Saturday, October 18, 2014

Emeril's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo

I looooooooove cajun/creole food. Let's be perfectly clear about that. Unfortunately, to do this kind of cooking right, you need a lot of time, as these recipes are often long and slow-cooking endeavors. Fortunately for me, I had some time today around the house (while working on a remodel of daughter Julia's room) to do just that; a long slow-cooked cajun meal the correct way. The recipe used was Emeril Lagasse's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. Yum. Since it is readily available on the Internet, I will walk you through it here...

First and foremost, this isn't  quick recipe; it states 30 minutes prep time and 3:30 total time, and it is all of that. First you brown smoked sausages in a dutch oven. Then you brown highly seasoned chicken (boneless thighs of course).
Sausage, Chicken, Onions and Peppers

When the sausage and chicken have both been browned (and removed from the pot), you take the next 20-25 minutes making a chocolate brown roux from the drippings, oil and flour. This is the key flavor step for the whole dish and cannot be skimped on.
Starting a chocolate brown roux

When the chocolate roux is done, you add onions, celery and peppers, and soften them. Then you add seasonings and the sausage back in.
Onions and peppers go into the roux

You add chicken stock, bring this to a boil, and then simmer it for an hour.
Ready for a long simmer

At the end of the first hour of simmering, you add the browned chicken to the pot and then simmer it for another hour and a half.
Chicken and smoked sausage gumbo

At the very end, you add in green onions, chopped parsley and a bunch of file powder (not easy to find, but one of the things that gives the dish its authentic gumbo flavor).

This should be served with, or over, white rice (what else?), but I always want to have a nice crusty bread on hand for sopping up the sauce.

This takes an afternoon of commitment to make, but it is not difficult by any means. I can't recommend it highly enough. I have been to New Orleans several times over the years, and this recipe tastes like New Orleans. Very highly recommended.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Chicken Cacciatore

We needed something relatively easy to put together for dinner last night, and we had chicken, peppers, onions and mushrooms that needed to be used, so that looked like Chicken Cacciatore to me. I'm not the biggest fan in the world of tomato sauce dishes in general, but this is a dish that the whole family likes.

When I have made this in the past, I have tended to wing it, with decent but not spectacular results. This time I thought maybe I should actually use a real recipe. I Googled Chicken Cacciatore, and the first link at the top of the list was a Giada De Laurentiis recipe from Food Network. We have made a few dozen Giada recipes and have never had a bad one yet, so this was an obvious choice.

The recipe was simple and straightforward, and the end result was better that I generally think Cacciatore is. I am sure this is because of the sauce. The sauce here was a combination of tomato, white wine and chicken broth, and was lighter than the intensely tomato sauce that I am more accustomed to.

Total prep time was 10-15 minutes, and cooking time was closer to an hour. This is longer than listed, but we made a larger batch, and most of that extra time was the initial browning of chicken in batches.

Which brings us to step 1 - dredging bone-in chicken pieces in flour and browning them in batches. Salt and pepper. Olive oil. Easy. Remove the browned chicken from the pan.
Dredged and browned chicken

Step 2 - Add chopped peppers, onions and garlic to the drippings in the pan. Add some white wine and reduce it a bit.
Onions, peppers and garlic

Step 3 - Add chopped tomatoes and juice, broth, capers and oregano. Bring to a boil. Return the chicken to the pot. Lower to a simmer.
Tomatoes, white wine and chicken broth

Half-cover and Simmer 20-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has thickened somewhat.
Chicken Cacciatore

This was another good Giada recipe, and better by far than I have made when going without a recipe. The lighter and yet still richer sauce was the difference. The stock added some lightness and took away the overly tomato taste, and the white wine added some depth of flavor.

Yes, I did forget the mushrooms. I was making the recipe by the book, which doesn't call for them. After dinner, I sauteed the mushrooms that needed using, and added them to the leftovers in the pot. Even better...