About the Recipe
Blend No.2
Creole cooking at its best, it’s easy and oh so tasty! We’ve used a meat substitute for a vegetarian version but this can simply be replaced with chicken, prawns or chorizo.
METHOD
1. STEP
Prepare your ingredients.
2. STEP
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan.
3. STEP
Fry the onion, carrot, and celery for a few minutes or until it starts to brown.
4. STEP
Add the flour and stir to form a paste.
5. STEP
Add the Cajun spices and continue to stir.
6. STEP
Start adding the vegetable stock, a little at a time, so that the flour thickens the stock.
7. STEP
Once all the stock has been poured in add the meat substitute pieces and peppers and stir.
8. STEP
Cover the pan and simmer gently for 10 minutes.
9. STEP
Add the parsley and spring onions, stir in, serve, and enjoy.
INGREDIENTS
2 celery sticks - sliced
2 green peppers - diced
2 medium carrots - peeled and sliced
1 large onion - small dices
3 spring onions - sliced
2 tsp Spicemasters Cajun spice mix
350g meat substitute pieces
300ml vegetable stock
3 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Typical Nutritional Content
How to Use Cajun Spices
Cajun spices are colourful and flavourful. Although a little goes a long way to flavour fish, stews, sausages and stews thickened with the French roux, you can use as many spices as you want in your food — they’re never overpowering. Dry rubbing chicken before a good roasting is a fantastic project. Tossing shellfish, sausages and chicken into the same pot of rice is also the perfect stage for Cajun spices. From marinades to colourful rice. Adding a spoonful of Cajun spices to your pots and pans gives your food an immediate Southern feel, and that’s rewarding!
Cajun Spices, Explained
Although herbs and spices in Cajun blends vary, Spice Master’s Cajun Spice Blend captures the very essence of the seasoning with authentic, high-quality ingredients; they all add their personality to this traditional spice blend.
1. Cumin
Cumin adds that extra flavour hard to describe but immediately recognisable in Southern cooking. Cumin is native to the Middle East, but it found its way to European kitchens a long time ago. Both Spanish and French cooks use it. It’s easy to see how cumin found its way to Louisiana.
2. Paprika
Paprika is attractively smoky, sweet and spicy. Its heat is tamed beautifully in this spice blend, allowing paprika to shine genuinely. Paprika is made with red peppers, native to Mexico and adopted by the Spanish.
3. Garlic
Garlic lays the base for complex flavours in everything, from seafood dishes to hearty meat stews, and that goes for Creole cooking as well. Garlic is one of the few ingredients used in all the cuisines that came together to create Cajun food.
4. Celery Salt
Celery seeds are a critical ingredient in Cajun cooking, and the best way to enjoy celery’s herbal flavour is through celery salt. Ground celery seeds and high-quality salt elevate other elements’ personalities.
5. Black Pepper
A pinch of aromatic and astringent black pepper rounds up our Cajun seasoning and makes it compatible with many recipes, especially grilled food and meaty stews. No Cajun dish is complete without black pepper.
6. Basil
Sweet basil is one of the main distinctions in Creole cuisine and goes back to the 1700s in New Orleans. The aromatic herb makes our Creole seasoning compatible with tomato-based dishes.
7. Onion
Onion is a building block and gives our Cajun spice blend flavour intensity. Authentic Creole cooks start every sauce and stew with onions, and we do too. The fragrant bulb provides our spice blend authenticity.
8. Fennel Seeds
Along with onions, the flavourful fennel seeds give energy to Cajun spice blends, as their scent doesn’t cook off but soften and blend with your food’s flavour.
9. Chilli
Cajun spices wouldn’t be the same without a bit of spiciness. Chilli brings a little heat to the table to spice up your Creole food, barbecues and poultry.
10. Mustard
A pillar in Creole and Cajun spice blends, mustard seeds might overpower on their own, but harmoniously blended in traditional seasonings, they build a bridge between flavours and aromas.
11. Cayenne
Warm rather than spicy, the colourful peppers we know as cayenne play a role in devilled eggs, crawfish boils, jambalaya rice and many other Southern and Cajun and Creole specialities.
Cajun Spices Are Just Fun!
Tradition goes deep in Cajun spices; there’s no doubt there’s history here. It’s all thanks to the most exciting combination of European, African and American cooking methods and ingredients!
Cajun spices are a joy to have around, and they offer you a new set of colours for your cooking palette. These flavourful spices will open a world of cooking possibilities for you and your loved ones to enjoy. The Creole and Cajun cuisines are all about community, so be part of it and add Cajun spices to your pantry.