Laissez-vous le bon temps rouler: Eating Cajun at Hollier's

This most recent foray through Louisiana gave me the time to really dig in and sample some of the best that authentic small town purveyors of the Cajun culinary tradition have to offer, and I was amazed and impressed. They’ve got some truly good eats to offer the hungry traveler.

I visited with a good friend who lives in Sulphur, Louisiana - right off I-10 before you get to Lake Charles. Alan Jagneaux is a lifelong resident, having grown up in Church Point, and is as down home, authentically Cajun as you can get. His father spoke nothing but Cajun French. Alan has rarely traveled out of the area over the decades (the Marine Corps was his travel agent back in the day) and has a lot of lifelong friends around the area. Some cook for a living.

One of Alan’s friends is Wayne Hollier. They both worked at the Firestone plant back in the day. Alan said that when Wayne quit a sure thing job to open a meat market and restaurant, everybody thought he’d lost his mind.

As we bailed out of Alan’s truck beneath the Hollier’s sign, Alan had that little sly grin and asked me how I’d pronounce the name on the sign. Hmmm. Hawl-yer’s?

Nope. “Hall-yeah” or to be even more correct, “All-yeah”.

This serious Cajun country.

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New Zealand 'Green Lipped' Mussels Gumbo

The grocery shopping expedition yielded some excellent, fresh okra and some wonderful, fresh New Zealand ‘green lipped’ mussels - which we like in a seafood broth with sausage and some vegetables. It’s a great thing to dunk artisan bread into.

Besides being fast, easy and healthy, it’s also fairly light on the budget and waistline. The mussels were $5.99 a pound and with the vegetables and sausage (another couple bucks for fresh, in-house made Marquez lamb sausage ) it’s not too expensive considering we fed three adults. Nobody went hungry.

It’s a simple matter of prepping the vegetables

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Shrimp, scallop and okra gumbo

This really is dinner in a flash - and it’s totally healthy, too. Did I need to tell you that it’s also really good? Oh, come on now. You’re reading my blog. You should already take that as a given.

If you read the previous post about buying okra - gumbo in the language of Natacha’s West Africa - then you should know that I was going to cook it tonight.

Since I had frozen shrimp and scallops in the freezer, that was a no brainer. Bake a couple sweet potatoes to go with it - and some FuFu (cassava paste) if you’re of the total West African persuasion, and dinner is served.

We’re light eaters around here, or I would have made a big salad to go with it.

Most everything West African seems to start out in a marinade of minced onion, garlic, ginger, Bay seasoning and cooking oil. And, that’s the way I marinated the shrimp and scallops, with the pierced habenero chile.

While that’s marinating, I assembled the other ingredients as my dutch oven pot was heating.

The other ingredients are the okra, which I sliced after removing the tips and tails, chopped onion, chopped red bell pepper, bacon and a can of diced tomatoes.

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Saving money by buying whole fish

Today I rode my bike up to Whole Foods to grab a few things for dinner. I was on a mission for some fresh squid to add to the andouille sausage and shrimp for the gumbo. As I walked into the fishmonger there, I spied some dandy looking whole Rock Cod. I was sorely tempted, especially since the price was a mere $3.99 a pound.

That’s right. $3.99.

For those occasions when you have just a little more time, consider buying the whole fresh fish. You get so much more for your money. You can take the skin and carcass for the broth base on a seafood stew or gumbo that will be better than anything you can empty out of a can or jar. And then you’re left with nice meaty fillets cut just the way you want them.

Even if you’re not going to use it all right away, freeze the extra!

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