Creole and Cajun

, , , , , , ,

Want to channel star chef Kwame Onwuachi in your kitchen? Make his jambalaya

, , , , , , ,

By Leslie Brenner

There may be no more exciting chef on the American cooking scene these days than Kwame Onwuachi. The creator of highly acclaimed New York City hot spot Tatiana and author of two books seems to be everywhere.

In September he opened a new restaurant in Washington, D.C, Dōgon, and then last month added a 4-seat tasting counter within it, called Sirius.

Pete Wells profiled Onwuachi in the New York Times [read the story without a paywall through Dec. 3, 2024].

Last February, I wrote about Onwuachi’s jambalaya. The dish carries deep meaning for the chef, whose Baton Rouge-born mother made it for him when he was growing up.

READ: “Kwame Onwuachi’s jambalaya is a thrilling expression of a Creole classic”

The jambalaya Onwuachi included in My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef is hands-down the best I’ve ever had. Our adaptation streamlines his version for home cooks.

Want a free or paid subscription to Cooks Without Borders’ Webby Award-winning newsletter, with recipes delivered to your inbox? Sign up below!

, , , ,

Kwame Onwuachi's Jambalaya is a thrilling expression of a Creole classic

, , , ,

By Leslie Brenner

Jambalaya was not in the cards when I recently visited New Orleans, but it was definitely front of mind when I came home.

This was the perfect excuse to dive into Kwame Onwuachi’s acclaimed cookbook, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, and start cooking. Since publishing it two years ago, Onwuachi has made a gigantic splash at Tatiana, the Afro-Caribbean restaurant he opened in New York City’s Lincoln Center 16 months ago. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a bigger splash: Tatiana topped the New York Times’ list of the 100 Best Restaurants in the city. Last fall, he was profiled in The New Yorker.

Jambalaya is not on Tatiana’s menu, but it does sit, as Onwuachi explains in his recipe’s headnote, “at the heart of Creole cuisine.” Generically, it’s a one-pot dish of rice with meats (often andouille sausage and chicken), vegetables (Louisiana’s “holy trinity” of onion, celery and bell pepper) and often shrimp or other seafood. Unlike gumbo, it’s not soupy or stewy. While gumbo (the ingredients of which are tatooed on Onwuachi’s arm, according to The New Yorker) is served with rice, jambalaya is a rice dish.

Every family has its own way of making it, writes Onwuachi in My America:

“Some use roux, some don’t. Some add andouille; others stick to seafood and chicken. Some families use short-grain rice, in a nod to paella; others use long."

The dish carries deep meaning for the chef, who grew up eating his mother’s jambalaya; she’s Creole, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His father is from Nigeria (where Kwame lived as a youth); the chef draws a comparison between Creole jambalaya and Nigerian jollof, another one-pot rice dish.

“Jambalaya, however, hails from Louisiana, where many Africans worked the rice fields the two continents shared. They brought with them not just the knowledge of how to grow but also how to prepare rice. Once in Louisiana, proto-jollof incorporated whatever proteins were available: andouille sausage, abundant shrimp from coastal waters, and chicken, another economical choice. Also added were influences of from the Spanish settlers who yearned for the paella of their home; and the French, the masters of roux.”

Although jambalaya is known as a one-pot affair, you’d need to haul out quite a few extra pots were you to follow Onwauachi’s recipe verbatim. There’s a second pot for the shrimp stock (for which you’d need a full pound of shrimp shells). You’d need a third to make chicken stock, and a fourth to make Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce, which requires a batch of Pickling Spice — in a fifth pot.

In a restaurant kitchen, making each of those ingredients from scratch in large quantities makes sense, but I don’t know many home cooks who’d comply.

That’s why I took the liberty of creating a few shortcuts. I hope that if chef Onwuachi ever sees this story and my adaptation of his wonderful recipe, he’ll find it in his heart to forgive me. My motive (a pure one to be sure!) is to make the recipe accessible to readers who may or may not own five pots, but in any case probably aren’t inclined to fabricate two stocks, a sauce, a brine and a spice mix before beginning to cook. Shortcuts notwithstanding, I daresay the resulting jambalaya is still pretty magnificent — and I think pretty close to the effect Onwuachi is hoping you’ll get.

RECIPE: Kwame Onwuachi’s Jambalaya

If you love the dish as much as I do, you’ll want to purchase the book — especially if you’re a seasoned and devoted enough cook that you might already have some shrimp stock laid in the freezer, or you’re actually eager to make your own hot sauce, or you to know how to create your own shortcuts. It’s an inspiring and beautiful volume.

Want free recipes delivered to your in-box? Sign up below!

, , ,

The ‘queen of all gumbos’ is a glorious way to eat your greens (or observe Lent)

, , ,

Gumbo z’herbes from Toni Tipton-Martin’s ‘Jubilee’

By Leslie Brenner

It’s the time of year, in Louisiana and areas adjacent, for gumbo z’herbes — a greens-forward bowl of goodness that reflects the West African, Native American and European influences of the region.

Two years ago, Cooks Without Borders’ friend Chloé Landrieu-Murphy wrote about the dish in one of our favorite stories. Here’s how she characterized it:

“Often referred to as “the queen of all gumbos,” its name is a Creole dialect contraction for gumbo aux herbes, meaning “gumbo of greens.” (It’s also known as “green gumbo.”) Earthy, delicious and comforting, it is built like other gumbos, but it also includes an entire garden’s worth of leafy greens.” 

The dish has a fascinating background. The name gumbo z’herbes (pronounced gumbo zairbz) is a Creole contraction of the French gumbo aux herbes, so called because it contains multitudinous greens. It comes out of a Southern Louisiana tradition of cooking and eating green gumbo during Lent, the 40 days leading up to Holy Thursday. During that period, many observant Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays, and many gumbo z’herbes are vegan. But not all are; the one shown above, from Toni Tipton-Martin’s 2019 book Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, is chockablock with brisket, ham and sausage.

RECIPE: ‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’Herbes

If you happen to live in New Orleans (or are headed there for a visit) and you’re lucky enough to snag a table, you can experience the most famous rendition of the dish in the universe. That would be the one served at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, the beloved Tremé landmark presided over for more than 70 years by the late great chef Leah Chase. Yep, the Queen of Creole Cuisine, as chef Chase was known, conceived the queen of all gumbos.

The restaurant, which began life in 1941 as the sandwich and lottery ticket shop of her parents-in-law, Emily and Edgar “Dooky” Chase, Sr., has been serving green gumbo on Holy Thursday for eons. On that day it drops its regular menu in favor of gumbo z’herbes, fried chicken and cornbread muffins, inevitably drawing a huge crowd. (Interested? Call and have your name added to the waiting list for April 6.)

Gumbo des Herbes made from a recipe adapted from ‘The Dooky Chase Cookbook’

Dooky Chase’s gumbo z’herbes is loaded with greens, of course (usually nine, including including mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, carrot tops, beet greens, spinach, cabbage, lettuce and watercress), as well as a whole lot of meat — two kinds of sausages, smoked ham, beef brisket and veal brisket.

Like most green gumbos, it also includes filé powder (powdered sassafras), a traditional Choctaw ingredient. In that way it is distinct from okra-based gumbos. (Okra is only in season in Louisiana from June through the first frost.) Interestingly, etymologists disagree about whether gumbo gets its name from kombo (the Choctaw word for filé) or gombo (the word for okra in several West African languages).

Gumbo z’herbes always starts with a mountain of greens.

Happily, you can make an outstanding gumbo z’herbes at home; Tipton-Martin’s recipe is a great introduction. Or dive in full-force and make the one from Leah Chase’s The Dooky Chase Cookbook. The restaurant’s current chef, Edgar “Dooky” Chase IV (Leah’s grandson), gave us permission a couple years ago to share the recipe, and he helped me find a substitute for one of its ingredients, hot chaurice (a fresh sausage), for our adaptation.

RECIPE: Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes

Some gumbo z’herbes start with a roux; others don’t. Most contain Louisiana’s “holy trinity” — chopped onion, green bell pepper and celery. (Dooky Chase’s contains onion and garlic instead.)

What all gumbo z’herbes have in common is a prodigious amount of leafy greens: Count on a lot of washing, trimming and chopping. Once they’re braised (save the pot liquor!), they’re either coarsely chopped (as in Tipton-Martin’s) or puréed (Dooky Chase’s).

Vegan versions go both ways, too. The one our friend Chloé created for CWB leaves the greens roughly chopped, which gives it nice texture.

Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s vegan gumbo z’herbes

RECIPE: Chloé’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

Whichever way you go, consider this: It is said that the number of different greens you use in your gumbo z’herbes represents the number of friends you’ll make in the coming year, and an odd number is good luck.

Wishing you many new friends this year, a delicious green gumbo and an armful of four-leaf clover’s worth of good luck!