Louisiana Creole cuisine

Overview

Louisiana sits at a cross-roads for a large variety of immigrant influences. It's widely known that Louisiana was founded by the French, thus in Louisiana Creole is placed in a French aesthetic, with an emphasis on complex sauces and slow-cooking. Other immigrant cultures contributed substantially to what became Creole cuisine, despite white New Orleanians' attempt in the 20th century to suppress the connection between "Creole" and mixed heritage.

The Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Canary influences on Creole cuisine were in the heat of the peppers, the wide usage of citrus juice marinades, the supreme importance of rice, and the introduction of beans. The Portuguese, Spaniards and the Italians used tomatoes extensively, which had not been a frequent ingredient in the earlier French era. Pasta and tomato sauces arrived during the period when New Orleans was a popular destination for Italian, and Greek immigrants (roughly, 1815 to 1925). Many Italians and Greeks became grocers, bakers, cheese makers and orchard farmers, and so influenced the Creole cuisine in New Orleans and its suburbs. The African and Indian influences, which were extensive, came about because many of the servants and slaves were either African-American or Indian American, as were many of the cooks in restaurants and cafes.

Many people confuse Creole cuisine with Cajun cuisine, however they are actually quite distinct. They were created by different French colonial and immigrant populations. Despite using many of the same ingredients, rural Cajun food uses more sausage, crawfish, game, and corn, while New Orleans Creole prefers shrimp and domestic meat. New Orleans Creole cuisine create sauces that are richer, less spicy, and more French than its Cajun counterpart.

With the rise of Southern American Cooking in the 1980s, a New Creole (or Nouvelle Creole) strain began to emerge. This movement is characterized in part by a renewed emphasis on fresh ingredients and lighter preparations, and in part by an outreach to other culinary traditions, including Cajun, Southern, Southwestern, and to a lesser degree Southeast Asian. While the Cajun food craze eventually passed, Modern Creole has remained as a predominant force in most major New Orleans restaurants.

Appetizers

Oysters Bienville

Oysters en brochette

Oysters Rockefeller

Shrimp remoulade

Soups

Bisque

Gumbo

Turtle soup

Main dishes

Chicken Creole

Creole Baked Chicken

Crawfish étouffée

Jambalaya

Mirliton

Pompano en Papillote

Rice and gravy

Shrimp bisque

Shrimp Creole

Smothered Pork Chops

Trout meunière

Side dishes

Red beans

Dirty rice

Smothered green beans with sausage and potatoes

Desserts

Bananas Foster

Beignets

King cake

Doberge cake

Praline

Banana pudding

Beverages

Café Brûlot

Café au lait

Ramos Gin Fizz

Sazerac cocktail

Breakfast

Calas

Eggs Sardou

Grits and Grillades

French toast (Pain perdu, or Lost Bread)

Condiments

Creole cream cheese

Pepper jelly

Remoulade

Creole mustard

Creole cooking methods

Barbecuing - similar to "slow and low" Southern barbecue traditions, but with Creole seasoning.

Baking - direct and indirect dry heat in a furnace or oven, faster than smoking but slower than grilling.

Grilling - direct heat on a shallow surface, fastest of all variants; sub-variants include:

Charbroiling - direct dry heat on a solid surface with wide raised ridges.

Gridironing - direct dry heat on a solid or hollow surface with narrow raised ridges.

Griddling - direct dry or moist heat along with the use of oils and butter on a flat surface.

Braising - combining a direct dry heat charbroil-grill or gridiron-grill with a pot filled with broth for direct moist heat, faster than smoking but slower than regular grilling and baking; time starts fast, slows down, then speeds up again to finish.

Boiling - as in boiling of crabs, crawfish, or shrimp, in seasoned liquid.

Deep frying

Smothering - cooking a vegetable or meat with low heat and small amounts of water or stock, similar to braising. Étouffée is a popular variant done with crawfish or shrimp.

Pan-broiling or pan-frying.

Injecting - using a large syringe-type setup to place seasoning deep inside large cuts of meat. This technique is much newer than the others on this list, but very common in Creole cooking.

Stewing, also known as fricassée.

Deep-frying of turkeys or oven-roasted turduckens entered southern Louisiana cuisine more recently.

Ingredients

The following is a partial list of ingredients used in Creole cuisine and some of the staple ingredients.

Grains

Corn

Rice — long, medium, or short grain white; also popcorn rice

Rice proved to be a valuable commodity in Creole cuisine. With an abundance of water and a hot, humid climate, rice could be grown practically anywhere in the region and grew wild in some areas. Rice became the predominant starch in the diet, as it was easy to grow, store and prepare. The oldest rice mill in operation in the United States, the Conrad Rice Mill, is located in New Iberia.

Wheat (for baking bread)

Meat and seafood

Creole folkways include many techniques for preserving meat, some of which are waning due to the availability of refrigeration and mass-produced meat at the grocer. Smoking of meats remains a fairly common practice, but once-common preparations such as turkey or duck confit (preserved in poultry fat, with spices) are now seen even by Acadians as quaint rarities.

Game is still uniformly popular in Creole cooking.

The recent increase of catfish farming in the Mississippi Delta has increasee its usage in Creole cuisine, replacing the more traditional wild-caught trout (the saltwater species) and red fish.

Creole seasonings

Individual

Blended

"Creole spice" blends such as Tony Chachere's and REX King of Spice are sometimes used in Creole kitchens, but do not suit every cook's style because Creole-style seasoning is often achieved from scratch, even by taste. Whole peppers are almost never used in authentic Creole dishes — ground Cayenne, paprika, and pepper sauces predominate.

Hot sauce

Seafood boil mix

Vinegar seasoned with small, pickled, hot green peppers is a common condiment with many Creole meals.

Persillade

Marinades made with olive oil, brown sugar, and citrus juices

Various barbecue rubs similar to those in other states

Cooking bases

Knowing how to make a good roux is key to Cajun and Creole cooking. The technique was inherited from the French. A roux is "a mixture made from equal parts of fat and flour, used especially to make a sauce or soup thicker." The fat and flour are cooked together on the stovetop until the mixture reaches a certain level of brownness, or darkness. Creole roux in New Orleans are known to be lighter than Cajun roux and are usually made with butter or bacon fat and flour. But certain Creole dishes use a dark roux. Dark roux are usually made with oil or bacon fat and flour. The scent of a good roux is so strong that it stays in clothes until they are washed. The scent is so widely recognized in Louisiana that others can tell if someone is making a roux, and often infer that they're making a gumbo. The secret to making a good gumbo is pairing the roux with the protein, similar to pairing the right wine and protein.

Light roux: A light roux is well-suited for seafood dishes, because the roux won't overwhelm the subtle seafood flavors. A light-colored roux doesn't support the heavier meat flavor of meat-based gumbos. For a light roux, the flour is cooked to a light golden brown.

Medium roux: Medium roux are the most versatile and probably the most common among the Creole cuisine of the New Orleans area. They work well with most Creole dishes. A medium roux will turn the color of a copper penny or peanut butter. A medium roux begins to take on the warm, browned flavor widely associated with gumbo.

Dark roux: A dark roux, with its strong (dense) nutty flavor will completely overpower a simple seafood gumbo, but is the perfect complement to a gumbo using chicken, sausage, crawfish or alligator. Chicken will just settle into the darker flavor, while sausage and dark roux balance each other well. A dark roux is approximately the color of milk chocolate. Preparing a dark roux is complicated. It involves heating oil or fat and flour very carefully, constantly stirring for 15–45 minutes (depending on the darkness desired), until the mixture has turned quite dark and developed a rich, nutty flavor and smell. It's very easy to burn the flour as it moves toward a darker brown, and burnt roux renders a dish unpalatable. A heavy-bottomed pot can help protect the roux from burning.

Stocks: Creole stocks may be more heavily seasoned than Continental counterparts, and the shellfish stock sometimes made with shrimp and crawfish heads is unique to Creole cuisine.

Fish stock and Court-bouillon

Shellfish stock

Chicken stock

Primary favorites

Gumbo - Gumbo is the quintessential stew-like soup of Louisiana. The dish is a Louisiana version of the French bouillabaise, but is made with okra, which the dish gumbo is named for. The name "gumbo" is derived from the French term for okra, which entered Louisiana French from West African languages as "gombo", from the West African "kilogombo" or "quingombo". Okra, often one of the principal ingredients in gumbo recipes, is used as a thickening agent and for its distinct flavor. In modern Louisiana cuisine, okra is not a requirement any longer, so gumbos can be made either with or without okra. Often gumbo that is not made with okra is made with a Louisiana spice called filé, a spice made from ground sassafras leaves. Chicken gumbos are often made without okra and made with filé instead. Tradition holds that a seafood gumbo is more common in summer months when okra is plentiful and a chicken or wild game gumbo in winter months when hunting is common. But of course, in Louisiana, a variety of different gumbos is eaten year long.

A filé gumbo is thickened with dried sassafras leaves after the stew has finished cooking, a practice borrowed from the Choctaw Indians. The backbone of a gumbo is roux of which there are two variations mainly used. A medium roux, or a dark roux, which is made of flour, toasted in fat or oil until well-browned.

Jambalaya - a most beloved of Louisiana dishes is the classic Creole dish named jambalaya. The only certain thing that can be said about a jambalaya is that it contains rice, some sort of meat (such as chicken or beef) or seafood (such as shrimp or crawfish) and almost anything else. Usually, however, one will find green peppers, onions, celery, tomatoes and hot chili peppers. Anything else is optional. Jambalaya is a dish of Spanish origin in Louisiana from the time when Spaniards were attempting to make their beloved dish "paella" in the new world. The dish has later evolved, going through a creolization of Louisiana influences. Jambalaya is a highly seasoned rice casserole.

Shrimp Creole - Shrimp Creole is a favorite of Creole cuisine in the greater New Orleans area. It's a dish made of shrimp, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic and cayenne pepper. Classic shrimp creole does not contain a roux, but some cooks may add one. It's an early Creole dish that shows its strong French and Spanish heritage.

Red Beans and Rice - Red beans and rice is one of the most common dishes found in New Orleans, cooked in homes and restaurants throughout the New Orleans area. Red beans arrived with white French Creoles from Haiti who escaped Haiti during the slave uprising, settling in New Orleans. The wonderful stew of red beans has a strong Caribbean influence.

Rice and gravy - Rice and gravy dishes are a staple of Creole cuisine and is usually a brown gravy based on pan drippings, which are deglazed and simmered with extra seasonings and served over steamed or boiled rice. The dish is traditionally made from cheaper cuts of meat and cooked in a cast iron pot, typically for an extended time period in order to let the tough cuts of meat become tender. Beef, pork, chicken or any of a large variety of game meats are used for its preparation. Popular local varieties include hamburger steak, smothered rabbit, turkey necks, and chicken fricassee.

Primary Desserts

Bread Pudding - A dessert made from day-old or stale French bread. A popular Creole and Cajun dessert that also contains eggs, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Crawfish boil

The crawfish boil is a celebratory event that involves boiling crawfish, potatoes, onions and corn in large pots over propane cookers. The crawfish boil is an event central to both Creole and Cajun cuisines. Lemons and small muslin bags containing a mixture of bay leaves, mustard seeds, cayenne pepper and other spices, commonly known as "crab boil" or "crawfish boil" are added to the water for seasoning. The results are then dumped onto large, newspaper-draped tables and in some areas covered in Creole spice blends, such as REX, Zatarain's, Louisiana Fish Fry or Tony Chachere's. Also, Cocktail sauce, mayonnaise and hot sauce are sometimes used. The seafood is scooped onto large trays or plates and eaten by hand. During times when crawfish are not abundant, shrimp and crabs are prepared and served in the same manner.

Attendees are encouraged to "suck the head" of a crawfish by separating the abdomen of the crustacean and sucking out the abdominal fat/juices.

Often, newcomers to the crawfish boil, or those unfamiliar with the traditions, are jokingly warned "not to eat the dead ones". This comes from the common belief that when live crawfish are boiled, their tails curl beneath themselves, but when dead crawfish are boiled, their tails are straight and limp. Seafood boils with crabs and shrimp are also popular.