Saluting the Sausage - Part 1 - Andouille

Back again! FINALLY!

OK, it's no secret that I am a giant meat eater and eat probably way more than I should. There are a lot of brilliantly delicious ways to prepare all kinds of meats, but there's one that is universal, functional and almost always delicious and that's a friend the world round: the sausage.

What defines sausage? Well, according to Oxford, a sausage is: an item of food in the form of a cylindrical length of minced pork or other meat encased in a skin, typically sold raw to be grilled or fried before eating.

Simple enough, eh? And yet, there's pretty much no food item that has more varieties in all manners of cuisine than the sausage. I recently borrowed the following book from the library and it maps out the various types of sausage and regions where they can be found and it's pretty much everywhere worldwide except maybe Antartica and Nauru. Just take a look at what wikipedia has to say. 

Boasting a versatility like few other ingredients, sausage can be used in all manner of recipes and adds a whole lot of flavour with small amounts, which is good since there's probably no such thing as a "healthy" sausage. 

Lately I've been using all manner of sausage in different recipes and as a result, I have all kinds of posts in the offing revolving around tasty sausage-based creations.

In this first post, I'll be looking at the Andouille sausage. Andouille is originally a French creation, but has since come to prominence in Cajun cooking, where it features heavily in many dishes. Andouille is a smoked pork sausage seasoned with wine, garlic and spices (sage, thyme and cayenne usually feature prominently). You'll find Andouille in Gumbo, sausage gravy, pasta dishes and so on.

A tubular pillar of Cajun cooking

Perhaps the most famous dish that makes use of Andouille, other than Gumbo, is Jambalaya. Jambalaya is a rice dish laden with Andouille, chicken and shrimp, as well as a whack of veggies and seasoning. As you may already know, Cajuns don't skimp on flavour when they cook and that is certainly evident in a heaping bowl of Jambalaya.  

The thing is about Jambalaya is that it's one of those somewhat labour-intensive and time-consuming dishes that tends to intimidate the average cook, but if you follow the instructions fairly accurately, it isn't all that difficult to get right the first and every time. And even then, it's kind of remarkable how many different ways of making it I've found out there and they probably all work. So, here's my version, mainly adapted from a recipe I found on the 'Net many years ago:

Jambalaya

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

- 400-450 g/1 pound Andouille sausage, sliced
- 400-450 g/1 pound boneless chicken meat, cubed
- 200-225 g shrimp, peeled
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1 large red pepper, diced
- 4-5 celery ribs, sliced about 1/2 inch thick
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cans tomato paste
- 2 large tomatoes, diced
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- salt to taste (might not be necessary depending on how salty the stock is)
- 2 cups rice, uncooked
- hot sauce to taste

Directions

- In a pot, heat oil to medium-high. Cook chicken pieces and sausage for about 5 minutes, then add onions, peppers, celery, garlic and tomato paste.
- Cook veggies and tomato paste for about 5-6 minutes, allowing the paste to darken, but not burn.
- Stir in tomatoes and sauté for 2 minutes.
- Stir in chicken stock, seasonings and rice. Reduce heat to medium-low (3 or 4).

Sauce and rice cooking together...

- Cover pot and cook for 25-30 minutes, allowing rice to absorb liquid.
- Stir in shrimp and cook uncovered for another 10 minutes on medium-low until shrimp is fully cooked through, but not tough. Keep stirring to prevent rice from sticking to bottom of pot. NOTE: you can simply pan fry the shrimp in a little bit of olive oil and stir in to the cooked jambalaya as well.
- Discard bay leaves and serve, keeping a bottle of your favourite hot sauce on the side, just in case you want that extra kick.

 

 

... to make this!

You can serve the Jambalaya with whatever you want (salad, bread, etc.), but I find just a good sized bowl is more than enough of a meal on its own.





One of the best rice dishes in the world

The verdict is very simple: This is one of the only rice dishes I truly enjoy making. It's simple, hard to screw up and just exploding with rich, deep flavour, especially from the Andouille. I'd made it previously with Italian sausage and it just wasn't the same. I recommend trying this recipe at the first chance you get, you won't regret it.

So, that's the first look into the wide world of sausage. From the kitchens of New Orleans, we'll next be travelling across the Atlantic. But where to? Well, stay tuned to find out!

Cheers!

Making a Stir-Fry - Step 2 – Dealing with Starch

OK, the several billion people who consume rice as their main food staple probably know something I don’t. Like how to cook it properly. But, I am not one of them. For me, cooking rice has always been hit-and-miss, with miss commanding a strong lead. That being said, I feel it necessary to discuss the intricacies of a) making rice and b) finding easier alternatives to using rice to accompany our stir-fry.

So, making rice. Well, in my experience, I’ve had the best luck with Jasmine rice, which is the staple rice in Thailand. I haven’t successfully attempted cooking any other kind in recent memory. There is a plethora of different types of rice used throughout the world (it’s a bit intimidating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rice_varieties). The basic rule with cooking rice is to follow the instructions on the package TO THE LETTER! Rice isn’t one of those things you can experiment with, it just doesn’t work. So, that’s about it for my grand wisdom on cooking rice.

But, that being said, I highly recommend going with plan B: using rice noodles or vermicelli. If you’ve ever eaten at a Vietnamese pho restaurant, you’ve probably noticed that they use a variety of rice-based noodles, some thicker like fettuccine, others super thin like Angel hair pasta. Well, any of these is a much easier alternative to grain rice. You can find these kinds of noodles in the Asian food section of your super market. Basically, cook similarly to pasta (as per the instructions on the package). There’s a bit of a difference in that you will cook the noodles, then cool them off, mix them with some sort of oil to loosen them up, then toss them in with the stir-fry. I really like going with this kind of dish instead of rice because it somehow feels more satisfying as a meal, and it’s easier to eat noodles with chopsticks.

So, that’s about it. We’ll get back to the actual stir-fry next time.

Making a Stir-Fry - Part 1

Intro and Step 1

Stir-fries are a quick and easy way to make a delicious meal. Really, there’s not much that’s easier to make than a stir-fry. The only drawback is preparing that ubiquitous and expected accompaniment, rice. Oh rice, you frustrating grain, you. I have been cooking for a long time, have usually had things turn out anywhere from decent to magnificent, but rice continues to confound me. I just can’t seem to get it right on any sort of consistent basis. So, we’re going to break down the art of the stir-fry into three steps: the first will deal with getting the elements of the actual stir-fry together, the second with making rice and finding alternatives to rice in oriental-style cooking in general, the third will deal with cooking the stir-fry, as well as the elements of presenting the meal.

Step 1 – Getting your Stir-Fry Together

Cookware

Alright, let’s hope you’ve put something of a kitchen together since the first post. For this recipe you’ll need pretty much the exact same cookware as with our pasta recipe. The elements are almost identical. You’ll need a knife and cutting board for prep, a large frying pan (or a wok if you want to be all authentic and stuff) and spatula for the stir-fry itself, a medium sized saucepan/pot with a handle and a lid for the rice, a bowl or plate for serving the food, a fork to eat it with (although using chopsticks is much more rewarding and a damn sight sexier – at least it is according to one of my exes, more on that later).

Ingredients

The most important ingredient for making a stir-fry, I find, is sesame oil. It’s what gives Chinese food it’s Chinese-iness? Um, yeah… I’ve found you don’t want to get massive quantities of sesame oil as it gets bitter after a while. President’s Choice sells a 185 ml bottle which I’ve found is the perfect size.

With sesame oil and only 3 more ingredients, you can make a no-fail stir-fry sauce. So, here it is:

Nick’s Super-Easy Stir-Fry Sauce
(as with anything I cook, none of this is an exact science, fiddle with amounts as you see fit)

- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp soya sauce (or, preferably, 1 tbsp each of soya sauce and oyster sauce – oyster sauce is thicker and isn’t quite as purely salty as soya, with a subtle fishy undertone)
- ½ tsp Chinese five-spice powder (a spice mix usually consisting of fennel, cinnamon, star anise, Szechuan peppercorns and cloves; available at most grocery stores in major cities – delicious stuff!)
- 3-4 tbsp your favourite beer

Whisk all that together with a fork and that’s it! Put in a glass or ceramic container and set aside.

Stir-fry ingredients:

1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger (fresh)
½ tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)

As for the meat and veggies, it’s all to taste. Just dice veggies (about 1 ½ cm thick). If using carrots, slice thinner as they take longer to cook. Just think of the last time you got Chinese food and cut your veggies roughly the way the restaurant did.

For meat, I like to use beef and cut it into thin slices (almost like ribbons). With chicken, I usually cube it (you can buy chicken already prepped into stir-fry strips or cubed). You can also use shrimp or scallops (see previous post for notes on prepping seafood). Even fish filets will work, but the cooking time is a little different.

Next post: Dealing with Starch