As you know, "Cajuns" were displaced Acadians who were expelled from their homeland in what is now Atlantic Canada (mostly Nova Scotia). Some settled in Louisiana, some elsewhere. Some went "back" to France, but since their ancestors had emigrated to Acadia at least three generations earlier, they had no family nor welcome there. So some moved back here to NS after the dust settled. A group who had been living in a refugee camp in St. Malo settled in Cheticamp, NS, which was a very isolated fishing community for a long time. They retained their language, customs, and cuisine. One of their favourites is "fricot", which is a thin stew (almost a soup) made with chicken, potatoes, and salted chives. Another is "rappie pie", aka "rappé pie", which is a pie filled with grated potato and (you guessed it) salted chives or salted onions, cooked in chicken stock.
So the answer to your questions is "dried salted onions".
Oldfashioned way here is with a petroleum burner set, adjustable to the degree.
(used originals by the truckloads on the web, for nickels and dimes)
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A chef I worked with a couple of decades ago did cheeks of veal sous vide that way.
(currently chef of the maritime museum restaurant in Rotterdam, after he terminated himself with his own eat shack fantasy. Went from 300+ to under 200lb in one corporate swing. Should schedule to pay him a visit shortly)
Aaah, in the bottom kitchen, they had one H of an automatic vacuum machine. Just had to put a plastic bag with the merchandise in, close the lid, and voila. (for some reason, a lot of their glaces/sauces ended up small-portioned and vacuumed in the freezer at my place)
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Sounds about right, my feeling is that the hipsters would lose interest when confronted with what folks had to do out of necessity.
Fajitas were definitely out of necessity...butcher scrap meat. The funny story is that when my father moved us back to deep South TX, we never had fajitas before. In those days, the butcher left the long flap of connective tissue attached. Boy, my father was angry when I started to remove the meat from my mouth because of that tissue! He had forgotten that you remove it before preparing it! 
I had hoped to live in a universe w/o feedback loops. No such luck.
I had hoped to live in a universe w/o feedback loops. No such luck.
Sorry for hijacking the thread without rifling through "just" 255 pages of posts...
But-eerm, seeing as there are a lot of people from the States here (and this being a food thread); does anyone know a nice recipe for, say, a stew (I am experimenting with a couple of dishes that i serve/eat in a bread bowl) or a particularly good local dish?
(that would save me months of trekking through the southern states, only to realize that there might be some undiscovered gems of recipes in the rest of the states, effectively claiming the rest of my life ^_^)
And seeing a lot of people from Canadia, I can only imagine that there must be a couple of great Canadian recipes out there...
But-eerm, seeing as there are a lot of people from the States here (and this being a food thread); does anyone know a nice recipe for, say, a stew (I am experimenting with a couple of dishes that i serve/eat in a bread bowl) or a particularly good local dish?
(that would save me months of trekking through the southern states, only to realize that there might be some undiscovered gems of recipes in the rest of the states, effectively claiming the rest of my life ^_^)
And seeing a lot of people from Canadia, I can only imagine that there must be a couple of great Canadian recipes out there...
Missed your post there Smokey.
Stew?
Wasn't that Monday's unfortunate offspring of Sunday's wonderful roast beef dinner?
Cut it all up, toss in a pot with some stock and a little flour. Tada...stew. I wouldn't have thought it had a recipe but I Googled it and holy Gorgonzola Batman, there are 21,800,000 hits.
Funny thing is a lot of them start with fresh ingredients. Go figure. Actually I won't go figure as you seem to start with all those beautiful ingredients and you end up with Stew? No thanks.
I guess that doesn't really help does it?
Are you open to ideas other than stew, there are lots of good one pots that might do well in a bread bowl.
Stew?
Wasn't that Monday's unfortunate offspring of Sunday's wonderful roast beef dinner?
Cut it all up, toss in a pot with some stock and a little flour. Tada...stew. I wouldn't have thought it had a recipe but I Googled it and holy Gorgonzola Batman, there are 21,800,000 hits.
Funny thing is a lot of them start with fresh ingredients. Go figure. Actually I won't go figure as you seem to start with all those beautiful ingredients and you end up with Stew? No thanks.
I guess that doesn't really help does it?
Are you open to ideas other than stew, there are lots of good one pots that might do well in a bread bowl.
Pan fried oysters tonight. Another recipe that's easy and will impress the ladies.
I usually eat oysters fresh shucked in a lime/chili marinade but there was nothing good at the market today so I bought bottled ones. The bottled ones aren't the same so they may as well be cooked AFAIC.
So:
Rinse, drain
Put them in a bag of flour and starch 50-50 with a bit of table salt for the fun of it. Shake 'em up.
Then into an egg and soy (or regular)milk bath to get them all wet (the oysters that is), and into another bag with a Ritz cracker and commercial crispy fried onion crumb mixture (cut up fine). Let them sit for a few minutes while you're having a martini with your lovely lady.
Into the pan they go and a minute or two a side and voila, instant love food.
I usually eat oysters fresh shucked in a lime/chili marinade but there was nothing good at the market today so I bought bottled ones. The bottled ones aren't the same so they may as well be cooked AFAIC.
So:
Rinse, drain
Put them in a bag of flour and starch 50-50 with a bit of table salt for the fun of it. Shake 'em up.
Then into an egg and soy (or regular)milk bath to get them all wet (the oysters that is), and into another bag with a Ritz cracker and commercial crispy fried onion crumb mixture (cut up fine). Let them sit for a few minutes while you're having a martini with your lovely lady.
Into the pan they go and a minute or two a side and voila, instant love food.
Cal, what did your mother do to you? Stew (beef, chicken, pork, lamb, venison, whatever) is always made with fresh ingredients. Leftovers thrown in a pot are... leftovers thrown in a pot.
Start with cut up meat, maybe dredged in seasoned flour, maybe not. Brown it in fat (meat drippings? EVOO? butter? bacon fat? your choice!), remove from pan, add onions/celery/carrots/garlic/whatever, fry until they reach some state you like (from "soft" to "brown"), add the meat back, add liquid (water, wine, stock, etc), simmer, add root vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnip, etc), add herbs etc, simmer more, walk away, simmer more. Add tomatoes if you want, add grains if you want (pot barley, rice). Whatever. But it is NOT just a bunch of leftovers! It is a creation, it is the ultimate comfort food, it is "mom food".
Cal, you need to make some stew! (Oh, it is also the ultimate Canadian winter food)
Wow, that's pretty open-ended...
To me, "stew" isn't a recipe so much as a method.
Here's something I made recently that was good. I really like "red beans and rice" (you can omit the rice if you are serving it in bread), but it takes a lot of time and work to make right -- you have to simmer smoked pork hocks and veg in water for a few hours, strain and degrease the stock, add dried red beans (pinto are best) to the stock and veg, cook the beans, add the meat from the hocks plus some smoked sausage back to the pot... it really is a time-sink.
So the other day I did this:
Heat a heavy pan on medium heat, sprinkle dried oregano in the pan and let it toast.
Add diced double-smoked bacon, fry until most of the fat is rendered.
Add bay leaf and diced onions, carrot, celery, and minced garlic, fry until soft.
Add diced peppers (red, green, whatever) and cook for a few minutes.
Add some tinned red beans (red kidney beans, pinto beans, etc)
Simmer for a bit, add sliced chorizo sausage (like these: Chorizo Sausage - Piller's), heat through
Serve over rice or in a bread bowl!
Also, from here in Atlantic Canada, a good hearty chowder would be good in your bread bowl. I don't really have a recipe, but start by frying some salt pork in a pan, add onions, then add white fish, ideally cod cheeks and tongues, add milk and butter, add potatoes, simmer...
That reminds me: A recipe I always liked was the beef Stroganoff in the "old" Joy of Cooking. Basically, brown some thin-sliced beef in butter, remove from pan, add more butter, fry grated onion then mushrooms, add back the beef, add basil and white wine, then sour cream, heat through. Unhealthy and really delicious.
Then a while ago I mixed sour cream with minced chipotle en adobo, as a sort of dip. Very nice. Got me to thinking.
Unfortunately my daughter, who otherwise has an adventurous palate, hates mushrooms, else they would be in this, but...
Heat a pan, add oil and/or butter, add some grated onion, saute, add thinly-sliced beef and a bit of oregano, brown the beef. Toss in some sliced peppers (red and green) and minced garlic, fry for a couple of minutes, deglaze the pan with beer, then add sour cream mixed with minced chipotle en adobo (plus salt etc). Easy-peasy and delicious!
Then a while ago I mixed sour cream with minced chipotle en adobo, as a sort of dip. Very nice. Got me to thinking.
Unfortunately my daughter, who otherwise has an adventurous palate, hates mushrooms, else they would be in this, but...
Heat a pan, add oil and/or butter, add some grated onion, saute, add thinly-sliced beef and a bit of oregano, brown the beef. Toss in some sliced peppers (red and green) and minced garlic, fry for a couple of minutes, deglaze the pan with beer, then add sour cream mixed with minced chipotle en adobo (plus salt etc). Easy-peasy and delicious!
Wow, Gone for "just" a few days, and there's a page being filled with recipes... And good ones at that
But stew is a lot of things and you're both right, I'm afraid: a stew is a slow and (semi-)carefully cooked meal with excuisite ingredients, but it is also a good way to cook some leftovers... Then again, so are a lot of other recipes; born out of necessity, like gravy which was created to cover up the taste of slightly rancid meat (or stale, industrial cooking )
However I do owe you an apology, Cal: "Stew" is just one recipe in what I imagine is a varied kitchen. And I get a feeling you probably know some killer seafood recipes.
I'll try the recipes, and probably wow some friends/family (I'll not hog all the credit ) Thanks...
But stew is a lot of things and you're both right, I'm afraid: a stew is a slow and (semi-)carefully cooked meal with excuisite ingredients, but it is also a good way to cook some leftovers... Then again, so are a lot of other recipes; born out of necessity, like gravy which was created to cover up the taste of slightly rancid meat (or stale, industrial cooking
)However I do owe you an apology, Cal: "Stew" is just one recipe in what I imagine is a varied kitchen. And I get a feeling you probably know some killer seafood recipes.
I'll try the recipes, and probably wow some friends/family (I'll not hog all the credit
) Thanks...
Ok, enough about leftovers, let's move on to the food of our forefathers, Probably cooked by our foremothers, foregrandmothers, foresisters etc. Tonight it is cooked by presentcal. We are having a meal that imparts a flavour from many different corners and is "of the land" tonight.
Starting with beef tendon. A high protein, zero cholesterol part of the cow done in an oriental style five spice/soy sauce/chili simmer.
Next is a finger potato dish done Mediterranean style with water, citrus, rosemary and a complimentary dose of sugar and salt. Simmered in the juice then roasted with olive oil.
Third we have a rice and bean dish with California brown rice that looks a lot like barley, with a cumin based seasoning and whatever else comes to mind when I actually get to cooking it (it's only 3:30 pm here). The beans are simple canned kidney beans. This is a multi-cultural dish.
Lastly we have carrot and ginger soup. I have no idea where that might have come from, but the carrots are not the steroid type you see nowadays, they're the local skinny ******* I grew up with. They are blendered and then cooked in stock along with pan wilted onion, a plum, an apple and blendered again. After reheating, green onions are added before serving.
So there it is. Cal's pilgrim, or maybe peasant food style, Thanksgiving dinner in Chez Weldon tonight.
Cheers and happy Canadian thanksgiving.
Starting with beef tendon. A high protein, zero cholesterol part of the cow done in an oriental style five spice/soy sauce/chili simmer.
Next is a finger potato dish done Mediterranean style with water, citrus, rosemary and a complimentary dose of sugar and salt. Simmered in the juice then roasted with olive oil.
Third we have a rice and bean dish with California brown rice that looks a lot like barley, with a cumin based seasoning and whatever else comes to mind when I actually get to cooking it (it's only 3:30 pm here). The beans are simple canned kidney beans. This is a multi-cultural dish.
Lastly we have carrot and ginger soup. I have no idea where that might have come from, but the carrots are not the steroid type you see nowadays, they're the local skinny ******* I grew up with. They are blendered and then cooked in stock along with pan wilted onion, a plum, an apple and blendered again. After reheating, green onions are added before serving.
So there it is. Cal's pilgrim, or maybe peasant food style, Thanksgiving dinner in Chez Weldon tonight.
Cheers and happy Canadian thanksgiving.
"Stovies" -- fry some onions in a pot, add potatoes and water (not too much water), boil until potatoes are cooked, add Bisto "gravy" powder, mash the spuds and eat 'em up! Not really nutritious, but will keep you alive.
Back story: Once many years ago, when I was very poor, a sailing vessel crewed by young Brits was arrested for non-payment of debts (and attempting to flee). Not the fault of the crew that the master couldn't pay his debts, but those poor guys were living on a steel-hulled ship in Halifax harbour in winter with no fuel and no money to speak of. My apartment-mate and I would invite them in every now and then, give them beer, and feed them a big pot of stovies.
Back story: Once many years ago, when I was very poor, a sailing vessel crewed by young Brits was arrested for non-payment of debts (and attempting to flee). Not the fault of the crew that the master couldn't pay his debts, but those poor guys were living on a steel-hulled ship in Halifax harbour in winter with no fuel and no money to speak of. My apartment-mate and I would invite them in every now and then, give them beer, and feed them a big pot of stovies.