We LOVE food from NOLA. That Big Easy feel in every bite. A heat that grows, with textures and flavors that demand you take another bite on your way to cleaning the plate. Because beef is getting really expensive, we made the choice to try to make less expensive meals. Red beans and rice NOLA style is a very good and tasty strategy.

Ingredients

• 1 lb dried red kidney beans (soaked)
• 1 smoked ham hock + ½ lb thick-cut bacon (or pancetta)
• 1 lb andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp cayenne (adjust later)
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 6–7 cups low-sodium chicken stock
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire
• 1 tsp soy sauce (secret umami boost)
• 1–2 tsp apple cider vinegar (finishing acid)
• 2 tbsp butter (finish)

Rice:

• Jasmine or long grain rice
• Add 1 tbsp butter + 1 bay leaf while cooking

. Render & build flavor

• Cook bacon slowly until fat renders and it’s lightly crisp.
• Remove bacon (leave fat).
• Brown sausage in that fat → remove.
• Add the trinity (onion, pepper, celery). Cook longer than you think—you want slight caramelization.

Garlic + spice bloom

• Add garlic and spices.
• Let them toast 30–60 seconds in the fat (huge flavor payoff).

Slow simmer with structure

• Add beans, ham hock, bacon, sausage, and stock.
• Simmer low for 2–3 hours.
• Skim occasionally, stir gently—don’t rush this.

• When beans are tender:
  • Remove ~1–2 cups of beans
  • Blend or mash them smooth
  • Stir back in

This gives that silky, gravy-like body instead of watery beans.

Final layering

• Stir in:
  • Worcestershire
  • Soy sauce (you won’t taste it—just depth)
  • Butter
  • Splash of vinegar

Taste and adjust:

• Salt (now, not earlier)
• Heat (cayenne or hot sauce)

Rice (don’t neglect this)

• Cook rice with butter + bay leaf.
• Fluff and let steam off slightly → you want distinct grains, not mush.

Plating like a pro

• Rice first (tight mound)
• Beans ladled around and slightly over
• Slice of sausage on top
• Finish with:
  • Green onions
  • Parsley
  • Few drops hot sauce

The process from start to finsih was simple but involved. The first step is to soak the beans for 24 hours. Then you start by making pancetta with the chopped bacon. Next you brown the sausage coins, and only then do you start to build flavor. Yook the holy trinity in the bacon and sausage fat till its pretty caramlized before adding the garlic, then the spices. After that you add the meats and the ham hock along with the stock and the beans, and it cooks very slowly on a simmer for about 3 hours. After that, you mash a cup or two of beans to get that silky smoothness before adding the liquid flavoring. We let it sit ovenight, and ate it the next day after finishing it with butter. We served it with chopped green onion and parsley along with a thick slice of sourdough bread. I am certain we will make this again!

One of my go to Indian dishes when I eat out is Butter Chiken. It’s a classic INdian dish made with marinate and grilled chicken (Tandoori chiccken), simmered in a creamy tomato gravy (curry). The sauce is super silky, buttery, aromatic and mildly spicey. It’s such a beautifully balanced and tasty dish that is a favorite of Indian food lovers all over the world. It’s a dish that layers in flavors. One of the things I learend about Indian cooking is the ginger garlic sauce. You blitz fresh ginger with garlic and olive oil to get a nice paste that is used in so many dishes that many Indians keep a jar of it in the firdge.

The dish begins its flaovor journey with chicken marinating in lemon juice, Kashmiri chili poweder and a lttle salt as its first 20 minute marination, in preparation for the second marination which includes greek yogurt, the gardlic ginger poaste, garu masala, cumin, coriander, kasuri metha (dried cilantro), and tumeric. This marinade should go from 12 to 48 hours.

Next you start with the gravy. First, you let chashews hydrate in water in anticipation of blitzing them in the blender along with tomatoes. Not all butter chicken dishes use onion, but the recipe I used did so. You slice ontions and brown them before adding them to the blender with the finely blitzed cashews and the fresh tomatoes.

Next, while the sauce is blitzing, I put the chicken onto a sheet pan under the grill to par cook.

to make the sauce itself you start with the spices. A stick of Cinnamon, cloves and cardemom pods along with the sliced green chilles (I use sorrano). You cook these in butter for a few mintes before adding garum masala, paprika and more chili powder. Next you add the garlic ginger paste and cook it all making sure not to burn it. Then its time to get the blend into the pan, and you can do this through a strainer if its not smooth. enough. Then its time to get this going on medium high heat (avoid the splattering.) You parttially cover it and let it boil for around 10 -15 minutes stirring often till the mix is nice and thick. You add a couple of cups of hot water, and make sure its beginging to come together.

You rpepare to add the chicken from the grill. To finish the chicken in the grill, you want it browned, but not burned. Before you add the chicken, remove the whole psices and discard. Once you add the chicken, you can add a little more more water to get the consistency you desire. Let it cook for another 10 minutes or so. Adjust salt, sugar and add cilantor, and a tablespoon of butter. Take it off the heat, then temper a 1/3rd of a cup of heavy cream and add that to the mixture, and serve it over basmati rice.

We made our rice with saffron and I also made garlic naan. It is such a great dish. A fair bit of work, but great.

This is a great dish. Midway though the meal, Heather said, “This goes into regular rotation for sure!” It’s an interesting way to make a wonderful chicken dish for sure, but, let me warn you, it’s HOT! How hot you ask? The kind of hot where your hair sweats. Your shirt sweats. There is sweat pouring down your face, and even so, you just cannot wait to take another bite!

The secret is in the marinade.

Jerk Marinade

• 4 scallions
• 1 small onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 Scotch bonnet pepper (We could not find Scotch Bonnet, so we made it with Habanero, which is pretty similar on the Scoville scale.
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tbsp ground Allspice
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp salt
• Optional: 1 tbsp dark rum

Blend everything into a thick paste. Slash bone in chicken, we used thighs, and massage the spice into the chicken. The outer limit for the marinade is 3 days, but one day will suffice. To prepare for cooking, I used a 12 inch pan, and carefully wiped the bulk of the marinade off the chicken, leaving a thin layer. I let it rest out of the fridge for about 30 minutes before baking to allow it to come to temperature and tighten up a bit. I baked it for about 40 minutes at 375 before putting the chicken on a grid and painting it with the finishing glaze of hot honey, lime juice and a pi9nch of freshly ground allspice, then caramelized the chicken under the broiler, turning and basting it often for the next few minutes till it began to turn.

I let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving it over rice. I used the time to reduce the sauce that was in the bottom of the roasting pan and poured it over the rice.

Again, an absolutely delicious meal.

There is so much to like about Thai flavors. This soup leverages them all. It’s an easy brothy soup that is two parts, the marinade for the chicken, and then the broth. I marinaded the chicken in bite size pieces, although the recipe does not call for that. You use boneless skinless thighs that you lay on a bed of jasmine rice when you serve. This is a broth heavy soup where the broth does most of the work. It’s so delicious and so moreish and so easy. Definitely one of the contenders for “The best version chicken soup”. It’s pretty easy to make, you just need the right ingredients. The other thing about Thai food is that its HOT and makes your hair sweat! You can ramp up the heat with that Thai chili sauce and add an extra serrano pepper or two. But the sweetness and tanginess of the coconut broth with lemongrass and a touch of lemon juice to finish it is so moreish. I used a little fish sauce and a touch of rice wine vinegar to ramp up the umami. After you marinade the chicken, you sear it in a pan, make sure the sauce caramelizes, then set it aside for serving.

For the chicken marinade:

• Boneless chicken thighs
• Crushed pepper
• Grated garlic
• Grated ginger
• Grated lemon grass roots
• Chilli oil
• Soy sauce
• Red chilli sauce
• Lemon juice
• Honey
• Oyster sauce
• Red chilli flakes
• Olive oil

For the broth

• Olive oil
• Onion petals
• Thinly sliced ginger,
• Green chillies
• Spring onion whites
• Kafir lime leaves
• Lemon grass roots, crushed
• Lemon grass greens, roughly chopped
• Water
• Coconut milk
• Salt
• Lemon juice

To serve:

• Jasmine rice
• Spring onion greens

You put a pile of rice in the bowl, top it with the chicken, if you do not marinade in bite size pieces, then cut into bite size pieces. Top with the broth and the green onions, add chili sauce and a little lime juice, sit back and enjoy!

I find Indian cooking is so interesting. The use of bold spices and flavors, and how the cooking methods bring those flavors together is what gives the food it’s lingering heat and moreish quality. I love it. One of the things about Indian food is that it can be quite time consuming, so, I sometimes use a shortcut to get the meal prepared. Tiki Masala is one of those that offers a good shortcut. Local grocery stores have various Indian simmer sauces and pastes that offer a quick flavor boost. My Indian friends frown on this strategy, but, I promise, it works.

Ingredients

• 2 onions
• a full garlic
• 3″ ginger
• 4 chicken thighs
• Spices including
  • Garum masala
  • Chili powder
  • Paprika
• Greek yogurt
• Lemons
• Potato
• Carrot
• Peppers
  • Sorrano
  • Jalapeno
  • Habanero
• Tiki Masala Simmer Sauce/Tiki Masala paste

Method

Skin and chop up the chicken (about 2″ pieces”). I use the cleaver to get through the bones.

Then in squeeze a lemon and drop about a cup of greek yogurt into a bowl to which I add a heaped table spoon of garum masala, paprika and chili powder. I put the chicken in and mix it till its properly covered, adding more lemon juice if needed to make the marinade a paste. That goes into the fridge while I work on the next steps. You could even do this the day before.

I slice the onions with a mandoline, then saute them with olive oil making sure they don’t turn too dark, or it will be too bitter. While they are cooking, I skin the ginger and the garlic and drop it into a food processor with up to a cup of chicken broth to get a real paste texture. Once the onions are ready, and cool enough to handle, they go into the food processor as well. When the onion, garlic, ginger paste is smooth, I add some oil to a Dutch oven, and when its good and hot I drop the paste into the pot. While that is cooking I chop the peppers, the sorrano into rounds. I deseed the jalapeno and habanero, and drop them in too. When they are all softened and the paste has stopped sizzling, in goes the reserved stock from the turkey soup and the tiki masala paste and simmer sauce. I add any chicken stock needed to make it liquid, bring it to a boil, then turn it down to a medium simmer and leave it partially covered while I attend to the next steps.

I chop and par boil the potato, then drop it in along with the chopped carrot.

I spread the chicken out on a wire tray and put it into the oven under the broiler for 7 minutes a

Then I drop the roasted chicken into the pot, again, bring it to a boil then put the pot into the oven, covered, at 225 for several hours.

I love to eat curry with all the fixings, and Basmati rice. A note on the rice. Get the best quality rice you can find. It really makes a difference to have a high quality long grained basmati rice with Indian food.

• Sliced banana
• Shredded coconut
• Roasted peanuts
• Chopped tomato
• Raisins
• Chutney
• Greek yogurt
• Garlic Naan

This curry was spectacular. It had a lingering heat that just kept coming, but the savory nature of the meal was such that you just wanted to go back for another bite, and you definitely mop the plate with the Garlic Naan! What I love about curries is that they all have their own flavor and textures and they all come together in their own unique way! Plus, are there any better left overs?

Next up for us, one of our favorite meals. Steak and Chips!