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How to Cook dishes from Cajun and Creole tradition
The Cajun and Creole people most live in the state of
Louisiana,
especially southern
Louisiana.
Cajun people tend to be descended from French Acadians (French settlers in the
Canadian maritime provinces and the state of
Maine),
whereas Creole are often descended from French and Spanish settlers in Louisiana
who
arrived prior the region becoming part of the
United States as a result of
the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
Intermarriage, and perceived social differences between Cajun and Creole people, has
of course blurred the distinctions between the two groups, and many people choose to define
their own identity in the way that they feel describes themselves best.
Outside of
Louisiana,
the difference between Cajun and Creole cuisine is somewhat blurred. However, in the state itself,
there are distinct differences. Cajun food tends to spicy, hearty, based on local produce, including
agricultural produce and wild game. Creole cuisine is sometimes perceived as more sophisticated, and
tends to make more use of seafood.
Some popular Cajun and Creole recipes and dishes include:
- Boudin - Pork sausages containing milk and rice. There are two varieties
boudin blanc and boudin rouge, which principally differ whether they include pig's
blood.
- Creole Omelette - A plain omelette served
with a spicy vegetable sauce.
- Cracklins - A snack made from fried pork skins.
- Gumbo - A soup made from meat or shellfish stock, bell peppers, celery, onion and a thickener.
The thickener used is usually okra or filé powder (a spice made from dried ground
sassafras leaves), sometimes with roux (a mix of wheat flour and fat).
The soup also usually contains poultry, smoked pork, and local shellfish
such as crab,
crawfish or
shrimp. Andouille (a sausage made from smoked pork, chitterlings, onions, wine
and seasoning) and tasso (smoked pork shoulder) are often added to the recipe,
giving it a smokey flavor.
Gumbo has become popular throughout the Gulf Coast, and even in Northern
Soul Food restaurants, and
Gumbo is traditionally served over rice.
- Étouffée - A dish of shellfish or chicken over rice, similar to gumbo,
but with a thicker consistency,
- Jambalaya - This dish has been described as a New World version of
Spanish cuisine's paella - although it
usually tomatoes instead of saffron, and various local meat and seafood,
depending on the recipe and what ingredients were available in the area.
Jambalaya is prepared in a single pot, and contains meat, seafood, vegetables,
rice and stock.
- Oysters en Brochette - Raw oysters are placed on a skewer with partly cooked bacon. The whole
thing is then breaded and deep-fried. The skewer is then removed, and the dish is then served on
top of triangles of toast with Meuniere sauce (a local sauce made from flour, butter, parsley and lemon).
- Oysters Rockefeller - A dish invented by the
New Orleans
chef, Jules Alciatore. The dish is made from oysters, parsley and parmesan cheese topped with a
rich sauce. The dish was named after the richest American of the time, John D. Rockefeller,
and was created as an alternative to escargot at Antoine's restaurant in
New Orleans.
- Pompano en Papillote - A dish made by cooking a fillet of pompano fish in a parchment envelope
with a sauce of wine,
crab and
shrimp. During the cooking process, the envelope usually puffes up
to resemble a balloon - which is appropriate since the dish was originally created by
Jules Alciatore, in honor of the Brazilian balloonist, Alberto Santos-Dumont.
- Shrimp Creole - Shrimp in a sauce made from tomatoes, celery, onion, and bell peppers, flavored
with pepper sauce. It is usually served on top of steamed rice.
On this page, you will find a selection of Cajun and Creole cookbooks.
These web sites may also be of interest:
Related pages on this web site:
Disclosure: Products details and descriptions provided by Amazon.com. Our company may receive a payment if you purchase products from them after following a link from this website.
By Eric Wilder
Gondwana Press
Paperback (78 pages)
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Take a trip to the bayou with author Eric Wilder. Read a few of his stories and try some of his favorite Cajun and Creole recipes. |
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By John Besh
Andrews McMeel Publishing
Released: 2009-09-29
Hardcover (384 pages)
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My New Orleans will change the way you look at New Orleans cooking and the way you see World-famous chef John Besh. It's 16 chapters of culture, history, essay and insight, and pure goodness. Besh tells us the story of his New Orleans by the season and by the dish. Archival, four-color, location photography along with ingredient information make the Big Easy easy to tackle in home kitchens. Cooks will salivate over the 200 recipes that honor and celebrate everything New Orleans. Bite by bite John Besh brings us New Orleans cooking like we've never tasted before. It's the perfect blend of contemporary French techniques with indigenous Southern Louisiana products and know-how. His amazing new offering is exclusively brought to fans and foodies everywhere by Andrews McMeel. From Mardi Gras, to the shrimp season, to the urban garden, to gumbo weather, boucherie (the season of the pig), and everything tasty in between, Besh gives a sampling of New Orleans that will have us all craving for more. The boy from the Bayou isn't just an acclaimed chef with an exceptional pallet. Besh is a chef with a heart. The ex-marine's passion for the Crescent City, its people, and its livelihood are main courses making him a leader of the city's culinary recovery and resilience after the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. |
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By Paul Prudhomme
William Morrow Cookbooks
Released: 1984-04-17
Hardcover (352 pages)
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Here for the first time the famous food of Louisiana is presented in a cookbook written by a great creative chef who is himself world-famous. The extraordinary Cajun and Creole cooking of South Louisiana has roots going back over two hundred years, and today it is the one really vital, growing regional cuisine in America. No one is more responsible than Paul Prudhomme for preserving and expanding the Louisiana tradition, which he inherited from his own Cajun background. Chef Prudhomme's incredibly good food has brought people from all over America and the world to his restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, in New Orleans. To set down his recipes for home cooks, however, he did not work in the restaurant. In a small test kitchen, equipped with a home-size stove and utensils normal for a home kitchen, he retested every recipe two and three times to get exactly the results he wanted. Logical though this is, it was an unprecedented way for a chef to write a cookbook. But Paul Prudhomme started cooking in his mother's kitchen when he was a youngster. To him, the difference between home and restaurant procedures is obvious and had to be taken into account. So here, in explicit detail, are recipes for the great traditional dishes--gumbos and jambalayas, Shrimp Creole, Turtle Soup, Cajun "Popcorn," Crawfish Etouffee, Pecan Pie, and dozens more--each refined by the skill and genius of Chef Prudhomme so that they are at once authentic and modern in their methods. Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen is also full of surprises, for he is unique in the way he has enlarged the repertoire of Cajun and Creole food, creating new dishes and variations within the old traditions. Seafood Stuffed Zucchini with Seafood Cream Sauce, Panted Chicken and Fettucini, Veal and Oyster Crepes, Artichoke Prudhomme--these and many others are newly conceived recipes, but they could have been created only by a Louisiana cook. The most famous of Paul Prudhomme's original recipes is Blackened Redfish, a daringly simple dish of fiery Cajun flavor that is often singled out by food writers as an example of the best of new American regional cooking. For Louisianians and for cooks everywhere in the country, this is the most exciting cookbook to be published in many years. |
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By Donald Link
Clarkson Potter
Released: 2009-04-21
Hardcover (256 pages)
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An untamed region teeming with snakes, alligators, and snapping turtles, with sausage and cracklins sold at every gas station, Cajun Country is a world unto itself. The heart of this area—the Acadiana region of Louisiana—is a tough land that funnels its spirit into the local cuisine. You can’t find more delicious, rustic, and satisfying country cooking than the dirty rice, spicy sausage, and fresh crawfish that this area is known for. It takes a homegrown guide to show us around the back roads of this particularly unique region, and in Real Cajun, James Beard Award–winning chef Donald Link shares his own rough-and-tumble stories of living, cooking, and eating in Cajun Country.
Link takes us on an expedition to the swamps and smokehouses and the music festivals, funerals, and holiday celebrations, but, more important, reveals the fish fries, étouffées, and pots of Granny’s seafood gumbo that always accompany them. The food now famous at Link’s New Orleans–based restaurants, Cochon and Herbsaint, has roots in the family dishes and traditions that he shares in this book. You’ll find recipes for Seafood Gumbo, Smothered Pork Roast over Rice, Baked Oysters with Herbsaint Hollandaise, Louisiana Crawfish Boudin, quick and easy Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits with Fig-Ginger Preserves, Bourbon-Soaked Bread Pudding with White and Dark Chocolate, and Blueberry Ice Cream made with fresh summer berries. Link throws in a few lagniappes to give you an idea of life in the bayou, such as strategies for a great trip to Jazz Fest, a what-not-to-do instructional on catching turtles, and all you ever (or never) wanted to know about boudin sausage. Colorful personal essays enrich every recipe and introduce his grandfather and friends as they fish, shrimp, hunt, and dance.
From the backyards where crawfish boils reign as the greatest of outdoor events to the white tablecloths of Link’s famed restaurants, Real Cajun takes you on a rollicking and inspiring tour of this wild part of America and shares the soulful recipes that capture its irrepressible spirit. |
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By Rima Collin
Alfred A. Knopf
Released: 1987-03-12
Paperback (254 pages)
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Two hundred eighty-eight delicious recipes carefully worked out so that you can reproduce, in your own kitchen, the true flavors of Cajun and Creole dishes. The New Orleans cookbook whose authenticity dependability, and wealth of information have made it a classic. |
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By John D. Folse
Chef John Folse & Company Publishing
Hardcover (852 pages)
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Chef Folse's seventh cookbook is the authoritative collection on Louisiana's culture and cuisine. The book features more than 850 full-color pages, dynamic historical Louisiana photographs and more than 700 recipes. You will not only find step-by-step directions to preparing everything from a roux to a cochon de lait, but you will also learn about the history behind these recipes. Cajun and Creole cuisine was influenced by seven nations that settled Louisiana, from the Native Americans to the Italian immigrants of the 1800s. Learn about the significant contributions each culture made-okra seeds carried here by African slaves, classic French recipes recalled by the Creoles, the sausage-making skills of the Germans and more. Relive the adventure and romance that shaped Louisiana, and recreate the recipes enjoyed in Cajun cabins, plantation kitchens and New Orleans restaurants. Chef Folse has hand picked the recipes for each chapter to ensure the very best of seafood, game, meat, poultry, vegetables, salads, appetizers, drinks and desserts are represented. From the traditional to the truly unique, you will develop a new understanding and love of Cajun and Creole cuisine. The Encyclopedia would make a perfect gift or simply a treasured addition to your own cookbook library. |
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By Junior League of Baton Rouge
The Cookbook Marketplace
Spiral-bound (272 pages)
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River Road Recipes is the nation's #1 best-selling community cookbook series. This cookbook features classic creole and cajun cuisine. These 650 recipes include the basics like How to Make a Roux. This is the Textbook of Louisiana cooking. |
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By Peggy Laborde
Pelican Publishing
Released: 2011-09-21
Hardcover (272 pages)
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From Café de Réfugiés, the city's first eatery that later became Antoine's, to Toney's Spaghetti House, Houlihan's, and Bali Hai, this guide recalls restaurants from New Orleans' past. Period photographs provide a glimpse into the history of New Orleans' famous and culturally diverse culinary scene. Recipes offer the reader a chance to try the dishes once served. |
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By Robb Walsh
Ten Speed Press
Released: 2012-03-06
Paperback (304 pages)
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Who says cooking is for homebodies? Veteran Texas food writer Robb Walsh served as a judge at a chuck wagon cook-off, worked as a deckhand on a shrimp boat, and went mayhaw-picking in the Big Thicket--for seven years, he drove the length and breadth of the state looking for the best in barbecue, burgers, kolaches, and tacos; while scouring museums, libraries, and public archives unearthing vintage photos, culinary stories, and nearly-forgotten dishes. Then he headed home to Houston to test the recipes he'd collected back in his own kitchen. The result is Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, a colorful and deeply personal blend of history, anecdotes, and recipes from all over the Lone Star State. |
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By Trent Angers
Acadian House Publishing
Paperback (46 pages)
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A 48-page saddle-stitched soft cover book containing 100 recipes selected by the editors of Acadiana Profile, "The Magazine of the Cajun Country." For example, Boudin, Couche Couche, Maque Choux, Mirliton, Crawfish Etouffee, Chicken Fricassee, Pralines -- the classics of South Louisiana cuisine. |
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