend Erin did it and we copied her. That's pretty much the same thing as always.
Luke found a recipe at Epicurious.com for some Smoked Sausage Jambalaya: http://www.Epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Smoked-Sausage-Jambalaya-356042 The ingredients can be found at just about any local grocery store, except for perhaps the andouille sausage. That seems a bit more exclusive, but our grocery store had it. When Luke told me we were using andouille sausage, he pronounced it "an-doo-lee" at first, as did the lady at the grocery store, so it wasn't until later that I realized that it was a word I had already seen in my French class. In English it simply means "a highly spiced smoked pork sausage." In French, it means "a numbskull; a generally ridiculous or incompetent person."
We thought it applied pretty well to the Conquistadors.
Andouille, the heavily spiced and smoked sausage that is a linchpin of so many Cajun dishes, adds its inimitable heat to an able stuffing stand-in. A swirl of cream gravy (above) can help quell the spice.
Yield: Makes 8 (side dish) servings Active Time: 30 min Total Time: 1 1/4 hr
1 pound pork andouille sausage, sliced crosswise 1/3 inch thick
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 green bell peppers, finely chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 scallions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 1/2 cups long-grain white rice (1 pound)
1 (28-ounces) can diced tomatoes
3 1/2 cups water
Cook sausage in oil in a wide 6-to 8-quart heavy pot over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until golden-brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
Cook peppers, celery, onion, scallions, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in fat remaining in pot, stirring occasionally, until golden-brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in rice, sausage, tomatoes with their juice, water, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and bring to a rolling boil.
Reduce heat and cook at a bare simmer, covered tightly with lid, until rice is tender and water is absorbed, about 25 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, 10 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The really nice thing about jambalaya is that the preparation is not tough at all; or at least it's much less complex than some of the recipes we've been using. In the end you just throw everything into a big ol' pot and let it cook. We had to spent a little time chopping up vegetables and such, but that wasn't too tough. We used pre-chopped up celery (so we just kind of eyeballed the celery) and we forgot to get scallions*, but I don't think anybody noticed. *corrected
The general concensus at the end was that our jambalaya was a success. Jambalaya is pretty hard to screw up, and it's ever so delicious! A word of caution, however; they don't just say that andouille sausage is spicy for no reason. Luke added a liberal amount of Frank's hot sauce while it was cooking as well, but you couldn't even taste the Frank's (and for those of you experienced with Frank's, you know it has a flavor all its own.) This jambalaya is not for the faint of heart or the faint of tongue; but if you think you can handle the fire, you should definitely go for it. It's an easy recipe that makes a good amount of delicious food, and honestly, what more can you ask for?
I really hope we aren't getting big heads with our recent successes, but we are definitely looking towards the future. February just might be our most exciting month yet; we're SOUPER excited!!
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I'll give you a moment to recover from that one.
In all actuality, Soup Month is looking very bright! We've already gone shopping and gotten all the ingredients for our first endeavor of February (except the okra... they ran out of okra. So, most of the ingredients.) Stay tuned, because I've got a funny feeling that things are about to get a little more adventurous than usual. And "usual" is frightening enough.
The construction of the dish is not difficult once the stuffing is prepared - you basically mush everything up, stick it in a halved pepper, and bake it. Once out of the oven you can transfer everything to a plate and stick a few rosemary sprigs in for decoration... the result of which was Caesar Pepper once we were finished. A few roses for matching color, a bottle of Rieseling, and you have a romantic dinner.
