Cajun or Creole?
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Wolran Kim
March 2014


The Taste of Louisiana, Bangladesh, and the Philippines


“Life tastes good” was the most impressive expression while I read the instructor Martelly’s recipes on her home page. Indeed, life is tasty, and the best appetizer in life is LOVE. The best ingredient of love may be food. There is food where there is love. This Nutrition Class made me realize the diversity, uniqueness, and splendor of food in each country, culture, and region. The three labs during this semester were Louisiana’s Jambalaya, Bangladesh’s Tilapia Curry and Masala Chai, and the Philippine’s Chicken Rice. It was a very fresh experience because I had never tasted these foods before.

This cooking lab reminded me of the time when I was in junior high and high school cooking classes 35 years ago in Korea. The class instructor Martelly and Chef Looney made sure the food tasted good with sweet memories during my last semester at the University of Utah.
Jambalaya is a Louisianan dish of Spanish and French influence.

Jambalaya is traditionally made in three parts: meat, vegetables, and rice. There is a difference between Cajun and Creole; Cajun is the food of the common people, and Creole is somewhat more elevated in its preparation and presentation. Jambalaya does not require advanced skills, but is very tasty and simple without high costs. In the lab, we used peeled shrimp, diced chicken, Creole seasonings, olive oil, julienned yellow onion, diced green bell pepper, stalks of celery, cloves of garlic, small tomatoes, bay leaves, Worcestershire and Louisiana hot sauce, rice, Andouille sausage, and salt and pepper.                                                              

Jambalaya could be made from any part of the chicken, and I like dark rather than white meat. Chef Looney recommended using the Louisiana hot sauce, and this has a little different taste from Tabasco or Asian hot sauce, such as Sriracha chili sauce and Sambal Oelek. Jambalaya seems like a very relish Cajun meal to cook for friends and family.

Chef Looney gave us several very useful tips for our cooking skills: shrimps tastes better when it’s not overcooked, the caramelization creates a better taste (so let it cook until it’s a brownish color without any stirring on the stove), and you can peel a whole clove of garlic clove by shaking it in a closed container. Also, I learned that rice can be cooked with, without being pre-cooked, because I only use cooked rice with other ingredients. The Jambalaya was delicious, aside from my hunger on that long school day.

For the lab of the Bangladesh food, it was a special experience eating food using my fingers. I had never tried using my bare hands before, except for with finger foods or desserts. Bangladeshis eat a lot of fish, and our menu was Tilapia curry and Masala Chai. I like fish a lot, usually only with Korean spicy sauce or just plain salt rather than with butter or western style.

The reason is because fish already tastes too greasy itself and can make me sick to my stomach. But Tilapia curry wasn’t greasy or too rich with the special curry sauce. Martelly used the “Bosa Maach” (Sitting Fish) recipe for the Tilapia. All the spices were mixed with the fish in the pan, then covered and cooked with no stirring, resulting in gravy. I also like cooking fish because of its quick cooking time. Tilapia curry took around 10 minutes to cook. Tilapia tastes similar to my favorite fish, croaker, without the curry.

For the curry sauce, we used cilantro leaves, tomatoes, cumin seeds, red chili powder, garlic and ginger paste (1:1 ratio), mustard oil, canola oil, turmeric, cumin powder, and water. Martelly showed us all her spices and grains, with a nametag on each. I was surprised at how many different kinds of them there were, and the diversity and uniqueness of the plants. As a person who eats rice as a staple food every day, I can name only around 10 different kinds of rice.

Surprisingly, according to Wikipedia, “Worldwide there are more than 40,000 different varieties of rice, species name Oryza Sativa.”
Masala Chai was another experience of the Bangladeshi culture. Chai is the Bengali, Urdu, Hindi word for TEA. “Masala Chai” means Tea with Spices in most South Asian countries. According to Martelly, who grew up in Bangladesh, Chai is a quintessential part of everyday life. Regular Chai is always prepared with milk and sugar, and our lab used skim milk, water, cinnamon sticks, green cardamom pods, whole cloves, and sugar.

Masala Chai tasted like a mixture of Chinese medicine and soybean milk to me. I seldom drink milk and drink only black coffee, so I am not familiar with the taste of milk. However, Masala Chai gave to me a chance to taste the culture and customs in Bangladesh. We also made rice and vegetable as side dishes. For the cooking method of rice, Martelly used the stove and the oven; I learned from this method, that rice can be steamed to settle in the oven beside the stove or with an electric cooker.

Lastly, for the Pilipino Chicken and Rice, this was one of the easiest and tasty dishes. This dish tasted similar to Chinese, Mongolian, or Japanese food but Chef Loony used only soy sauce and vinegar (1:1 ratio) for the sauces. While the chicken was cooking on the stove, we talked about Vietnamese Pho and the five tips to using steak. I learned very useful tips for cooking steak, such as how to choose a good steak, aging matters of meat, and cooking methods using the stove and oven. I have only cooked steaks using a barbecue grill, so this way is good to know cooking inside.

The rice was cooked in just six minutes in the electric cooker, and we ate it with chicken, sprinkled with some chopped green onion. Chef Loony’s soy sauce (I couldn’t read the brand name of this foreign language) was not salty at all compared with the color of the Kikkoman brand, and the vinegar taste was almost gone after being cooked. This dish surely was the easiest one. The taste was good despite it being the simplest recipe. As instructor Martelly said, “Life tastes good.”