Cajun Cookin'

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and today I'm going to be in the kitchen jazzing it up with some of my all-time Cajun favorites

First of all, I'm going to be having an authentic New Orleans Jambalaya with all the southern flavors like shrimp, smoked sausage, and for goodness sakes, don't forget the spices

Then I'm going to heat this meal up with some raging Cajun seafood balls

And even the dessert's going to be on fire, y'all, with an old classic, Bananas Foster

You know, I think this meal just might chase away anybody's blues

So don't go away, y'all, because we're fixing to go down to the bayou, and we're going to eat like it's that Tuesday

Music

Hey, y'all. Welcome to my pantry. You caught me in here looking for some different things that I can use for the next dish that I'm going to be doing

And I have more fun when I come into my pantry because I get so many gifts that pertain to food

How fun, like Big Daddy Jake's Texas Pit. People know that Michael loves hot stuff

And look at this. Somebody sent me a bottle of their seasoning

Great bottle of Cajun chicken. And put my picture on it. Isn't that funny

I think I'm going to take this with me, too. Oh, and I got a peanut butter spread in there

All that stuff looks and sounds so good. Takes me a long time to use all that stuff up, though

All right. Today is all about Cajun cooking. And the first dish I'm going to make is Cajun seafood balls

So we're going to start with a half a pound of shrimp that have been peeled, deveined, and cooked

So in here they go, and you'll want to make sure that you drain these good

We don't want it soupy. All right, and we're gonna kind of just coarsely chop these

Okay, those minced up easy, real easy, because they're tender, young shrimp

And you can see I was using a smaller shrimp. All right, so into our bowl it goes

So we're gonna add one can of drained crab meat. That canned crab meat has a lot of flavor and kick to it

And then we're gonna add one of the small cans of salmon

So these are gonna be really, really meaty little seafood bites. And I'm gonna add two tablespoons of dried parsley for Purdy

All right, next I'm gonna add one tablespoon of Cajun seasoning. And I'm going to add one tablespoon of a coarse, grainy mustard

And then I'm going to add, believe it or not, a fourth of a cup of bottled tartar sauce

And now I'm going to add a half a cup of breadcrumbs

And I'm going to add some pepper, some fresh ground pepper. All right, now I'm going to add a little salt and a small can of niblet corn that's been drained

These are getting more interesting, aren't they? All right, now we're just going to stir this up

That tartar sauce is going to help bind them together. All right, now we're going to add one and a half cups of rice

cooked rice, you can use leftover, you know, it doesn't matter if it's cold or this is a little

warm from me cooking it this morning, but it's perfectly fine to use cold leftover rice

Now I'm going to add one egg, and that egg is going to help find our seafood balls together

All right now you can see how that egg has really given it a kind of a sticky texture

Now I'm going to take my other egg that I have here and I'm going to beat it up

And I've got extra breadcrumbs. And we're just going to form our seafood into balls

just like that. And I'm going to roll them in the egg and then I'm going to roll them

into the breadcrumbs. And then I'm going to just move them onto the plate and let them

sit. Okay, these are looking good. And if you don't have a deep fryer, you know, regular

deep fryer. It'll work out well frying it on top of the stove because it's not

gonna take that long for them, so it would be a very controllable dish to fry

without making too big of a mess. And I'm gonna drop in just a few in each

basket. Okay that looks like enough. Gonna turn that up a little bit. And then drop the

the others in, and then down they go. That won't take any time

Man alive, I've got more bowls spread out. They say just for me to make hot dogs

I'll use every dish in the kitchen. And for some reason, I do

Okay, I think these are probably completely ready. Look at those

I'm just going to let them drain for about a second on that paper towel

and then I'm going to transfer them onto our serving dish. This could be a meal, too

Look at that. And I bet they're as hot as a $3 pistol

but I can't hardly wait to taste one. Look at that. They're just really, really pretty

Oh, my gracious. And they're really, really good. Mmm. Well, I'm going to finish eating mine

and then when we come back, I'm going to show you a dish that's very New Orleans-y

And it's going to involve these tomatoes. So I'll see y'all back in a second

Now, if everybody's back from a break or getting you something to drink

if you're ready to cook, I'm ready. Now, I told you before break that I'm going to be making a Louisiana dish that has to do with tomatoes

and the dish is jambalaya. Now, Louisiana is a self-proclaimed capital of jambalaya

but I think you're going to like my recipe. I think you're going to find it easy and simple and full of Louisiana flavor

We're going to start with a cup of rice, and we're going to add to it a half a teaspoon of thyme, and that's dried thyme

We're going to add three tablespoons of dehydrated dried onions. We're going to add one tablespoon of dried parsley

We're going to add, and this is what's going to give it its kick

We're going to add a half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. So hold on to your hats, y'all

It's going to have a little kick to it. And then I'm going to add one tablespoon of crushed beef bouillon cubes

And then we're going to add one bay leaf. And then we're going to add a half a teaspoon of garlic powder

I'm going to just mix that up. Now we're just going to put that in our pot

And then we're going to add two and a half cups of water

And I'm going to add a 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes. And then we're going to add a 14-ounce can of tomato sauce

Now, you can't get any simpler than that. All right now to this I going to add what really gives it a wonderful flavor and that smoked sausage Now I using like a smoked breakfast sausage but in Louisiana they would more than likely use Shirazzo or an andouille smoked sausage which is really flavorful

I just love this regular smoked sausage and this is what we use in our low country balls

To me, the flavor is just wonderful. All right, so we're going to just stir that together

and let this come to a ball, and I'm going to cover it

and then I'm going to let it simmer for about 20 minutes

And right now, I'm going to do a little quick swap on us

because I've got some that's been simmering, and we're going to put this over here

and I'm going to turn that on and let it cook for about 20 minutes, and then I'll finish it up

All right, now you can see how it looks after about 20 minutes

Mmm. Now we're going to add one more ingredient to our jambalaya, some shrimp

And I'm leaving tails on for mine. You can take your tails off if you like

but I just love having a little handle to help me eat those shrimp

And, of course, Michael, when I do that, he just fusses and fusses and fusses

because he doesn't like anything to slow him down. So in go our shrimp, and it'll take just a few minutes for those

It'll actually take a little bit longer for these because they're not going directly into a pot of boiling water

So that will take a few minutes. So I'm going to round me up a bowl because I can't wait to taste it

It's been a right chilly day here today. The wind has been whipping something fierce

In fact, I could hear it whipping down the chimney as I was standing up here cooking this morning

and ladybirds are a little nervous out there because of all the wind

So this is going to be just perfect for this kind of day

It looks so wonderful. Look at that. Just look at that. And, oh, I love serving it in white bowls because of the red colors

They just stand out and look so pretty against the white china

There's lots of stories about this dish. One story goes that it came from the Spanish when they took over Louisiana

And I can almost understand that because to me, that looks like I would think a Spanish dish would look like

You know, I don't care really who gets credit for it, though, as long as we have the dish

And I mean, it's hot. Look at that smoke, and if I'm not careful, I'm going to burn my mouth

But look at that. Mmm. This is just perfect for this day

I'm gonna have to take a quick break, y'all, but don't go anywhere because the next dish

is a dessert dish that's gonna set you on fire. Hey, welcome back, y'all

And in case you've just joined me, today's show is a tribute to Louisiana cooking

I've made a wonderful meal, but now it's time to put the dessert together

And in order to put this dessert together, I'm going to need some ice cream

And I'm going to use vanilla ice cream. But today's dessert is really a hot dessert

And this dish is famous in New Orleans, and it's bananas foster

I just love it, and it's so simple to make, y'all. We're gonna start our heat off fairly high

and we're gonna melt a stick of butter. Now, you know this is a good recipe

if it's starting with a stick of butter. And we're gonna let that melt

While that's melting, I'm gonna cut that down just a little bit. While that's melting, I'm gonna get our bananas ready

and I'm just gonna peel them, cut them in half, and then split them just like that

I'm gonna add a half a cup of brown sugar. Now I want to pack that in there good

You can see that butter's starting to cook. Looks delicious already. Now I'm just gonna slip our bananas in there

and cook them until they're kind of soft. Here I think we can just do that Yeah there we go And while those are cooking I gonna measure out a half a cup of dark rum

That's what's gonna give it the fire and the flavor. And you can see that that butter and brown sugar

is really starting to incorporate. I'm just going to flip our bananas around over it

Bananas is probably the fruit that I love to eat the most

But of course, naturally, it's not nearly as low-calorie as an apple or something like that

I mean, you might know my favorite fruit would be one of the most fattening

That is starting to look real good. Now I'm gonna pour in that half a cup of rum

And you never want to pour the liquor directly from the bottle into your pan

Now we're gonna set it on fire. And I'm gonna kind of stand back for this one

because y'all will want to make sure that you're very careful while you're fixing this dish

Be careful of your eyelashes and your hair, girls, because if you're like me and wear a lot of hairspray

your whole head could go up in flames. Look how pretty that is, though

Okay. Our flame has dissipated. I can smell that rum in those bananas

And now it's time for us to fix a plate and see what our bananas foster taste like

Homemade pound cake would be fabulous. with this, but the store-bought cake works nicely, too

All right, my ice cream has gotten nice and soft. You know, you just can't go wrong with ice cream

Look at that. Just look at that. Oh-wee. Look at that

I like lots of juice with mine. Okay. Oh

This is so good, y'all. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to put this dish together

While I'm eating this, y'all, go grab you a cup of coffee

And when we come back, I'm going to give you some good Cajun gift ideas that you won't want to miss

Make this tonight, y'all. Nothing says a gift like one that comes from your kitchen

I made the chambalaya today. And if you want to give somebody a nice little gift, you can go to the flea market or yard sale or an antique shop and find all kind of beautiful little jars

Now, I've put our jambalaya mix in the jar. There's the rice, the parsley, the dried onions, everything it takes

The only thing that the recipient of your gift will have to have is the meat and the tomatoes

It'll make a wonderful little gift. and if you want to have a nice kind of bitey sauce to go along with those crab

balls you can make a quick quick sauce by putting a half a cup of mayonnaise in

the food processor along with a tablespoon of vinegar, a little bit of

onion, two cloves of fresh garlic, two seeded jalapeno peppers, and about a

a half a teaspoon of sugar. Pulse it until all the ingredients are mixed up

Put it in a jar and stick it in a little basket. It's going to make a great gift, but now this gift

will have to be refrigerated. So make sure your friend that you're giving it to knows that

I hope that you've enjoyed the tribute today, not to just Louisiana, but Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas

And we hope that you'll enjoy these recipes. The jambalaya is so very, very good

And the seafood balls, oh my goodness. But I have to tell you, today's showstopper is that bananas foster

I can see why it's on y'all's menus down there. So until next time, y'all, we send you love and best dishes from our kitchen to yours