Once again it is time for the much-anticipated Meal of the Month. This month the primary ingredients will be seafood.

Before we get into the meal itself, I think it is important to understand certain concepts or for that matter terms that are used in Louisiana cooking. Many people from outside the area assume that all food cooked in Louisiana is Cajun. That is far from the truth. While it is true many of the dishes have the same names and they all start with the Holy Trinity, (onions, celery, and green pepper) the addition of or use of other ingredients separate Cajun from Creole.

To understand the difference, you must first look at the people doing the cooking and their history. To begin with we will look at the Cajun aspect. The Cajuns refer to French settlers who were forced by the British from the Canadian region of Acadia. The term Cajun comes from the term “les Acadians”. These people settled primarily in rural Southwest Louisiana to become farmers, trappers, and ranchers. Most of the ingredients used in their cooking were what they grew on farms and trapped.

Creoles on the other hand for the most part lived along the Mississippi river in and around the city of New Orleans. Being a port, the Creoles had more access to imported ingredients, and it is reflected in the cooking. The Creole population was made up of colonial people of French Louisiana. These were descendants of upper-class French, Spanish, Free People of Color, Native born African Slaves, Haitians, and Native Americans.

The easiest way to understand this is “Creole” food is considered a more refined way of cooking, city food. Whereas Cajun is rural or farm cooking. Creole recipes tend to include tomatoes, which were easily gotten in a port city that were imported from Italy. Butter was also used more by Creoles as the Cajuns used lard. Small things but it makes a difference.
I love Cajun food. However, my preference in cooking tends to side with the Creole version. The main reason I feel like that is from the use of butter makes the sauces creamer and rich and the tomatoes lend a sweetness to the spices that are used.

This month’s meal for two is, fried Catfish toped with Creole Crawfish Étouffée, Beef Steak Tomato with crabmeat, crawfish tails and avocado in a Cajun vinaigrette, Jasmine rice with peas and of course French bread with butter. The wine was a Parducci Chardonnay.

Salad
2- Beef Steak Tomatoes
¼ cup- Zataran’s Creole Mustard
½ cup- Olive Oil
½ cup- Crab Claw meat
1 cup -Crawfish Tails
2- Avocados

Cut the top off the tomatoes and remove all the pulp.
Blend the Zataran’s and Olive Oil
Remove Avocado meat from skin, slice into the bowl of the dressing.
Add claw meat and crawfish to bowl and blend.
Prior to stuffing the tomatoes and serving add lump crab meat.

I generally make the mixture of crawfish, avocado, claw meat about three hours before using it and store it in the ice box. Occasionally you will have to blend the mixture due to separation. That is why we wait to add the lump crab meat. The sweetness of the avocados with the horse radish base creole mustard is unbelievable.

Fried Catfish Filets covered with Creole Crawfish Étouffée.

The basic recipe I used for the Creole Crawfish Étouffée comes form the cookbook La Bonne Cuisine.

1 cup of butter
1 cup chopped onion.
½ cup chopped celery.
½ cup of chopped green pepper.
½ cup chopped green onion.
1 teaspoon minced garlic.
2 tablespoons flour.
1 cup whole tomatoes.
2 cups fish stock.
2 teaspoons salt.
1 teaspoon pepper.
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce.
1 ½ cups crawfish meat.
Dash of cayenne.

In a large saucepan melt the butter. Once butter is melted, add the vegetables and sauté until tender. Add garlic and continue cooking. Add flour (I use roux from a jar instead see below) stir until golden brown. Add tomatoes and stock. Add salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, crawfish, (I add ½ cup and remainder prior to serving) and cayenne. Cook slowly for 20 minutes.

Fried Catfish Filets
Dredge filets in flour. Pass through milk/egg wash. Coat with Louisiana Fish Fry and fry until golden.

For the Jasmine rice, I always add more water than suggested and cook until tender. Then I pour the rice in a colander and rinse with hot water to make my rice fluffy. Add the peas and that is it.

As someone who normally does not drink Chardonnay, I found the Parducci exceptionally good. Not to sweet and not to bitter. It was very refreshing. With the ALC content being 14.5 by volume, after drinking 2/3 of the bottle of wine I registered .09 on my BAC device.

By all accounts you should have left over claw and lump crabmeat. I made crab patties and stored them in the freezer to be used later.

Incase your local store does not have the products I have listed; you can always get them online.