Alligators & Oysters

Today’s post is the third and last on Chef John Folse’s definitive cookbook on the Cajun-Creole traditions of preparing fish and seafood, Hooks, Lies & Alibis.

Though raised in Louisiana, for me there is still an aura of the exotic in the recipes of John Folse and the people he works with in south Louisiana. His signature dishes, as well as those of other chefs in the area are brimming with the flavors of sac au lait, granulated garlic, artichoke hearts, mirlitons and Creole mustard, to name but a few example ingredients in the hundreds of recipes included in Hooks, Lies & Alibis. Not only are the recipes enticing, but everything about the collection of ingredients, the preparation and the land of south Louisiana is presented in page after page of high quality photographs compiled by photographers both local and from out of state. Pass over the history and recipes, the book still guarantees an hour or more of browsing through stunning photographs.

This last offering from the big fish cookbook includes two recipes chosen at random, recipes still untried in my kitchen, though I’m hoping that is a temporary condition. Pictures are included relating to the two recipes, but others have been added merely as a means of hinting at the book’s visual appeal.

OYSTERS BENSON

Comment: This recipe is from Rockefeller’s Restaurant in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, and is the creation of chefs Thomas Bond, Lester Nicosia and Chris Letard. This is an ideal brunch dish and is also great when served for breakfast.

Ingredients:

18 fresh-shucked oysters

3 English muffins, halved and toasted

vegetable oil for deep-frying

6 slices Canadian bacon

3 cups seasoned yellow corn flour

1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning

1 tablespoon lemon pepper seasoning

1 tablespoon Creole mustard

granulated garlic to taste

¾ cup Blender Hollandaise Sauce (see recipe)

Method:

In a cast iron pot or a home-style fryer such as a FryDaddy, heat oil to 360°F according to manufacturer’s directions. While oil is heating, pan-fry Canadian bacon until lightly browned, set aside and keep warm. When ready to cook, blend seasoned corn flour, Old Bay Seasoning and lemon pepper seasoning, stirring well to incorporate. Dredge oysters in seasoned corn flour mixture and deep-fry until crispy and floating, 2-3 minutes. While oysters are frying, toast English muffins and place 1 muffin half on each plate. Top with Canadian bacon slices and crispy fried oysters. In a small bowl, blend Creole mustard into Hollandaise and divide equally over each muffin half. Serve hot.

ALLIGATOR CHILI

Comment: In Louisiana, alligator is often used as a substitute for other meats, giving us great dishes such as alligator sauce piquant, alligator spaghetti, fried alligator tail and alligator sausage. Here is an old camp recipe for alligator chili that I love.

Ingredients:

3 pounds alligator meat, diced

½ cup vegetable oil

2 cups diced onions

1 cup diced celery

1 cup diced bell peppers

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons diced jalapeño peppers

1 (16 ounce) can pinto beans

3 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce

1 cup fish stock (see recipe)

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

salt and cracked black pepper to taste

granulated garlic to taste

Method:

In a large Dutch oven, heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add alligator and sauté 20 minutes to render juices. Add onions, celery, bell peppers, minced garlic and jalapeño peppers and sauté 3-5 minutes or until vegetables are wilted, stirring occasionally. Add pinto beans, tomato sauce and stock, stirring to incorporate. Bring to a low boil then reduce to simmer. Stir in chili powder and cumin and cook approximately 1 hour or until alligator is tender, stirring occasionally. Season to taste using salt, pepper and granulated garlic. Ladle into soup bowls or mugs and serve hot with fresh cornbread.

Baccalá Amalfi Style Salted Cod

Though a type of dolphin, Mahi Mahi should not be confused with the mammal.

Hooks, Lies & Alibis

John Folse begins his cookbook, Hooks, Lies & Alibis with a forward describing his boyhood along the Mississippi River, a boyhood stamped indelibly with the place of river, wildlife, fish, swamp and bayou. It is the story of a Cajun boy growing up along the twenty-foot high levee fronting his home in Louisiana’s St James Parish, a marshy land where bar pits along the river caught the overflow and filled with spoonbill catfish, channel cats, garfish, gasperou and sweet Mississippi River shrimp. For John Folse and his five brothers these bar pits were both a playground and the birthplace of an entrepreneurial spirit. Even as children the six boys earned a few pocket dollars with the sale of their fishing bounty from the bar pits and bayous.

By age twelve Folse had graduated to working his lines and traps on the mile-wide mighty Mississippi. But the river was a source of play as much as fishing ground. Folse describes it this way…

‘What we loved most about the shrimp season was that the Mississippi River water was warmed by the June sun and the monkey vines grew long and strong from the willow trees that leaned into the river. A trip to Disneyland could not compare with swinging monkey vines into the river back then. Swimming and swinging were always the payback for a job well done raising shrimp boxes. (Mamere’s stuffed eggplant was just a bonus.) Although we had been warned often of the many perils of swimming in the river, we always enjoyed a dip in Old Muddy. And, the fact is, we couldn’t deny our guilt when asked, “Have you been swimming today?” because our mud-stained Fruit of the Looms gave us away.’

From the river the boys moved into the swamps beyond the cane fields in back of the house. They poled their pirogues into these swamps to a spot where the big gators lived, looking to exercise skills handed down from their father. Following their father’s lessons the boys tied a six-inch steel hook to the end of a quarter-inch thick cord rope and baited it with half a chicken. One boy climbed a willow tree angling over the marsh and tied the cord with hook and bait to a thick branch dangling two feet above the water. In time an eight to ten foot gator leapt with a swish of its tail into the air grabbing the bait and swallowing the hook. Later, poling the bayous of home, the boys learned of the early summer bullfrogs. Excellent in the kitchen pot, they were also a source of income, shipped around the country to biology labs looking for specimens.

Apart from fish, the swamp-floor pantry provided big and small game, game birds and crustaceans, all of which were eaten more often than fish in the Folse household. Crawfish and channel catfish were the two staples, though crawfish did not become popular on Louisiana tables until the late 1950s. For the Folse’s, crawfish was a delicacy. It was Crawfish Bisque on Easter Sunday, Daddy’s River Road Crawfish Stew on Mother’s Day, and late in summer boiled crawfish with corn and potatoes was a common dish.

Folse tells a salty tale about cleaning a large channel cat…

‘Daddy said the head and skin were important because they added that wonderful gelatinous texture to the stew. He removed the gills and whiskers from the catfish, and then, with a Brillo pad in hand, scrubbed the whole fish under running water from the cistern. The slime that protected the fish’s skin had to be removed, and there was nothing better than Brillo for this task. Daddy also claimed that the skin kept the tender meat from falling apart during the two-to-three hour cooking process.’

From a small piece of land in Louisiana’s St James Parish, land strategically located between the river and the swamp, John Folse was bathed in a culture and cuisine that he came to make known worldwide. Mention his name in some circles and heads are filled with mouth-watering thoughts of Louisiana Cajun cooking.

Soup from the Bayou

Beautiful soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Lewis Carroll—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Soups have nourished people in almost every culture for longer than 10,000 years. Prior to the Bronze Age and the invention of something like a pot, ancient civilizations boiled meat in water, using as a ‘pot’ animal skins staked over fire. Others heated stones and then moved them from the fire into a hole filled with water, then adding meat, vegetables and grain.

The word ‘soup’ is derived from the German word sop, which originally referred not to the soup itself, but to the bread over which soup, broth or other liquid was poured. From sop came sup and suppe. Sup was another word for ‘eat’ and ‘supper’ denoted the meal…zuppa, sopa and shorpa, a variety of words offering insight into how important this hearty dish has been in our collective history.

With a big chunky hock left over from a fresh ham, letting it go to waste was out of the question, so I looked through The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine for a good way to put the ham hock to use. Of course, the big cookbook offers a wide choice of soups, but I was looking for a recipe that uses white beans and ham, sure I would find something with those ingredients as a base. The answer was Cajun White Bean Soup. I was stopped for a moment by the inclusion of tasso in the list of ingredients, not sure I could find the real thing this far from south Louisiana. Tasso is a dried pork seasoned with cayenne pepper, garlic and salt and then heavily smoked. The word ‘tasso’ comes from the Spanish tasajo which is dried, cured beef. The Cajun pork version is a popular seasoning in South Louisiana. For my white bean soup I was forced to substitute country cured ham which is the closet thing to tasso at the local market.

So, here is a tried and true recipe for CAJUN WHITE BEAN SOUP pretty much guaranteed to please.

INGREDIENTS:

1 large package Great Northern Beans

2 pieces heavy smoked ham hocks ( 1 large ham hock will serve as well)

1 cup julienned tasso

¾ cup oil

2 cups diced onion

2 cups diced celery

1 cup diced bell pepper

¼ cup minced garlic

2 cups diced tomatoes

water as needed

1 bay leaf

salt and cracked black pepper to taste

PREPARATION:

The cookbook says to presoak dried beans overnight in cold water, but you will get the same result by placing the beans in a large pot with 10 cups of water; bringing it to a boil for 2-3 minutes; removing the pot from the stove and letting the beans stand covered for 1 hour. When the beans are ready, heat the oil in a 2-gallon soup pot, add the onion, celery, bell pepper, garlic and tomatoes. Sauté 3-5 minutes, or until the vegetables are wilted. Add ham hocks and tasso. Continue to sauté for an additional 5 minutes. Stir beans into vegetable mixture and sauté 2 minutes.

Pour in enough cold water to cover beans by 2 inches. Bring to a rolling boil, reduce to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally for approximately 1 hour. When the beans begin to get tender, mash them against the side of the pot to create creaminess. Season with bay leaf, salt and pepper. Continue simmering and stir-mashing the beans now and then. The soup is ready when it has reached a creamy consistency.

Adjust the seasoning and serve with warm French bread and a green salad.

Count on a preparation time of a little over two hours, and with the measurements here soup enough for ten or eleven people. A little bread and salad served with it makes a hearty and filling meal.