ROUSES_MayJun2019_Magazine-Print

maw-maw says by David W. Brown photo by Romney Caruso

Here is what you need to know about rice: when making a Cajun or Southern dish, use what your grandmother recommended. Really. What, after all, is a recipe if not a telegram from the past — a little card written with care, able to invoke gustatory sensations across time and space. You look at a faded photograph and, yeah, you see the old-timey truck, maybe some once-young couple stand- ing in front of a field or maybe a tree or a house, and you might feel pangs of nostalgia or marvel at what life was once like. But prepare that recipe as written, and you are experiencing the precise emotions experienced by Grandma. You’re not imagining what life was like — in some small but profoundly real way, you are living it. So use the rice the recipe recommends. On the other hand…why be a slave to a bunch of ghosts? There are hundreds of varieties of rice and, when employed properly, they can elevate your dish from delicious to divine. First, the basics: Classic Cajun dishes generally call for medium grain white rice. It can go in just about anything, though it is particularly suited to something like étouffée, with its oftentimes rich and thick sauce. If you are preparing a gumbo, on the other hand, you might consider a stickier grain of rice. Gumbo is a thinner broth. Short grain rice releases more starch as it’s cooked, and that starch is what makes it sticky.

When preparing a jambalaya, cooks often go for a long grain rice. Now, I am sure half of the entrants in the Gonzales Jambalaya Fes- tival’s cooking contest disagree with this, but hold your fire, friends: When you are making a pot of jambalaya the size of a bathtub, do what works for you. Because when it comes to jambalaya, there is no wrong rice! Only a wrong color. (Red. Red is the wrong color.) Beyond Cajun cooking, different types of rice yield different dishes. Jasmine rice is frequently used in Middle Eastern dishes because that rice exudes a floral scent that elevates shawarmas, grilled meats and kibbes. You might also consider jasmine rice when making a pilaf or any dish where the rice stands alone. Obviously, you wouldn’t bother using jasmine for its fragrance with a gumbo or étouffée; that delicate floral aroma would be smothered. Wild rice is great with wild game — duck, rabbit or venison, for instance — because it has a stronger flavor profile and can stand up to proteins that possess a stronger, gamier flavor. (That’s why, when you see a duck dish at a restaurant, it’s frequently served with a wild rice pilaf.

36 MAY•JUNE 2019

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