Catfish Smothered In Étouffée

Catfish Smothered in Étouffée

Whenever I think about cooking fish, I always think of my father’s friend Jerry. Jerry was the best fish cook I ever met. He could clean fish faster than anyone and his fried fish was the best I ever tasted. Up in Canada, or in Michigan, you didn’t care if it was walleye, northern pike or bluegill, it was all good when Jerry was behind the spatula.

I am sure Jerry never fixed this dish, he never really did Cajun. I'm just reminded of Jerry whenever I think about cooking fish. It brings back all the great memories of the times I spent fishing with Jerry both in Canada and in Michigan. I was deeply saddened when I heard he passed away. Time can be really cruel.

Jerry,  working his magic on walleyes in Canada,  1986

I had something similar to this recipe down in Donaldsonville, LA. They served broiled drum smothered in crawfish étouffée. In the Chicago area, catfish and shrimp are more readily available than crawfish and drum, so that’s what I use here. I don't think the cajuns would complain about this dish. I bet they'd say "Ooh, dat good!"

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup flour

1 medium onion, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 medium bell pepper, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

1/2 cup of white wine

1 can Ro*Tel tomatoes

2 cups chicken broth (more if needed)

1/2 lb. shrimp

4 slices of bacon

6 catfish fillets 

Ground Cayenne

Cajun seasoning

Preparation: Étouffée

Use about equal portions of canola oil and flour (about a half cup of each) to make a coffee-with-cream colored roux. Just stir over medium heat until you have the right color. Don’t burn yourself by splashing it.

Once the roux is the right color, add a heaping bowl of roughly equal portions of celery, bell pepper, onion along with a couple cloves of garlic, all chopped fine with food processor. Let that cook a few minutes while stirring.

Splash in a 1/2 cup of white wine, throw in one can of Ro-Tel and then add 2 cups of chicken broth. Bring to boil, adjust for thickness using an additional cup of broth and simmer for 20 minutes. You want it to be about the same thickness as gravy.  Taste it for salt and pepper and add a good sprinkling of cajun seasoning. Add the shrimp and simmer until cooked. Set aside and keep warm.

Preparation: catfish

Sprinkle both sides of the filets with cajun seasoning and a little Cayenne. 

Render the bacon in a skillet until crisp, drain it on a paper towel, chop it and reserve. Add the catfish to the bacon fat in the skillet and place under a hot broiler. Broil a couple minutes on both sides until just cooked thru.

Serving

Place a little of the étouffée on the plate and place the filet on the étouffée. Crumble a little bacon on each filet. Place a serving of jambalaya next to the filet. Generously top the fish with étouffée. If you want, sprinkle on some finely chopped green onion. Serve with green beans which have been simmered with bacon and chicken broth. I like ice cold beer with this dish and Abita would be my choice. 

Rigatoni In a Prosciutto Meat Sauce

Rigatoni In a Prosciutto Meat Sauce

I think you can tell by now that I like pasta ... a lot. Last night I cooked up a batch of rigatoni for my little group and we wolfed that down with a couple bottles of wine. 

How many different ways are there to serve pasta? I don’t think it is possible to answer that. Thinking back to the years when I had big dinners every Wednesday, I'd guess the number of different pasta variations I served approached the one thousand mark. Some were similar, but the ingredient list was always a little different. I would work with whatever ingredients I had and would usually end up with different combinations.

This particular pasta came about when I saw prosciutto ends in the deli section of a small grocery. I bought one for a fairly good price and made this pasta that night. 

1 lb. coarse ground beef

1 cup prosciutto finely chopped 

1 large onion chopped

6 cloves garlic smashed and minced

2 cups red wine

2 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes 

1/2 tsp. salt

2 28 oz. cans of San Marzano tomatoes

Tabasco

Fresh basil leaves
1 lb. rigatoni cooked al dente

Preparation

Heat a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and stir for about 5 minutes. Add the ground beef, garlic and prosciutto and cook, stirring often, until the beef looses itʼs pink color.

Add the wine, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes and salt. Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for about ten minutes. Add the cans of tomatoes and break them up with a knife and fork. Stir and let it simmer, uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring often. Taste the sauce for seasoning, add a bunch of Tabasco. If you have any fresh basil, tear up a handful of basil leaves and stir it into the sauce. Turn off the heat.

Serving

To serve this, place a big pile of rigatoni on a plate and pour the sauce over the rigatoni and then bombard it with lots of fresh grated parmesan. Now add good crisp salad with lots of tomatoes and green onions. 

A fresh baked crusty bread with olive oil for dipping is also good. Next I would add some green beans sautéed in olive oil with red pepper flakes. Then I would open a bottle of Montepulciano dʼAbruzzo from Italy. I would also probably go back for seconds ... but thatʼs just me.

Sinful Alaskan Cod

Sinful Alaskan Cod

As most of you know, I used to live alone, with just my two dogs to watch over me, until the Great Lisle Flood of 2013. They did a pretty good job of supervising me, but they are a little more lenient than they should be. This may come as a shock, but I am not the most disciplined of people. 

Food is probably my biggest vice. Well maybe food and wine. Oh, yes, there’s coffee too. Oh, and ... Never mind! I over indulge, ok. Let’s just leave it at that. I have been trying to eat healthier these days. I don’t always succeed, but I try.

Wild caught Alaskan cod, that’s got to be healthy right? It tastes pretty good too, especially after I add olive oil, tomatoes, feta cheese, parmesan cheese and pasta. I admit that sometimes I take the ‘health’ out of health food. Hey, it’s the thought that counts, right? Just don’t tell anyone how many helpings I have when I serve this.

Olive oil

1 lb. grape tomatoes*

1 lb. assorted small heirloom tomatoes*

(*or you can use all cherry tomatoes)

9 cloves of garlic

Red pepper flakes

1 bowl of fresh basil leaves

1 lb. Alaskan wild caught cod filets

Cajun seasoning

1 cup dry white wine

1/4 lb. crumbled feta cheese

1/2 lb. penne pasta, cooked al dente

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Pick out a good olive oil and add enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Add all the tomatoes along with a good sprinkling of red pepper flakes. Stir and cook until they start to break up. Add eight cloves of garlic, smashed and minced. Continue cooking until all the tomatoes have cooked down, about ten minutes. Turn off the heat and add a good handful of torn basil leaves. Taste for salt and pepper, stir and set aside. If you don't like the texture of the tomato skins, use an immersion blender to purée the sauce.

Instead of cod, go out and catch your own fish!

Heat another skillet over medium high heat. Add olive oil to coat the bottom and add the cod filets. It is ok to add them frozen. Season the top of the cod with cajun seasoning as it sears for about a minute. Add one clove of garlic, smashed and minced and carefully turn the cod over. Season this side with cajun seasoning. After a minute add the wine and bring to a boil. Place the skillet under a broiler and broil for a minute. Turn the cod over and broil for another minute. 

Turn the cod over again and cover the fish with half of the tomato sauce. Top the sauce with the crumbled feta cheese and return it to the broiler. Broil until everything is hot and sizzling. Toss the pasta with the remaining sauce along with the grated parmesan and a palmful of torn basil leaves. 

Serving

To serve this place the cod on a plate and smother it with its sauce and cheese. Now and a big pile of the pasta and add even more torn basil over the top (if a little is good, a lot is better, right? That’s kind of a guiding philosophy for me). 

Now add a tossed salad, some fresh baked bread with butter and then open a good bottle of Italian wine. When you clean up your plate, have seconds of everything.

Blueberry Pie

Blueberry Pie

How often do you eat dessert? I usually don’t have much to say about dessert. I guess I can be forgiven for that. You see, I usually eat too much of the main course to leave any room for dessert. All too often I forget that I should provide good dessert recipes for you to try. 

Have you ever been too full but went ahead and ate dessert anyways? One of the things I enjoy about serving dessert is that it encourages people to over-indulge. When serving a large meal, I like to wait until everyone has had plenty to eat, and then surprise them by pulling a couple of pies out of the refrigerator. It is fun. They say things like “Oh no, I just couldn’t”, but they always end up having a slice or two. It’s a beautiful thing! Just be careful to have safety glasses handy if their buttons start popping. 

Here is a pie you can use to encourage a little over-indulgence at your table. Your guests will appreciate you for it. 

You know that you really should make your own pie crust for this, right? Don’t start your complaining. I give up. Go ahead and use that ready-made pie crust from Pillsbury. I’m too tired to argue with you. Now you have no excuse. You should make this pie often.

1 package of Pillsbury pie crust

2 12 oz. bags of frozen blueberries

1 cup of sugar

2 lemons

Zest from the two lemons

Nutmeg to grate

1/4 cup of corn starch

2 tbs. butter

Preparation

Add the blueberries and the juice from the two lemons to a large bowl along with the zest from the lemons. Now add the sugar and the corn starch to the bowl and stir until everything is well mixed. 

The next step is real complicated, so pay attention. Place one of the pie crusts in a pie plate. Pour the blueberry mixture on the pie crust. Cut the butter in about eight pieces and add that evenly to the pie. Now grate a little nutmeg over the blueberry mixture. Place the other pie crust on top of the pie and crimp the edges together. 

Place the pie on a sturdy cookie sheet and bake it in a 380˚ oven for about an hour. Don’t forget to put the pie plate on the cookie sheet. It often bubbles over a little bit and you want the cookie sheet to catch anything that dribbles out. When it is ready, the crust will be golden brown and the sauce will be bubbling. Allow the pie to cool for several hours and then refrigerate it until dinner is done and your guests are full.

Serving

Serve a large slice of this pie with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. Better yet, make it two scoops of ice cream! If you like, open a bottle of a sparkling Italian white wine, or you could just make a pot of French Roast coffee. Either way, have fun watching your guests waddle as they leave. That is my favorite part.

Norman’s Spinach Lasagna

Norman’s Spinach Lasagna

As long as I provided my recipe for homemade pasta and sautéed spinach, I might as well post my lasagna recipe too. This was obviously written in the middle of the winter. In the heat of the summer, it is good to remember what a winter storm is like, just to appreciate the calm summer weather.

Picture this, if you will. It is freezing cold outside. You are walking to your car in the parking lot after a long day of work but your car is buried under a foot of snow. The snow is coming down so hard and the wind is so strong that it stings your face. You open the car door and a bunch of snow falls on to the driver’s seat. You start the car and it takes ten minutes to clean the snow from the car. The roads are deep with snow and traffic is slipping and sliding at a slow pace. Your half hour drive home takes over an hour. You can barely get your car in your driveway because it is drifted over. Ugh, you are cold and miserable. 

Now picture a large wedge of spinach lasagna on your dinner plate just oozing cheese from every possible crevice. Next to that is a pile of sautéed broccoli that looks like it was in its own blizzard of fresh grated Parmesan cheese. The bread is still warm enough to melt the butter and the wine is waiting in your glass. Your cold commute home is rapidly becoming a distant memory. This spinach lasagna just has a way of making everyone’s day a little better. 

You should make this often. Don’t start grumbling. There is a lot of stuff in this lasagna, but it is not difficult to make. It is mostly just an assembly process. If you know there is going to be a winter storm, you can assemble the lasagna the night before. When you make it home, all you have to do is to pop it in the oven. 

Sauce

4 tbs. olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped fine

4 cloves of garlic

1 tsp. thyme

1 tbs. oregano

1/4 tsp allspice

1 tsp. white pepper

2 cups red wine

2 28 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes

Salt & pepper

Filling

1 batch of Norman’s Pasta Dough for Homemade Pasta

1 batch of Norman’s Sautéed Spinach

1 lb. shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 lb. shredded mozzarella cheese

1 15 oz. package of whole milk ricotta 

1/2 lb. sliced provolone cheese

1 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

2 cups shredded asiago cheese

Preparation

First of all, you are going to need a LARGE lasagna pan. I recommend one of those disposable aluminum roasting pans used for roasting turkey. If this is what you use, place it on a sturdy cookie sheet before you start building the lasagna, otherwise it might collapse when you try to pick it up. Believe me, it is going to be heavy.

Mix up a batch of Norman’s Pasta Dough For Homemade Pasta and place it in a plastic bag to rest while you make the sauce. To make the sauce, heat a sauce pan and add the olive oil. Sauté the onion and garlic for two minutes. Add the thyme, oregano, allspice, white pepper and wine. Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes and let it simmer for about ten minutes. Taste the sauce and season it as needed with salt and pepper. Set the sauce aside and make a batch of Norman’s Sautéed Spinach. 

Roll out the pasta dough into thin sheets and cut them into four inch wide ribbons (if you don’t like ribbons, you can cut them into four inch wide sheets instead, it is up to you). 

Place about two cups of the sauce in the bottom of your lasagna pan and spread it out. Place a layer of the pasta over the sauce. Now place all of the sautéed spinach uniformly over the pasta layer. Cover the spinach evenly with the Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. Add another layer of pasta. Stop complaining, you are almost done. 

Next add a heavy layer of the sauce and then add the ricotta in dabs evenly over the sauce. Add the cheddar and another layer of pasta. Add another layer of sauce. Finally, add the the asiago and provolone cheeses and push the cheese down into the sauce. Add more sauce if needed. Note, if you didn’t listen to me and are using uncooked store-bought lasagna noodles, add a half cup of red wine evenly over the top of the lasagna so there is enough moisture for the pasta. If you didn’t make your own pasta, shame on you.

Bake the lasagna with the pan on the cookie sheet at 350˚ for about a forty five minutes.. The cheese should be golden and the sauce should be bubbling. Let it sit for fifteen minutes before slicing. While it is resting, pick out a bottle of Chianti Classico to drink with your lasagna. 

Serving

I kind of told you how to serve it, but if you didn’t pay attention, you want a huge slice of lasagna next to sautéed broccoli. You also want homemade bread and butter and plenty of grated parmesan cheese to sprinkle. Also have a second bottle of Chianti Classico on hand, just in case you need it. The weather outside if frightful, but your dinner is so delightful. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Sautéed Spinach

Sautéed Spinach

Back before I moved to Lisle, a group of my neighbors would get together every once in a while to go out for steak dinner. There was a little steakhouse nearby and they serve a pretty good steak. I believe it is still in operation. We would all walk there because it was only a few blocks away (and we knew there was a possibility that we might over-indulge). Often we'd show up with ten or twelve people and they'd have to scramble to seat us. We did call ahead, which helped.

As I recall, the staff was very understanding with our loud, boisterous group, even if the nearby tables were not. In fact, we often got preferential treatment, and the complaints of other diners never went anywhere. The wine was flowing freely and the bar tab always outweighed the bill for the food. Why did they give such favorable treatment? The answer is simple. We always tipped a minimum of 25%. That covers a lot of sins.

I like my steak charred rare, but I only order it that way at places where I know they do it right. This place did. One of the other things I liked about the dinners there was their optional side of sautéed spinach. I never ordered a steak without it. It was kind of garlicky and salty and I loved it. With a little practice I think I figured out their recipe. If this isn’t exact, it is pretty close.

2 lb. fresh spinach, washed very well and drained

1/4 cup extra good olive oil

3 large cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

Dash of red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

Nutmeg for grating

Preparation

Heat a very large cast iron skillet until it is real hot. Add the olive oil and swirl the skillet and then add the garlic and the red pepper flakes. Stir for about 30 seconds and then add the spinach, handfuls at a time. You will have to let the first few handfuls wilt down a little to make room for the rest of the spinach. Once it is all in the skillet, add the salt.

Keep stirring until all the spinach is wilted and hot, and most of the water has boiled off. Add the parmesan cheese as well as a couple of gratings of nutmeg. Stir well to mix and serve.

Serving

Serve sautéed spinach next to a big steak that has been charred rare. Now add a big pile of garlic mashed potatoes, fresh grilled garlic bread and a good cabernet sauvignon. 

I love to order this at a steak house, but now I make it at home a lot too. When you make this at home, no one will complain if you are too loud and you don't have to leave a tip!

Pasta Dough for Homemade Pasta

Pasta Dough for Homemade Pasta

Years ago, I would make homemade pasta a lot. I have an old pasta roller with cutting heads for fettuccine, linguine and spaghetti. I’d make the pasta, cut into spaghetti and hang it all on hangers until it was all cut and the water was boiling. For some reason, people found it unusual to come into the kitchen and see pasta hanging on hangers from every knob. It’s not that weird, is it?

These days, I usually only make homemade pasta for lasagna, but now that I think of it, I may get back to homemade spaghetti. It is a lot tastier than the store bought pasta.

I know what you are thinking. “Make my own pasta dough, yeah right. As if!” Don’t shake your head. Admit it. You know that is what you were thinking. 

You are going to need to know this recipe, however, for my famous spinach lasagna. You may think store bought lasagna noodles will work, but your role with this blog is not to think. Your role is to follow the recipes. So get your mixing bowl out and stop arguing with me. 

3-3/4 cups of flour

6 eggs

1 tbs. extra good olive oil

1/2 tsp. sea salt

Preparation

Now pay attention. This is something you should do at least once a week. Place the flour in a large mixing bowl. Make a large crater in the center of the flour. Into this crater add the eggs, salt and olive oil. Please note, I have learned from experience that it is best not to add the eggshells, just their contents. 

With a fork, gently start beating the eggs until they are well mixed. Gradually start incorporating the flour, a little at a time, into the egg mixture. Eventually a dough ball starts to form. At this point, set the fork down and flour your hands. Knead the dough for a few minutes. (Now if you forgot to wash your hands, throw the dough in the garbage and go get that box of lasagna noodles after all). The dough should hold all the flour and be slightly sticky to the touch. If necessary you can adjust it with a little more flour or water to get it right. Place the dough in a plastic bag and let it rest for a half hour. It is very tired. 

Take slices of the dough and roll them in your hands to make a cigar shape. Take a rolling pin and roll it into a ribbon. You may need to sprinkle a little flour on it if it sticks to the rolling pin. Corn flour is best if that happens. Let the ribbons sit on a clean towel until you are ready to assemble the lasagna. Note, you can also cut the ribbons into little noodles if you want them for your favorite pasta sauce.

Serving

However you cut and sauce the pasta, you will want to serve it with a bowl of soup, a crisp Caesar salad, homemade bread with butter, your favorite vegetable and wine. You are on your own picking out the wine.