Blackened Fish and Basic Cooked Rice

Well, if I am going to start making the recipes in Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen I figured I may as well start at the top.

So what did I decide to make this very first time? Only the great master's signature dish, of course, Blackened Fish! With Basic Cooked Rice, the staple of every Cajin citchen!

Unsurprisingly, I have hit the buffers on my first run so I have created some rules for the tasks ahead:

• first, it is to be expected that as I live in Blighty, I will not be able to buy all the necessary ingredients that are required to create the cuisine of Louisana in my home. I shall not beat myself up about this. So what if I cannot find "onion salt"? I shall just rely on my jars of Joe's Stuff and Gumbo File to get me through these little difficulties.


• second, checking that I have bought all my ingredients before I leave the shop would be a good idea.
  
• third, whenever I am cooking from the Book, I must listen to cajun or zydeco music (courtesy of Last.fm) and have the Bourbon Street webcam on view to get me in the mood.


• fourth, I should remember to read the recipe before I start in order to avoid later disappointment when I do things in the wrong order.


• finally, a glass of wine will help smooth things along when I realise everything will not go to plan. Laissez Les Bons Temps Roulez!

Chef recommends redfish or pompano for Blackened Fish. Neither variety was available at the fish counter of Selfridges but no matter, I had never heard of them anyway. I chose red snapper instead. Red snapper sounded like it might be similar and is certainly more exotic than salmon which was Chef's alternative choice. But I find salmon to be a little boring. Gosh, already I am having trouble following instructions. This does not bode well.

The basic thrust of the recipe for Blackened Fish is to heat the skillet pan to a very high temperature, smother the fish in butter and a mix of various spices, and voila! Ideally this fish would be cooked on a barbeque, Chef talks about heating the pan to a temperature where there is ash. Ash?!?!?? Of course, I do not have a BBQ. Plus, I did not have some of the vital ingredients for the spice mix like onion salt, garlic powder and cayenne pepper. Man, this project is going to be harder than I thought. I need to get me some equipment and supplies...

The basic rice was easy to prepare since I had most of the ingredients save for the green pepper which I forgot to buy when I was in the shop. It all came together quite nicely. Unfortunately, the rice looks bland in the photo and no wonder - the pepper would have made it look more zeppy!

I was pretty pleased with the results actually. The fish was spicy and good to taste while the rice was copious and fluffy. All round, not a bad first effort.

I am travelling a lot the next few days and will be in Venice next weekend. My project will have to go on hiatus even before I have hardly started. No worries, Chef will be with me.