The Famous Cajun Doughnut - Beignet

Getting some coffee and Cajun doughnuts is a long standing tradition in New Orleans. Since the mid 1800's the beignet (pronounced ben-yay) has been a delicacy enjoyed in the homes and cafe's in Louisiana.  A trip to New Orleans is not complete without visiting world renowned "Cafe du Monde" for some of there mouth watering, deep fried, powdered sugary treats. Cooking beignets is very easy if you follow these simple steps.....read more.

How to Make Honey, Roasted Pecan Prailines - Sugar

Honey Roasted Pecan Pralines - Sugar

Pecan Pralines are easy to make and definitely will tame any sweet tooth cravings you have. After all the main ingredient is sugar. All you need is a little time and patience and you o can enjoy with delectable treat.

Ingredients for Honey Roasted Pecan Pralines

• 5 cups of sugar ( 3 cups brown, 2 cups white)
• 2 cups pecan halves 
• 1 (12oz) can of evaporated milk evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup of  butter
• 1 tbs vanilla
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Wax paper 

Cooking Honey Roasted Pecan Pralines

Get a heavy saucepan and combine the salt, sugar and milk stirring over low heat until the sugar dissolves.Wipe the crystals away from the side of the pan. Cook until mixture will form a soft ball in a a glass of cold tap water usually about 15 to 20 minutes. Turn the heat down and add the butter and honey roasted pecans. Beat until creamy. Lay out the wax paper and coat with butter. Use a large spoon to drop pecan praline mixture onto the wax paper sheet. Let the pralines cool until they can be removed from the paper without falling apart. Store them individually in an air tight container.

Laissez le Bon temp rouler (Lazay Lay Bon Tom Roulay) or in plain English "Let the Good Times Roll"


Enjoy your honey roasted pecan pralines - sugar

How to Make Crawfish Stew - Spicy

Make a Crawfish Stew - Spicy

Now that the crawfish boil is over what will you do with all of the leftovers? Well there is a simple answer, make a spicy crawfish stew. Throwing together a spicy stew with the left over sausage, vegetables and crawfish is fairly straight forward. Having a crawfish boil and saving the leftovers unlocks several Cajun crawfish recipe opportunities. So lets turn up the heat and cook some Cajun food.

Cook Crawfish Stew - Spicy Ingredients

• crawfish tails (peeled) 4 lbs would be best
• Sausage, potatoes, corn and any other goodies you have leftover from the crawfish boil
• 1 white onion chopped up fine
• 1 green bell pepper chopped up fine
• 1 stalk of celery chopped up fine
• 1 to 2 cloves of garlic chopped fine (optional)
• 1 cup flour (more or less)
• 1 cup cooking oil
• Hot sauce (optional)
• 3 to 6 hard boiled eggs (optional)
• Approximately 4 cups of water
• Salt and pepper to tast

The key to making any Cajun stew or gumbo is in the roux. There are several instant roux mixes on the market and some of them are good when time is an issue. The roux mix I would recommend when going the instant route is Tony Chachere's Roux Mix 1 lb. it is not as good as making your rue the old fashioned way but you can still make a vaillant (nice) base for your stew or gumbo. For the purpose of this recipe we will assume you have plenty of time and want to give making your own roux a shot.

Before preparing the roux it is important that you get the other ingredients ready, you will not have time to mess around when you start the roux.

Lets get started, pour one cup of cooking oil in a large pot or skillet over medium heat. Once the oil heats up a bit start mixing in the flour slowly with a spoon, spatula or a whisk. I prefer to use a whisk. Add small amounts of flour at a time mixing together well until you get a consistency somewhat like gravy. Keep stirring the oil and flour mixture or the roux will burn. You can turn the heat down a bit if it seems to hot. Continue stirring the roux until you get a deep golden brown color. Add the Cajun holy trinity (bell pepper, onion and celery) and garlic (optional). Be careful when adding the trinity to the roux, the water in the vegetables may make the oil spatter. Keep stirring the roux until it is just about to burn approximately 20 to 30 minutes. DO NOT BURN THE ROUX!

                                

Add half of the water and continue to stir. Blend the water and the roux together. Once the base for your spicy crawfish stew is mixed well add the left over crawfish and other goodies from the seafood boil. Pour the rest of the water into the pot and mix well. Be carefull when adding the water so you do not make the stew to think or thin. You can add more spices or hot sauce at this point but keep in mind the crawfish were boiled in spicy seasoning. Put the cover on the pot and cook 30 to 35 minutes on low to medium heat, stirring the contents of the pot occasionally. Remove the cover from the pot and cook an additional 20 minutes, if the stew starts getting to think add a little water. If you want to add the hard boiled eggs to the spicy crawfish stew do so with about 5 minutes remaining on the cooking time.

The last step is to make some rice and enjoy you Cajun crawfish stew - spicy!

How to Boil Crawfish for Beginners

Boiling Crawfish Cajun Style

Having a Kajun crawfish boil in Louisiana is a very common occurrence from early February into spring, that's when the crawfish are at there best. There preparation is quite straight forward and there are several ways to making them. The cooking equipment is not hard to come by. It can seem kind of pricey at first but the life you get out of a good burner and crawfish boiling pot is well worth the investment. The dang things literally last forever if you take care of them. With that said lets get started.

First things first, before we even think about buying a sack of crawfish we need to make sure you have the above mentioned cooking supplies.

Cajun Crawfish Cooking Utensil's

• One five gallon propane tank (filled)
• One jet burner and a hose with a fire arestor inline between the burner and the propane tank. Do not buy the slow burners that they sell to cook turkeys with as it will take you for ever and a day to boil some water. My set up uses a grease fitting with the insides drilled out so the gas is forced through a very small hole creating a fast hot flame.
• One aluminum seafood boiling pot with removable boiling basket. These come in many sizes. For a 40lb sack I would at least have an 80 quart boiling pot. If you plan on feeding a lot of people go larger, it will save you from having to cook multiple batches of crawfish.

Now that we have that covered lets find you a sack of crawfish. Crayfish usually come in 35 - 40lb sacks, sometimes a little heavier. Some vendors will do what they call breaking a sack which is selling less than the standard weight to a customer who may not need as much. Then again some seafood vendors will not. It really depends on which part of the season you are in and the demand. Start looking for a seafood supplier by asking friends, looking in the phone book, or if you are in an area where crawfish are not readily available perform a search on the internet. Call around and get pricing. Crawfish are sold by the pound and the prices fluctuate throughout the season. Keep in mind, the best price may not necessarily mean the best seafood. Once you have found the vendor take a ride over there and take a look at the product. Bring an ice chest to put them in and make sure they are of a descent size and still alive.A safe bet would be to buy 3 - 5lbs of crawfish per person. If you are out of state you can find some seafood vendors who will ship these tasty crustaceans right to your door step.

Crawfish - LIVE CRAWFISH - 90 lbs. with seasoning

Other items you will need include:

Cajun Crayfish Boil Grocery List

Based on 40 lb sack of crawfish

• Beer, doesn't really matter what kind. Just make sure you have enough
• Crawfish of course (3 - 5 lbs per person)
• one (1lb) pack of smoked sausage
• pack of hotdogs (for the kids)
  
• one mesh sack of small red potatoes
• one small mesh sack of whole onions
• one pack of carrots (not the small ones)
• one pack of mushrooms (so what if the wife don't like them)
• a couple of lemons
• small bag of corn on the cob, frozen or fresh
• crawfish boiling season of your choice. Again there are several different brands to choose from. Some have salt already added to them some dont. They come in liquid, season bags and powder forms. I prefer Chackbay (powder)seasoning with a small bottle of Zatarans liquid boil.
• couple boxes of table salt
• double check to make sure you didn't forget the beer

Alright, now that we have the beer all iced up the goodies we will boil with the craw fish, lets get the burner fired up. First set up the burner and the bottle outside away from the house. I repeat outside away from the house. Also make sure the propane bottle is a safely away from the burner and the crawfish burner itself is on level sturdy ground. Get you one of them long fireplace lighters (ask your wife, she has one), open the valve on the propane tank and crack the valve on the regulator. Light the stinky gas coming from the burner being careful not to burn yourself. Set the pot squarely on the burner over the open flame and fill halfway with water. Pour about a quarter box of salt and quarter bag of Chackbay seasoning in the water, stir. Taste the concoction you have just made it should be a bit salty and spicy. Go ahead and make sure the basket is inside the pot and add the potatoes, onions and carrots. You can leave the onions and potatoes in the mesh bags if they came in one. Put the lid on it and leave it alone for now.

Empty the crawfish inside an ice chest and kind of pick though them to remove any dead ones or any undesirables such as grass or bait used to catch the little critters. Most seafood suppliers will clean there product prior to sale but it never hurts to double check. Open the plug on the ice chest and run some water on the crawfish with the hose pipe (that's a water hose for those of you not from South Louisiana). Close the plug on the ice chest and dump one of the boxes of salt on the crawfish. Fill the ice chest up with water until the little mud bugs are just covered. Leave them sit for around five minutes then drain and rinse them off again. This is called purging, it cleans out the intestinal tract of the mini lobster. It would be a good idea to mention, store the crawfish in the shade so they don't die. You can even pick a couple small ones out the batch for the kids to play with.

By now the water should be boiling in the pot. Go ahead and check it. Grab you a cold one and start timing. After about 10 - 12 minutes check the potatoes and onions to see if you can poke a fork into them. If they are fairly tender you can go ahead and add the rest of the goodies. Make sure you cut the sausage up into manageable pieces and rinse the mushrooms off (after all they grow in poop as my wife constantly reminds me). Cook another 5 - 10 minutes until the onions and potatoes are completely tender. While that's finishing up, put some newspaper over the table where you plan on eating and get a large bowl to dump the goodies in. Make sure to have a cold one throughout the cooking process. Remove the basket and set it on the edge of the boiling pot to drain off the excess boiling hot water. Be careful you can get burned. Dump the goodies in the large bowl.

Ok, now for the craw fish. Dump half of the salt and crawfish seasoning that you have left over into the boiling water. I also like to put half a small bottle of Zatarans seafood boil at this point. Cut the lemons in half and squeeze and toss into the crawfish boiling pot. Take the empty boiling basket and set it on the ground. Get a buddy to help you dump the crawfish into the basket. Put the basket into the boiling water and cover. Drink a cold one and wait for the water to start boiling again. Once the seasoned water begins to boil start timing again for another 10 minutes. Be careful, if you have to much water it will boil over. After 10 minutes has gone by shut the burner off and uncover the pot. Pour the rest of the salt and seasoning into the crawfish. Stir it up a bit and soak for another 10 minutes. Some people like to add cold water at this point before soaking, but I have never noticed a difference. With the help of a friend pick the basket up and drain just as you did with the goodies. Take the crawfish over to the newspaper covered table and dump them in the middle.

You can make a dip for the craw fish by combining ketchup, mayonnaise and hot sauce until you get a slightly orange concoction. It actually can get a lot more detailed than that but I will have to pry that out of my wife one of these days. She is the one who usually makes the dipping sauce.

Well, all thats left is sucking some heads and pinching some tales. Maybe even throwing a few more cold ones back.

Laissez le Bon temp rouler (Lazay Lay Bon Tom Roulay) or in plain English "Let the Good Times Roll"

Feel free to e-mail me daleshawnm@gmail.com with any questions about How to Boil Crawfish for Beginners 

How to Cook Cajun Food for Beginners

Welcome to How to Cook Cajun Food. Here in Louisiana we have a long history of cooking world famous Cajun food. On this site you will find the recipes and cooking techniques used in restaurants and homes across the state of Louisiana.

For those aspiring Cajun chiefs I will start out with the most common foods that my friends and family eat and try to lay them out in the easiest way possible to understand. For the already well versed Cajun chiefs, bare with me cause as I'm sure you know there are several different ways to make some of our  favorite recipes. One thing I have learned over my years of cooking in Louisiana is that each person has there own tried and true methods of how to cook Cajun food. Take cooking crawfish for example, I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the numerous ways the people I know cook this tasty crustacean.

There will also be certain words and phrases (Cajun French) on this site that might not be familiar with visitors who are not from our part of the country.  Heck some of the sayings I have trouble with myself but I will explain the meaning as the words or phrases as they come up in the posts.

If you have any questions about the information on this site or would like to share your own recipes on how to cook Cajun food please feel free to e-mail me at daleshawnm@gmail.com

Laissez le Bon temp rouler (Lazay Lay Bon Tom Roulay) or in plain English "Let the Good Times Roll"