Spice blend key to tasty Creole cooking

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Today should be feast day for all of those on the fashionable low-carbohydrate diets, for today we truly celebrate fat. Fat as in Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras before the 40-day fast of Lent begins tomorrow, Ash Wednesday.

It’s not necessary to be basking in the sun along some Louisiana bayou in order to appreciate the smells and tastes of Fat Tuesday. In fact, Creole cooking is better to me when eaten on a cold February night with snow falling on cedars, as it were. The aroma fills the house, blending with puffs of wood smoke, and the peppery flavors of steaming gumbo warm me up faster than a hot water bottle. Inside and out.

As for the gumbo’s ingredients, Down Easters can easily get their hands on seafood, especially at this time of year when fishermen are dragging for shrimp and scallops. Other seafood, including crab and oysters, can be found in local grocery stores for addition in a gumbo.

Exactly what is Creole cooking is hard to define: it usually involves a nut-brown roux as a base, it generally makes your eyes water when preparing and (if you’re not watching your carbs) it is either served on hot, fluffy rice or mopped up with crusty French bread.

The key is the mixture of spices, just as Creole cooking itself is a blend of ethnic culinary skills. This is how New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune columnist Leon E. Soniat, author of “La Bouche Creole,” described the cuisine:

“Memere, my grandmother, used to say that the recipe for Creole cooking started with the French love of, and skill in, manipulating anything edible into a tasty dish. Then, if you combined this with the Spanish gust for piquancy, the native African ability for developing a slow cooking method to perfection, and the gift of herbs and spices from the Indians, you had the beginning of Creole cooking.”

The “beginning” of such cooking inevitably involves a well-seasoned cast iron pot in which the oil and flour are slowly stirred over a low heat until the color changes from white to cream to golden to tan and then dark brown, the desired color of your roux. Add finely chopped onions, celery and peppers – and head out in any direction you wish: seafood gumbo, chicken and sausage gumbo, chicken and shrimp gumbo, or my absolute favorite: duck and andouille gumbo. (I have purchased the mallard ducks as well as the andouille sausage at specialty food stores in the area.)

Duck and Andouille Gumbo

Serves six to eight

2 mallard ducks, cut into serving pieces

1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper

1 1/4 pounds andouille sausage

1 teaspoon basil

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon powdered cloves

1 bell pepper, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning

4 stalks celery, finely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup cooking oil

6 shakes black pepper

1 cup flour

4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

5 green onions, finely chopped

3 bay leaves

4 cans beef consomm?

1/4 teaspoon allspice

3 soup cans water

Make a stock with consomm? and water in large, heavy iron pot and bring to a low boil. In separate heavy iron pot brown duck pieces in hot cooking oil, then place duck in pot of stock. Drain about 3/4 cup of the oil and fat from pot used to brown duck and set aside for later use in making roux. Add chopped onions, pepper and celery to remaining hot oil and saut? until very tender. Combine vegetables with duck and stock. Slice andouille into round slices about 1/4 inch thick and brown in the pot used to brown the duck. Add the andouille to the duck, stir well and continue simmering.

Add chopped garlic and rest of seasonings and stir till well blended. Make a medium dark roux in the pot used for browning duck and sausage. Use the oil and fat saved from browning and an equal amount of flour. When the roux is cooked, remove from heat and add enough stock from the duck and sausage to thin it; then add the thinned roux to the duck and sausage. Stir mixture well and adjust heat to cook at a low simmer. Cover and cook until duck is very tender (about 21/2 hours). At end of cooking remove from heat, add Tabasco, check for salt, add chopped green onions, let sit for 5 minutes. Serve over rice.