Party!

Fat Tuesday is a week from today. Back in the day that meant you had one week to cram in as much excess as possible before lent. Seriously, what could be more American than wallowing in excess. Hippies in the sixties, teabaggers today, gay pride parades in between, has there ever been a cause or movement that couldn't be helped along with freaky costumes, alcohol, and narcissism. The trick is to combine all those things in such a way that when you wake up the next morning the worst  you might need is an aspirin and a hosing off. Quick! For bonus points is this picture of a) hippies b) teabaggers c) gay pride advocates?

                                           (Infrogmation)

Probably all 3 because this is a picture of Mardi Gras. Strip out the politics, leave in the self indulgence and you have a) My last date b) a democratic fundraiser c) fun.  So lets have some fun.

We have 7 days to cook up a big spread, so I'm going to chug me a VooDoo lager,  throw a Meters record on the turntable, and get to cooking. Now there are a few things we have to deal with. The first is you can't always find authentic creole and cajan ingredients in the local Market Basket. Who cares? You heard me. Authentic is where posers and jackasses go to die. If I hear one more food, music, art, film, theater, whatever snob punish somebody's efforts with a sneer and a "Well, I guess it was alright even though it is not...." Ahhhh! I'm ruining my party mood so I'll just let that on go for now.




Anyway, don't go nuts trying to find authentic ingredients. More importantly don't blow all your cash if you do. Save some green for beer and tunes. Ingredients, at least in the old days, were regional. That's what made a cuisine authentic. Cooking method is universal. It's like the Tangine we made in an earlier post, stew is always stew. Move it to France, change the ingredients list, call it beef bourguignonne and it's still stew. So more on authentic ingredients later, right now lets talk method. 


There is a method that is frequently used in Creole/cajan (by the way the 2 are not interchangeable which is why I linked the words to wikipedia earlier) cooking that is not as common in other cuisines. It involves making a roux, but not the white roux we use in gravy of mac+cheese. We are going to make a brick roux. In simple terms we are going to cook the roux until it is almost burnt. This will severely limit the roux's ability to thicken liquid, but it will allow it to add depth of flavor to beat the band.


Now you make a brick roux by taking equal parts oil and flour and stirring them over heat until they combine. Don't even try this if you don't have a heavy bottomed dutch oven that will evenly distribute heat  to avoid scorching, don't even try this if you don't have 20 or 30 minutes to stir the stuff until it darkens to that brick red color I was talking about. Absolutely don't try this if you freak out and get upset if you fail at things because you will probably burn this stuff a few times before you get the hang of it. At least using this method.


So why bother? Why not? There is a reason why people in the old days went to all that trouble. (they had time on their hands) The extra flavor was worth it. So how do we trouble shoot all that work for a finicky product? Use the oven. 

1. Mix your oil and your flour. Equal parts remember?
2. Put it in a 9 inch square baking pan.
3. Put the pan in a 350 degree oven (you are smart enough to know that when I give an oven temperature it means pre-heated to that temperature, not put it in the oven then turn on the gas? I was just checking.)
4. Stir it every 20 minutes until you get the level of darkness (brick red) I was talking about. It'll take at least an hour.
5. You can even make extra, it will keep in the fridge about a week.
6. Remember, oil and flour, that's napalm on your skin if you aren't careful.

Now that that's out of the way tomorrow we can make gumbo.