Phlounder that is how we boiled crawfish too, exept after each batch we would put them in a cooler to keep them hot, by the time we were finished cooking and the coolers full crawfish, boy the one's on the bottom were....... woooooo.
I was asking how yall had cooked that much in the photo. That was a lot of crawfish???
There isn't a place here in MO where you can get decent crawfish. They have it, but it is not good.
OH! I loved all of the boiled peanut stands down there! They are so good.
And tameles might be a mexican dish, but they have a huge following in the south.
They are fabulous! We had an old man who had a stand and he sold tamales his wife made. She made the best one's I ever tasted.
Alane
oops,phlounder, I just read what you typed above the photo, (I had to look at that again) So, yeah we cooked them alike.
Do you eat a lot of catfish?
I mentioned that because of the catfish farming, and reason I ate a lot. I was a live on manager, so when the catfish formans would bring some up for the family to test (they had hired testers too course) but the plantation owner wanted to test his own fish too, so I ate a LOT of it. Hard to describe to someone that you taste test catfish to make sure it is taste free...lol
Final synposis of my last endeavor.....
Drink and bake = no cheesecake
When Rodger got home he got a good laugh about that particular (perculiar) dish..heehee
alane
For Patrick...This is awesome and has several uses. My uncle got this recipe several years ago, from a friend who has a hotdog cart in New Orleans. Every member in my family uses this recipe. With mods it is a good base for chili beans
Here is the base:
2 pounds lean hamburger
1/2 cup finely diced celery
1/2 cup bell pepper
1 cup onions
2 tsp celery salt
2 tsp red pepper
2 tsp black pepper
3 tsp paprika
4 Tablespoons chili powder
1 pinch of oregano
1/2 quart water
15 ounce can italian stewed tomatos
15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 whole jalapeno
Brown and drain burger add all to a pot,
if making chili beans add the beans you want
keep the Jalapeno pepper whole, it is for flavor, you can take it out when it is done.
Bring to a boil, then simmer to your likes.
If making hotdog chili, reduce well until thick
I did not add salt to the recipe, salt to your taste
Don't let the diced celery blow ya off, the flavors all blend together, and it is very good.
a hint, after chopping my veggies small, I also use my dicer to FINELY chop them, it helps the flavors blend better.
The 1 absolute for top notch chili is - always use real chili peppers! If you can get fresh poblano or Anaheim peppers, roast and peel them. If using dried peppers reconstitute them in the beef stock you're going to use to make the chili and strain through papertowels or cheese cloth
The other things I like to do are to use beef and cube it, not ground and to use canned whole tomoatoes and squeeze them instead of tomato sauce. These all give better texture to the end product
Other than that, I start with a mixture of peppers, onions and celery in a 2,2,1 ratio. starting with 1/2 the veggies first to carmelize and sweeten them - then remove and reserve. Brown the meat, remove and reserve, then garlic with the 2nd half of the veggies. When that's done, deglaze with some white wine, water or beef stock. Then add everything including beans, etc. to the pot and simmer slowly. Special ingredients I've experimented with and found good to use depending on what you're going for are: tabasco or habenero pepper sauce, brown sugar, strong coffee, roasted tomatillo's and pretty much anything else you want. Last thing - never add any cheese until serving - preferably on the side - the cheese will cut the acid that gives the "heat".
That sounds so much better than mine. I am definately making that this coming weekend. It is turning crisp here in KC, and chili would be a bit of a change.
How many cans of whole tomatos do you use? I am a little uncertain on the directions regarding the tomatos. Squeeze the juice out of the can tomatos, use the juice in the chili with the toms, or just strained toms and discard juice?
What type of beef do you use. sirloin?
other spices? such as chili powder to taste?
I never tried coffee before. That is certainly different and something to try.
Any more tips for this recipe?
Thanks bunches. I look forward to trying this one. I may not wait for the weekend!
I will post after I have tried it.
alane
I use whole tomatoes and squeeze them to get out the juice and most of the seeds and break them into large pieces. Don't worry about it too much. Depending on if you want it to taste more "beefy" or "tomato-y" you could use the juice, but I probably wouldn't unless I forgot to get/make enough beef stock.
For the beef, again, it depends a bit, if you are going to make stock, I would buy beef shank (have the butcher saw it into a couple, few 1-1/2" thick slices). Start by blackening a large onion cut in half (put the cut side down on a cast iron pan, cook on high heat until it's REALLY burnt. Put that in your stock pot with some celery, carrots, onions, and beef or pork fat or butter on warm/low heat. Brown the beef (lighltly floured) in the same pan the onion was burned in. After browning well, add that to the stock pot with some cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, skim, then add some salt (not too much), pepper corns, maybe a bay leaf and teaspoon of toasted whole coriander seed. After you make the stock, use that beef for the chili.
If you don't want to go through the trouble of this, then I would use chuck. If you want to use sirloin or something else like that, you can, just brown it and add nearer to serving time. In other words, chuck and shank, are tough meats that will get more tender with the long slow cooking. Things like sirloin, shell steak, etc. are more tender and will get tougher when cooked a long time. So if you want to save a bit of money use the chuck or shank. If you want to go high end, do that but you're better off cooking the meat seperate and adding it at the end - it's not really the purpose of chili, but it does taste great and make a nice impression if you want to serve it to guests.
As for spices, the chili & green peppers, onion and garlic are a good start, from there I would add some paprika, cumin, salt and maybe chili powder. Oh, I forgot, if you are using dried chilis then you will need to mince them after soaking, fresh ones would get diced. The coffee makes it a bit deeper/richer. Patrick mentioned the clean, snappy flavor, I found that that comes more with a shorter cooking time, longer cooking time makes it a bit deeper and fuller.
Sorry about not being too explicit - I don't really cook to recipe's (except some not all baking) and I encourage you to taste and experiment. In the end, always cook everything so it tastes good to you.
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