All Comments on 'Cooking with the Monkey Pt. 02'

I find that when cooking rice, that if you need more than 2 cups of uncooked rice it is better to use the oven at 300-350 degrees than the stove top. Lobster works better than shrimp (I live in New England) cutting a live one up ain't for the squeamish though. The body and shell make one a damn fine stock.

I was born & raised South Louisiana. My family moved there from France in 1780. I grew up on oysters, shrimp, blue crabs, red fish, and crawfish. I love gumbo (both kinds), red beans & rice, shrimp or crawfish etouffee, and more. As a young man at Tulane U. in The Big Easy I found that good food was easy to prepare. 1960 to 1975 was truly the "Golden age of sex". I lived in a "garden apartment complex" stocked with stewardesses and nurses - Life was good. I now live in Texas.

Now back to eating - the food kind. I make a roux in a cast iron skillet or iron dutch oven & it takes only 10 minutes to get to medium brown. Bacon grease is best but oil is OK. I keep oil & flower handy & add to keep the consistency. I use the roux for RB&R as well.

Tony Cachere's is rather complete, but it has a lot of salt - so don't add more. I use chicken broth & water as I find the "stock" is mostly seasoning that you add anyway. I mash the beans a lot, maybe 50% as I like the liquid gravy with the rice.

HEB has all.. some don't know that you want "Red Kidney Beans".

Well, more, comments - but Cajun/Creole/French dishes have a lot of personal preferences.

CajunBill

I have made RB&R before but never found a recipe that mentioned ham hocks. It makes so much sense to use them that I am embarrassed I never thought of it myself. Thanks for the tip! I have been trying to cook more Cajun & Creole dishes (with help from those handy cooking schools known as Google and YouTube) in an attempt to replicate some memorable dishes from the old Mulate's (since closed) in Baton Rouge. Gumbo, for example, has become not just a recipe, but an entire approach to life in the kitchen.

Now to the questions:

1. Just to clarify, t=tsp, and T=Tbsp, correct?

2. Are you using home-made chicken stock without salt, or store-bought stock / soup base that already contains salt? I can never figure out the "right" approach when it comes to beans and stock so I have been erring on the side of long-soaking the beans which, as you noted, can turn easily to mush.

3. Have you ever tried making this in a pressure cooker? I will give it a shot some day and let you know how it turns out.

Now for my tip: buy an inexpensive rice cooker ( ranging from $13 to $25 USD). Nothing fancy: just an electric teflon-coated pot with a lid and a switch or button to start it. Latin and Asian cooks use them all the time. You dump your rice and water or flavored stock into the cooker and flip a switch. It's done in thirty or so minutes and is one less thing you have to mess with on the stove top when you are stirring roux, finishing a saute, or just getting around to opening that bottle of red wine or cracking open that beer! I use parboiled rice, which cooks up nicely without sticking. Try it sometime --- it's not just a gadget but a real work-saver.

@BaronvonKarmann:

#1. Yes, t=tsp and T=Tbsp. I've always used t or T and learned a long time ago from my mom and grandmothers that that was how it was written. It's only been recently when I've started writing my own recipes down for others that I've run into the thought that not everyone uses that system.

#2. I use store bought stock (shhh!) with reduced or no salt added if I can find it. This isn't saying I don't make my own stock, but I don't always have it on hand. The freezer sometimes runs out of my homemade stock, or I completely forget to thaw it or don't want to wait for it to thaw. Either way, I still don't salt my beans until the very end of the process regardless of the type of bean I'm making. I also still don't soak my beans overnight. I'm lazy and forgetful and it just doesn't happen. Not to mention the inquisitive miniature human running around who could possibly pull the entire bowl of soaking beans off the counter. :)

#3. I have never used a pressure cooker, period. They scare the bejeezus out of me. I've even come across the pressure canning recipes and shied away from those because of the use of the pressure cooker. I'm a pansy that way.

I've had several people tell me to get a rice cooker, but I don't know that I ever will. I have two main reasons for this: A. It takes up space and it's one more thing for me to clean. B. I was raised poor (big whoop, right?) and I've never seen the point or been able to justify buying a piece of equipment to do something I can do just as easily in a pot I already have. My husband has even told me we need one, and I had to remind him that we both have a very different view on what a "need" really is. I'll stick with my pot of boiling rice on the stove, and you guys can do whatever. As long as you have rice to go with the beans, it's all good. :)