Tag: soulfood

Catfish Baked

Catfish Baked

Catfish are not beautiful to look at, with their odd whiskers and big, gaping mouths, but beauty is not important when it comes to choosing fish that is flavorful. Catfish have skin that is similar to that of an eel, which is thick, slippery, and strong. All catfish should be skinned before cooking. The easiest method to skin a catfish is to nail the head of the dead fish to a board, hold on to its tail, and pull the skin off with pliers.

Channel catfish are farmed in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Mississippi is the world’s leading producer of pong-raised catfish. Of all the catfish grown in the United States, 80 percent comes from Mississippi, where more than 102,000 acres are devoted to catfish farms. Humphreys County, Mississippi, produces about 70 percent of the catfish consumed in the United States, and has over 30,000 acres under water. The town of Belzoni, in Humphreys County, is called the “Catfish Capital of the World.” Each spring the streets of down town Belzoni are transformed into a large carnival during the World Catfish Festival. Due in part to its reputation as a family oriented event, the World Catfish Festival has received several awards including Top 100 Events in North America and Top 20 Events of the Southeast. Info from Whats cooking in America

Maque Choux

Maque Choux

Maque choux, pronounced mock shoe, is a vegetable side dish popular in the South region of the United States, particularly among the residents of southern Louisiana. The ingredients commonly include corn, onions, green bell pepper and tomatoes. Some recipes call for the addition of garlic and celery. All the ingredients are normally braised until they soften and then hot sauce or cayenne pepper is added to enhance the flavors of the vegetables.

The origins of the term maque choux are not clearly defined. The phrase can be traced to Cajun French and may have been influenced by the word machica, which is a Spanish term for a traditional dish of toasted corn meal. Other sources cite the Cajun French word maigrchou, which means thin child, as the root for the term, based on a variation of maque choux that is commonly thinned with milk or cream and resembles a soup. Another possible origin of the phrase is moque-chou, which when translated from the French language means mock cabbage, indicating that cabbage may once have been included in the recipe.

Chicken Fried Steak

Chicken Fried Steak

Chicken Fried steak is the classic example of an inexpensive regional folk food utilized by working-class folk and generally categorized as comfort food.

The precise origins of this dish is unclear, but many sources attribute its development to German and Austrian immigrants moving to beef-growing areas of western Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and possibly further north into Kansas, who brought recipes for Wiener Schnitzel from Europe to the USA. Now I am still wondering why call it chicken fried steak and there is not one piece of chicken in this dish. So I did a litle research and found out that one of the earliest mentions of a similar food is a recipe for veal cutlets. By the late nineteenth century numerous cook books provided the recipe. At that time the delicacy was usually called pan-fried steak or country-fried steak, or some similar designation, and it was very similar to the fried pork cutlets so popular in the South, where the swine industry was much more important than beef production. Chicken-fried steak is almost identical to German schnitzel

The actual term “chicken fried steak” was probably developed in the 1930s. It is possible the name change for this recipe was due to the war with Germany.

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups of buttermilk or regular milk
  • 1 tbsp black pepper
  • 1 tbsp all seasoning salt
  • 1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper
  • cube steak (round steak tenderized) traditionally you use flour for variety use 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 cup Panko. If you don’t have Panko use 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup canola oil.

Instructions

  1. Add 1 cup of canola oil to the skillet and put on high. You need to have 2 dishes one for the egg wash and one for the flour. Add the eggs to the buttermilk or milk and whip it. Add the seasonings to the flour. Put the cube steak first in the egg wash then in the flour mix, again in the egg wash then one more time in the flour mix. Fry the meat in the skillet, flip the meat over when you see it slightly browned on the edges. When fried on both sides put on a separate plate till all the cubes are done.
  2. To make the gravy pour all the gravy in a measuring cup and put back in the skillet 1/4 cup, then add 1/3 cup of the flour mix. Whisk the flour into the grease. Then add 1/2 cup of the milk, whisk till smooth. If the gravy is too thick for you just add some more milk. Pour the gravy over the meat.

*Arrisje’s Recipe Card. Click on the pic below, then save it to your hard drive and print as a 4×6 pic*

Chicken Fried Steak

No ratings yet
Print Pin Comment
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Add to Shopping List

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups of buttermilk or regular milk
  • 1 tbsp black pepper
  • 1 tbsp all seasoning salt
  • 1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper
  • cube steak round steak tenderized traditonally you use flour for variety use 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 cup Panko. If you don't have Panko use 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup canola oil.

Instructions

  • Add 1 cup of canola oil to the skillet and put on high. You need to have 2 dishes one for the egg wash and one for the flour. Add the eggs to the buttermilk or milk and whip it. Add the seasonings to the flour. Put the cube steak first in the egg wash then in the flour mix, again in the egg wash then one more time in the flour mix. Fry the meat in the skillet, flip the meat over when you see it slightly browned on the edges. When fried on both sides put on a separate plate till all the cubes are done.
  • To make the gravy pour all the gravy in a measuring cup and put back in the skillet 1/4 cup, then add 1/3 cup of the flour mix. Whisk the flour into the grease. Then add 1/2 cup of the milk, whisk till smooth. If the gravy is too thick for you just add some more milk. Pour the gravy over the meat.
Tried this recipe?Mention @KinFolkRecipes or tag #KinFolkRecipes!

 

 

 

 

Banana Pudding (not yo mama’s)

Banana Pudding (not yo mama’s)

Banana pudding has a long history dating back to the 19 century, there isn’t much information available. What I did find is that bananas began to be marketed in the United States around the 19th century. Cooks were fascinated by this exotic fruit and began using them in existing recipes of cooked puddings and baked custards topped with meringue. A 1902 cookbook contains recipes for fried bananas, baked bananas, banana pudding, and banana cake in a section called Hawaiian recipes.

In 1901 Nabisco began marketing vanilla wafers. No one seems to know which cook was the first to line the pudding dish with vanilla wafers but it caught on quickly, especially after Nabisco began printing the recipe on their vanilla wafer package. Banana pudding is a dessert common in the Southern United States.

I personally do not care for the vanilla wafers so I use chessman cookies.

Gumbo

Gumbo

Gumbo is one of those dishes you will find that numerous people claim to have the perfect recipes. (and I am one of them 🙂 No matter what ingredients you put into a gumbo you’re going to get a little bit of the four cultures living in Louisiana: Cajun, Creole, Indian, and African. Louisiana’s Creole cooking came from a European blend of its French founders and the Spanish who took over the territory from France. The French contributed classic techniques like roux, and the Spanish introduced tomatoes, peppers and garlic that were commonly used in their cooking. Cajuns were French, Acadians exiled from Nova Scotia. They were simple country folks who cooked with what was cheap and available. Slaves named the dish “gumbo” after the African word okra, used as it thickener. The native Choctaw Indians added file, their own thickener made from sassafras leaves.