Eating Mediterranean, with Cajun spices

Recipes: Poorman's jambalaya, Corn muffins

Sometimes you hear people talk about a "Mediterranean diet", and how healthy it is. What is that anyway? First of all, it reflects a lifestyle practiced around the Mediterranean Sea, in areas of France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, and the countries of northern Africa, that represent some of the oldest places humans have historically made their homes.  The "diet", which just means a way of eating, involves primarily plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts, and a minimum of red meat. Fish and poultry, and especially fish, is eaten much more than red meat. Olive oil is used in place of butter, and herbs and spices, rather than salt, are used to flavor foods. Wine, and in particular red wine, is considered food, and accompanies meals in moderation. Meals are enjoyed with family and friends, and walking or riding bicycles is much more common than jumping in the car to go to the store, or to work. People are rarely overweight or bothered by the common diseases of abundance - high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer.

Sounds good, doesn't it? How can we shift our diet to be more like this? Here are five tips you can use to move your meals in this direction:
 

• Make sure each meal and snack includes colorful vegetables or fruit, raw or cooked
• Mix up your dinner routine by adding legumes like beans, peas or lentils at least some of the time
• Cook fish instead of red meat at least two nights a week
• Add walnuts, pecans, or sliced almonds to a salad or steamed vegetables
• Use extra virgin olive oil in place of butter or other oils for low-heat cooking and salads

Easy enough, but what does this have to do with Cajun cooking? We're making jambalaya today. Yum! The answer is "not much", except that Cajun food, which is French Acadian in origin, has Mediterranean roots. Not to mention that it's so delicious, it's worth a little digging to find those healthy roots and bring them out.

 

Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, the bible of Cajun cooking, is one of the great cookbooks, with caveats. There's hardly a recipe in it that doesn't need to be altered in some way for either health or hotness reasons. One recipe starts with "One pound, plus 4 tablespoons, butter". Most of the dishes are so spicy I can't eat them, and I like hot. For these reasons, I've hesitated to recommend it to readers. On the other hand, every recipe I've ever made from this book has been absolutely delicious, once I've tamed the heat. Chef Paul's spice combinations are incredible, and each dish is "rounded" in taste in a way that is very satisfying. It truly is amazing comfort food.  

Poorman's Jambalaya

This recipe comes from Louisiana Kitchen, with quite a bit of alteration in the seasoning mix and a few changes in ingredients and cooking time. I'm guessing this is called Poorman's because it doesn't have a lot of meat and fish in it - "only" shrimps and sausages.You will love it, poor or not.

Seasoning Mix

• 2 small bay leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• a pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 6 ounces good chicken or pork sausage, uncooked, partially frozen (to make cutting easier) and sliced or diced
• 3/4 cup chopped onions
• 3/4 cup chopped celery
• 1 red or orange or yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup raw basmati or jasmine rice
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 dozen medium shrimp, tails on if you wish

Thoroughly combine the seasoning mix ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

In a large heavy skillet, or a medium heavy Dutch oven, melt the butter and heat the olive oil. Add the sausage and cook a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the onions, celery, bell pepper, seasoning mix, and garlic, mixing well. Cook until the vegetables are browned, 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping the pan bottom well.

Stir in the rice and cook 5 minutes more, stirring and scraping. Add the broth, stirring. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer uncovered until the rice is tender, about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally toward the end of cooking time. Add the shrimps to the rice, cover, and cook for 1 more minute.

Remove bay leaves, and serve immediately.

Corn Muffins 

You don't really need corn muffins with the jambalaya - it's a complete meal in itself - but the muffins are certainly good with it. This is provided just in case your meal wouldn't be complete without bread. They are a little sweet, but not too much.

 

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup cornmeal
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 4 1/2 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten

Turn the oven on to 350 to preheat.

In a large bowl combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix well with a fork. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, melted butter and egg - beat the egg into the milk/butter and add to the dry ingredients. Blend just until mixed...do not overbeat.

Spoon mixture into greased muffin cups - this recipe makes 9 muffins in my cast iron muffin pan (they are medium-large size). Bake at 350 about 45 minutes. If you use a smaller muffin pan, adjust the baking time and bake until golden brown.

When the muffins are done, remove them from the oven and take them out of the muffin pan right away.

The muffins freeze well, and are delicious for breakfast, warmed and served with honey.

The Payoff
The jambalaya is gluten-free. The muffins are not.

Jambalaya meets the criteria of the Mediterranean diet in several ways - it includes colorful vegetables (onion, celery, bell pepper, garlic), it includes fish (shrimp) and a minimum of meat, olive oil is substituted for some of the butter in the original recipe (you could substitute olive oil for all of the butter if you wish), spices and herbs are used to flavor it, and it is delicious with red wine.

Buon appetito!

 

 

 

Thanksgiving side dishes (or the supporting cast)

Recipes: Cauliflower sformato, Candied sweet potatoes, Cranberry sauce

I have a dirty little secret. Turkey is not my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, I roast one every year. I LOVE day-after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches, but the Big Bird on the day itself? Not so much. The part of Thanksgiving dinner that I crave, and over-indulge in year after year, is the support stuff - the side dishes. Yum. Every family has their traditional side dishes - for some it's mashed potatoes and green beans with those canned fried onions, for some it's sweet potatoes with baby marshmallows (I can't do that, sorry), for most the list includes cranberry sauce in one form or another. Here are a few of the side dishes that have become traditions on my Thanksgiving table.

If you'll be cooking for just the two of you this year, the amounts I'm giving in these recipes will work just fine. You may have leftovers, but it won't be overwhelming and that's what Thanksgiving is all about anyway - gratitude for the bounty in our lives. If there will be twenty instead of two around your Thanksgiving table, all the better. My advice is to add dishes, not quantities. Perhaps you'll find room for one or all of these.

Cauliflower Sformato

A sformato is a vegetable pie in Italian. This is an adaptation of a recipe from Marcella Hazan, and it's one of my very favorite ways to cook cauliflower. It's unusual, absolutely delicious, and healthy too! Marcella was one of my cooking heroes. She died only a few weeks ago at the age of 89, and I will be thankful to her for many good recipes and much delicious food as I'm making her Cauliflower Sformato for our Thanksgiving feast.

• 1 medium cauliflower
• 3 tablespoons butter plus butter for smearing the baking dish
• 1 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup whole milk (not skim)
• 2 large eggs
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 2/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus a couple of tablespoons for sprinkling
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Trim away most of the cauliflower's outer leaves, keeping just the layer of tender leaves close to the head. Cut off a thin slice from the stem end and cut a cross into the root. Wash the cauliflower in cold water. Bring to a boil enough water to amply cover it and drop in the cauliflower. Cook about 20 minutes. Drain when it feels tender but firm when prodded with a fork.

When the cauliflower is cool enough to handle, cut it into small pieces, the root end into smaller pieces than the rest.

In a skillet that is large enough to eventually hold all the cauliflower pieces in one layer, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. Add the cauliflower pieces and turn them over for a minute or two to coat all the pieces well. Transfer the cauliflower to a bowl and set it aside to cool.

Make a bechamel sauce. First, heat the milk in the microwave, or in a saucepan, until it is just short of boiling. Be sure to watch it, as it can boil over easily. Then in a separate heavy saucepan, melt one tablespoon of the butter. Add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly with a small whisk. Add the hot milk, a little at a time, stirring constantly as you do. When you have added half the hot milk in small increments, add the remaining half all at once, stirring steadily. Cook over low heat until the sauce is the density of thick cream. Turn off the heat.

Break the eggs into a separate bowl and beat them lightly with a fork.

Put all but 3 or 4 tablespoons of the bechamel into the bowl with the cold cauliflower. Add the beaten eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, liberal grindings of black pepper, the grated nutmeg, and 2/3 cup grated Parmesan. Turn over all ingredients thoroughly with a large spoon.

Thinly smear the inside of a baking dish (like a deep dish pie plate) with butter. Empty the contents of the bowl with the cauliflower pieces into it, leveling them off with a spatula. Spread the remaining 3 or 4 tablespoons of bechamel over the top, and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan and a very light sprinkling of cayenne pepper.

Bake in the preheated oven until a light golden crust forms on top, about 30 minutes. Let it settle for several minutes after removing it from the oven. Serve lukewarm.

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Another little secret of mine - I am pretty crazy about the outrageously rich and decadent recipes in a book called Louisiana Kitchen by Paul Prudhomme. I almost always have to alter these recipes because they're either flaming hot, as in too spicy for this white girl, or they use an entire pound of butter, or they have so many ingredients and so many steps that they are impractical for the amount of time I have available. But the food is invariably and astonishingly delicious, and they are authentic Cajun/Creole. So I make them sparingly, for special occasions. Like Thanksgiving.

These sweet potatoes from Paul Prudhomme are truly sweet, and they'll be some of the best you've ever had. I usually make them with garnet yams - they're the ones with the deep orange flesh. It's a simple dish to make, so enjoy. It will be the perfect amount for two. In this case, if you are cooking for a crowd you should at least double the recipe. Everyone will want some.

• 2 medium-size garnet yams, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 to 2-inch chunks
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons butter, divided use
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Juice and grated rind from 1/8 lemon

In a medium saucepan, combine the yams, water, sugars, 2 tablespoons of the butter, the vanilla, and the lemon juice and rind. Cover and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Uncover the pan and cook until the yams are fork tender, about 10 minutes.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter, stirring until completely melted. Cook uncovered until the sauce is thick, about 2 minutes more. You're done. Don't eat it all by yourself.

Cranberry Sauce

This recipe came right off the cranberry package - you know, the plastic bag with fresh or frozen cranberries that you see in piles in the supermarket just before Thanksgiving. It's simple and makes better cranberry sauce than any you can get in a can. Unless you're addicted to jellied cranberry sauce in slices - then I can't help you.

• 1 bag cranberries
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• walnuts (optional)

Put cranberries, water, and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring it to a boil and cook, stirring to dissolve the sugar, over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until the cranberries start to pop.

Let cool a few minutes in the pan, then pour the cranberries and syrup into the bowl you intend to serve it in. I like to add a couple handsful of walnut pieces at this point. You don't have to; it's your choice.

Let the cranberry sauce cool thoroughly (it will jell as it cools), and then refrigerate it, covered with plastic wrap, until Turkey Day.