A Cajun specialty, étouffée is a succulent, tangy, tomato sauce usually made with crawfish or shrimp. The word étouffée comes from the French étouffer (to smother), and that’s it exactly: rich and tender crawfish tails smothered in a spicy blanket of flavorful sauce. “First, you make a roux” is the start of many Creole and Cajun recipes (it’s also the title of a popular cookbook from Louisiana published by the Lafayette Museum in the early 1960s). Roux is a cooked mixture of fat (butter) and starch (flour) used to thicken many sauces in classic French cooking. A Creole roux is not the classic French butter-flour mixture, but sometimes combines flour with an oil like peanut oil that can hold a high temperature. Unlike a French roux, which can be white to pale golden, Creole and Cajun roux are typically, at the very least, the color of peanut butter and progress to deep, dark brown. This process can take 45 minutes or so of constant stirring. It is dangerous stuff. If any splatters on you, it will be perfectly clear why this fiery, sticky combination of oil and flour is often referred to as “Cajun napalm”!
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
A savory-hot salsa made with mixed nuts (like the kind dubbed cocktail nuts meant for snacking) gives roast salmon a kaleidoscope of textures and flavors.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.
This one-pot dinner cooks chicken thighs directly on top of a bed of flavorful cilantro rice studded with black beans for a complete dinner.
Round out these autumn greens with tart pomegranate seeds, crunchy pepitas, and a shower of Parmesan.
Make this versatile caramel at home with our slow-simmered method using milk and sugar—or take one of two sweetened condensed milk shortcuts.
This is the type of soup that, at first glance, might seem a little…unexciting. But you’re underestimating the power of mushrooms, which do the heavy lifting.