The Gulf Coast Food Show
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The Gulf Coast Food Show
The Art of Preparing Mirlitons, and A peak at the "Gulf Coast Supper Club"
Welcome to another flavorful episode of the Gulf Coast Food Show, where we promise to take you on a tasteful journey. Together, let's explore the modern and traditional corners of culinary delights as we unveil our latest venture - the Gulf Coast Supper Club, our newly crafted monthly rendezvous for food lovers. Our first stop? Kaitaki, the kingdom of ramen bowls! And if that doesn't spice up your life, our segment on paprika will surely do the trick. Plus, we're joined by our special guest, a bona fide Cajun from Galliano, Louisiana, Gary Pokey, who will unfold the tantalizing secrets of Cajun cuisine.
As we steer the conversation towards the finer aspects of food, let's talk about heirloom melatons, southern America's vegetable du jour. To appreciate their authenticity, we’ll compare them to their store-bought counterparts and guide you through the art of preparing the ever-popular dish: stuffed mirlitons. And switching gears to more alternative ingredients, we'll introduce you to the versatility of zucchini and green papayas as commendable stand-ins for merliton in a shrimp dish. Plus, you'll be privy to a simple, yet mouthwatering recipe for fillet steak brought to you by our guest who swears by just three ingredients - salt, pepper, and butter; a meal cooked to perfection on an open fire.
Well, we're back. Last week we had some little adjustments we made here at the studio. We decided, you know what, instead of testing out new equipment and having issues well, we'll just get all that straightened we got some new chairs for our guests. Boy, they're going to be comfortable, yes, indeed. So instead of having issues with new mics and headsets and all of that, we got used to it and here we are with a new show.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Gulf Coast Food Show. I'm your host, tim Harrison, and we have another great show for you today. Hey, do you remember last, was it? Well, the previous week we talked about we were going to start a, and we didn't name it. We're going to start a food club, you know, to where a group of us listeners, local here, we're going to take and go to a restaurant, find, you know, something that everybody kind of agrees on, and we want to try some new stuff also, and so we did that week. So we have a, our first one we're going to do, simply because I kind of you know, know of the restaurant, I know the owner there and he's willing to work with us on this. First, this first, you know, step into the food club type thing. Now, what we did, I, if you remember I said, hey, maybe the audience can help pick a name, pick a name for this new little adventure that we're going to do. We're going to try and do this once a month. So we got some feedback from a listener and I'm trying to identify exactly where it is. It could be Iowa or Illinois, it's one of those, but I'm going to find out exactly. But anyway, jackie, her name is Jackie and she sent in a wonderful suggestion. I love it and I think we're going to go with it. What do you think? The Gulf Coast Supper Club, jackie. I think that's a fantastic name and so we'll officially adopt that. How's that? So, the Gulf Coast Supper Club, what we're going to do, and we have one coming up next month and we're going to do it at Radish Remember, we've talked about Radish before.
Speaker 2:So nice, nice restaurant. Well, actually it's. It's not Radish, it's the owner of Radish, it's the restaurant he owns. Next door is Kaitaki. So the owner of Radish, he also has another restaurant, kaitaki. Now that's the where they do the soup bowls, the ramen, and we've talked about that and it was so interestingly good, so different, and I talked to a few friends and they all said, hey, that sounds like a great idea. So I spoke with him. He gave us a menu a very reasonable price, including wine, if those who would like a good meal, an adult beverage with their delicious meal, you know. So we have that worked out, a lot of the details, and so we appreciate all that hard work going into that and now it's just going to be a matter of we're going to see.
Speaker 2:We have, we have the means now to bring a show live to wherever we are. So if we go to, if we go there, we just might set up and do a show live there. We'll have to chest test the sound and make sure. You know, sometimes it's kind of it echoes, you know, and we don't want to distract everybody listening in the in the audience here. You know, we want you to have some decent quality sound. I hope this mic and and equipment that we use in now it's basically the same, just a little little different. I hope it sounds good. I'm going to listen to it right away. Sometimes we finished and make sure everything's up to par, but it seems like it's it's going okay, so so that's what's up and coming. We'll go do that we're going to do a review on it. I'll try to get some live stuff while we're there, get some feedback and then, if you don't live in the area, go find one of these. I don't, it's a ramen ramen bowl, ramen soup, ramen, whatever they're going to be called. Different things, soup, soup bars. They very good, they really are. It's. It's different. So anyway, that's going to be our little adventure the Gulf Coast Supper Club, and from Jackie and somewhere in I think it's Iowa or Illinois, it's one of those, and so we'll find out and maybe we'll have her on and and say, hey, thank you from up there and thank you for listening way down here on the Gulf Coast. So that's what we have Now on the show.
Speaker 2:Today we have we talked about melatons, we talked about putting together a stuff melaton remember and one of the local stores once a year around this time they come out and I think it's Rouses. I I wasn't able to get any this year at least, at this price, so you can get them. I think it's like maybe 25 cents a piece, a five for a dollar. It's some kind of crazy price for melatons and they're so delicious and the good thing is is you can. After you make this dish, you can freeze it, and so that, anyway, we're not going to get too much into that. We're going to talk about that Interesting little.
Speaker 2:How many people use paprika out there. You know, I use it on stuff, you know, and now I'm learning a little bit more about it. There's some different flavor that you can get. How does it get that different flavor? Where does paprika come from anyway? Well, guess what we're going to? We're going to talk about that a little later on in the show.
Speaker 2:First, we're going to go I have Gary on, maybe a Gary Pokey, my, my Cajun buddy down in Galliano, louisiana. He's going to be on in just a minute and he's going to tell us about his version of shrimp stuffed melaton. If and again I like to include people that don't live in this area If you can't get a melaton where you live and for whatever, I'm sure you can, but if you can't, they call it a coyote pear, they call it. You know different things, but if you can't, you can use a bell pepper. In fact, we're going to talk about what can we use as a substitute, and you know, if you have some suggestions that you've used shrimp stuffed melaton, what else can you use besides a melaton? So anyway, let's, I'll tell you what. Let me get Gary on the line, and we're going to talk about the shrimp stuffed melaton in just a minute. All right, so we have Gary, are you on line one? I am there you are, I didn't get the hammer.
Speaker 3:I'm just fast on it, if you heard it, I did, that's okay. I'm here, all right.
Speaker 2:So everybody knows, gary, my, my, my, my Gajun buddy down in Gallagano, and so, gary, we've been. In fact we kind of teased a little bit about the melaton's and making the, the, the shrimp stuff, melaton. Now I understand that. Uh, now, first of all, they had a sale and I missed it. I didn't, I didn't get in on it. What was the sale on melaton's that you got in on?
Speaker 3:The melaton six for a dollar, which was really a good price. So I went in it in a little store called Rouses and they're known, well known in Louisiana, Southeast Louisiana. So I went in and I bought 12 of them and uh, but it was a limit 12 per customer and I said, well, that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to go ahead and cook 12 of them, and that's what I did.
Speaker 2:So, and you, you, now you, you did the, the, the, I say the original, your version of the shrimp stuff, melaton. And so for for, for those who don't know what what a melaton is, you may know it by another name. What did they call it, Gary? They call it coyote pear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's what it is the shiote or something to that Correct.
Speaker 2:And uh and it looks like a pear right.
Speaker 3:That's correct. It looks just like an avocado.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a very good color, very horn. Now they have different types. You can get the white ones I've seen they got the ones that have like prickly points sticking out, the ones that I had got with the smooth one. Someone told me those come up from the mountainous region, maybe where it was Honduras or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Mexico, you're exactly right and I heard that.
Speaker 3:So wherever it came from, I'd heard that oh, you gotta eat the good Cajun ones that grow south. But wherever these came from, they were pretty good.
Speaker 2:They are good and they have a very similar take. Here's the difference I found, because growing up in New Orleans and I know you there on the bayou melatons grow here like grass when they're growing. Growing up in New Orleans, everybody had melatons on their fence and it was just a everyday thing In the summer. You just had late summer. You had melatons everywhere. But you're right, here's the difference. I find that the heirloom melatons, they call them, and they primarily in the extreme south, south Texas, south Louisiana, south Mississippi and south Alabama is where you're gonna find this particular type of melaton. It's bigger, it has a deeper green. The ones that you got because I've gotten them before at Rouse, it's kind of a pale green a little bit. These things that grow, they have a dark, dark green and they bigger, and so, anyway, I think taste-wise they very similar. It's just you're getting a bigger one and if you grow them you get as many as you want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a lot depends on what you're gonna cook it with, because melaton is something like yellow squar, zucchini and other things like that the way it picks up whatever flavor that you put into it. You know, it's almost like a neutral base, but it's like a sponge and it'll suck in whatever flavor you put into it. Whether it be shrimp, pork or sausage ground meat or whatever, it'll pick up that flavor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact I find it has like a sweet nutty flavor, but very neutral, like you just said, very neutral, but a kind of a sweet nutty flavor when you open it and after you cook it. So tell me the process, what did you do to make? So, let's say, people's listening and I tell you this is a wonderful recipe. It's very, very popular and very famous down here. So what did you do?
Speaker 3:Well, to start off with, I was kind of like, man, it's been so long my mom would always do it or I'd have other people would do it for me, and I love stuffed melaton. I said, man, it's been so long since I did it. I said I don't even know if I remember, but I knew, like for the fact, I even called you. I said, tim, what steps you do, and I know you gotta boil them to get them tender. So first thing I did was I took the melaton, I put them in a pot of water, I put a little salt in the water as well as I put a little liquid crab ball not much, just enough to where I could maybe get some flavor into it and I boiled it. I probably boiled it for 40 minutes, 35, 40 minutes, and I took a fork and when I could stick the fork in it relatively easy, then I said, well, they're tender.
Speaker 3:Then I turned off the fire, dumped the water out and I put them in some cool water to cool off. So that was the first step that I did was take them and boil them to get them tender. Then I took them and some people cut them in half. I've seen some recipes on the website where they cut them in half. They'll bake them in the oven or they'll cut them in half and boil them in water. But I just boiled the whole melaton like that and then I took it, cut it in half and there's a seed in it. There's a little seed Now. Someone told me you can eat the seed.
Speaker 2:They're delicious. They are absolutely delicious.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've never eaten a seed, so anyway, I cut it in half after it was cooled I was still warm but it was cooled down where I could handle it and I took a little spoon and I would dip out right where that seed is. It makes, like on a peach, a little rough area. So I just scraped that out, then went the spoon along the edges just gently shelling out the meat out of that melaton. But you gotta be careful not to go too deep, not too hard, because you'll bust it.
Speaker 3:And then I just got aggravated. I did like I think it was seven of them and I was starting to bust them and I said, man, this is too much work. So I just cut them in four after that, peeled them and chopped them up to smother down with the shrimp. So once I had my shells done, I put them on the sides, like actually I put them on a tray in the refrigerator to cool down and kind of tighten up a little bit. Then I took my melaton and I put it in a pot that I had first of all browned the little onions.
Speaker 2:This is the peeled part. This is the inside right that you're talking about. Yeah, the inside.
Speaker 3:So what I did, I took I think it was two onions or three onions that I took regularly, yellow onions. I smothered them down and I get some tousle from a friend of mine, like actually it's my son-in-law's grandmother's husband, his grandpa died and it's her husband, so he has a smokehouse and he makes tousle. Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:So if that's the tousle you ever wanted to eat, I mean this guy, he makes the best. So, anyhow, I had tousle, so I cut up the tousle. While I was browning my onions, I threw some tousle in there A good bit, not a whole whole bunch, because you don't want to overpower it but man, that tousle flavor just spread throughout the whole dish.
Speaker 3:So once the onions got to where I wanted them, I didn't get them brown, but I got them clear and translucent and real tender and then I added the melaton and then I just let it start cooking, cooking down to try to get the water out on a hot bar, to where it was cooking the water out, because there's a lot of water in there.
Speaker 3:I probably messed up, because someone told me in fact I think it's you, tim that you can drain it. Then I looked at a recipe online on YouTube and they said drain your melaton before you put them in, because they have a lot of water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you do, you do actually. Yeah, you can take and put them in a strainer, and actually I mash them up with a spoon in the strainer. And not only does it mash them up, because it's gonna be, it's gonna be not pureed, but it's gonna be mashed anyway, and boy, you get a lot of that moisture out and it just reduces some of your cooking time and get rid of some of that moisture, you know.
Speaker 3:Right, and I wish I would have did that, but anyway it didn't matter, because I went ahead, I cooked it down, I was at home and one of those dreary days to where you know best thing you can do is stay inside the home.
Speaker 2:That's a cooking day. Yes, indeed, that's a cooking day.
Speaker 3:So then I added my shrimp. Once a good bit of the water came, I had a shrimp. Well, guess what? More water, and there's a lot more water in it, and I just cooked it down. So after it was cooked down, now, look, it was hard for me to quit eating it Because with the water, that water had, just like you say, like a sweet, nutty flavor.
Speaker 3:With the shrimp it was almost like a soup and I was thinking to myself I said I bet I can make a good millets on soup, but anyhow. So I was tasting the juices like I even took me a bowl and served myself and ate it with a lot of liquid and it was just very good. So once I had the water cooked out of it the way I wanted it, then I went ahead and I took it and I spooned out some In a bowl. I added some Italian breadcrumbs and a lot of Italian cheese, which is Italian but a Parmesan cheese, italian breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese, and I tightened it up a little bit, not much, just enough to get it. Then I added some rice to it, tim Cooked rice. I had jasmine rice that was already cooked. I added that to it Just enough to where it would be like a stuffed bell pepper.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you've ever seen stuffed bell peppers with rice and ground meat, I went ahead and I filled my shell. Once the shells were filled with that, I then sprinkled it over the top with Parmesan cheese, then the Italian breadcrumbs on top to make a crispy outer coating. Then I baked it in the oven on 375. I guess it was for about a half an hour until the breadcrumbs all get good, brown and crunchy. Man. Look, it came out fantastic.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, it really did.
Speaker 3:You can serve the other belly ton over rice, but I like it just like that Loose with a French bread, a hard French bread, as I like to eat it. Oh boy, that sounds real good For those of you up north that doesn't know what a French bread is. We call them a mish, a mish down here, or just a regular long bread A long bread.
Speaker 2:yeah, I tell you, that's a classic recipe. You know what you could take, just what you said, and you can add a little more shrimp. Some people grind their shrimp up, some people chop them up. There's so many different things you can do with it. But, boy, you're right when you said you added shrimp and you added more water. That's right, is that when you add shrimp, man, shrimp are loaded with water. I think they're like 75% water, huh.
Speaker 3:It is In fact I know we've struggled making jumbo lye for big crowds. We would serve up to like 500 people. We'd make jumbo lye in some 50 gallon in black pot that we're talking about Sure.
Speaker 3:And we'd have like two of them that we cook in two, 50 gallons, and then we'd add a bunch of shrimp. It was always hard to determine how much water for the rice, because the shrimp would release so much water in it and you didn't want to overcook your shrimp, you know, to the point to where it became too mushy. But we always struggled with that. Yeah, making a perfect jumbo lye. So shrimp releases a lot of water.
Speaker 2:It sure does, and that's something to keep in mind anytime you're fooling with shrimp, is that? Especially if you're trying to get some kind of dry dish, or if you want to even a gumbo and you have your consistency just right, and, man, you add them shrimp, it's going to loosen it up big time. It will, it's going to add great flavor, but yeah, it's going to lose the next time I do it, tim, I'm going to try to add some crab meat.
Speaker 3:I need to set my traps out and try to get some crab pick, some crab meat and stuff. And if I had some crab meat that was in the freezer I took it out but it was a little too old and had that little that freezer taste, almost like a like taking cod liver or all you know. I get that flavor. I ended up throwing away the crab meat. I see men, well, I ate enough of that. When I was a kid with my mom and when I was here.
Speaker 2:The thing is that, for people listening, pokey lives on Bayou LaFouche, so he literally crosses the street to his shrimp dock and if he wants fish he throws his line out with his granddaughter. If he wants fresh crabs, he puts. So when pokey says, yeah, you know how it's got that old taste to it, it's probably a week old. To pokey, you know. If it's not a day or two old, would that? That's all for him.
Speaker 3:It was a little older than that, maybe like four or five, six months in the freezer with no water.
Speaker 2:Oh well, that that ain't even. Yeah, you can't even catch fish with that.
Speaker 3:No, that's right. In fact, I wouldn't even see it to my dog or the cat. I heard about children garbage can. I said this is not good to know, but anyhow, next time I want to try that. I'm going to tell you what else I want to try, Tim.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 3:I want to make like some shrimp balls, like the bullets. Yes, I want to make some shrimp bullets and like you do with ground meat, on a ground meat spaghetti, you make meatballs. I want to throw that in that milleyton.
Speaker 2:That sounds real good.
Speaker 3:You'll have the meatballs with the shrimp in there already, like just like I did with the toss or the shrimp and everything else. Some people don't do that. They'll put a smoked sausage or even fresh sausage in there. You can put I think that's what you put a sauce in at them in your milleyton. So but I want to try it. I want to try making shrimp balls just like a meatball, but made with shrimp, maybe a little crab meat, and just bake them in the oven just until they firm up to each other and throw them in that milleyton so they don't break apart. Man, I bet that's going to be good.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, when you do it. How about this when you do? Let's look, Absolutely, man, come share it with us. I tell you, we get a lot of feedback and people love to hear these different, because you know why? These are just simple, regular, ordinary recipes and some of them, you know, just people forget about. Are they like, oh yeah, I can do that with shrimp, I could do that with crab meat, you know. And now here they are, they. And then they put their own little version together, you know, and that's that. Look, that's the beauty of cooking. You know, we don't have to be the chef on TV. They good and they very knowledgeable, but, boy, I tell you, there's something about these simple little dishes that are just fantastic, you know. So how about? Now, Poki, let me ask you this I've heard through the great vine that your son-in-law does a hey, wait, wait, before you even go there, hold on.
Speaker 3:I think you'd asked me already if there's a substitute.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So wait, wait, let me clarify that. So so that was a question for out there, so for everybody listening. If so, let's say you can't get a melaton, is there a substitute that you can use? What do you think you can use? Poki as opposed to the melaton?
Speaker 3:Well, if we do a drum roll, we can see it online on the web. My son-in-law looked it up just now Recommended coyote substitutes. Okay, so zucchini, zucchini, and you can kind of do it the same way scrape it out and leave it in the shell. You can, because my mom's stuffed zucchini. I remember now she's done stuffed zucchini before. Zucchini is one. Green papayas Wow, there's another one. Now that's a throwback to me. Green papayas is another one yeah.
Speaker 3:So unripened papayas. So those are two things and they're online. That he looked up to where substitutes.
Speaker 2:I bet you could use yellow squash too, huh.
Speaker 3:You probably could. That was my first thought. Did you, you know, get a kind of a decent size one and get the seeds out? You know, you kind of kind of bake them? I guess you'd have to bake them in the oven to get them tender, to scrape it out, to cut them in half or whatever.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I bought maybe boil them, I don't know, but you'd have to get them tender Because, with another way to do with the merlitone, they can bake them in the oven. Same thing. So yeah, that would be another way.
Speaker 3:So, you put those that don't have the merlitone. You can do zucchini Same thing, mix the shrimp with it and, look, there's no special blend. The more shrimp the better. If you don't have too much shrimp, well, so be it. Just a little bit of give some flavor, Just whatever you have, you know you put into it, Cause that's almost like, like you said, like a neutral base, but it has a little nut flavor, sweet flavor, and it'll pick up the flavor of whatever you put in there. And then to it.
Speaker 2:I like it. I like it so great. Well, listen now back back to son-in-law. So now I've heard, I've heard that that he, he does a fantastic steak, a fantastic fillet, but it's a very simple, simple recipe. And I love hearing about cause. You know, you talk to people and they say, yeah, I do the steak and this is what you have to do, and you do this and that and you go through this whole process and it's probably good. It comes out good. But what I? If I think what I'm hearing is correct, I think it is probably going to be a wonderful, simple recipe, and now I can count this as two callers in one time, because he's, he's at your home Is Trey at your home.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Let's put him on the spot right now.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 4:Hey Tim, All right.
Speaker 2:Listen, I hope. Well, I don't care if I put you on the spot, it's okay because you know I was doing research on a meli-ton.
Speaker 2:There you go, all right, well, now listen. So we hear through the great fine Trey and that, that you do a fillet, that it now, if Pocke brags about it, it's got to be pretty good that you do a good fillet, a good steak. But here's what's interesting. What I like about it, at least from what I'm hearing, is that it's a very simple recipe. So give me the long and short. If, if, if somebody this weekend they say you know, I just want a good fillet and I'm going to do it on the grill. How do I make the best fillet? How do you do it?
Speaker 4:Okay. So maybe not the best fillet, but but everybody that's eating it so far hasn't complained yet. So I'm by no means a good cook or anything like that. So if I find a easy recipe, that's what I try to get gravitate towards and and I try it out.
Speaker 2:That's okay, that's how you find the good ones, it's okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So me and my wife, we love going to eat out, just like you and your wife, without how y'all talk about it, you know find a good restaurant. 80% of the time I'm going to get a steak. I'm going to try to find a fillet so I can appreciate a good fillet. My brother-in-law had us over and his fillets were amazing I would say probably the best I've ever had, okay anywhere. And yeah, big Lou, okay, lou man. I met Lou sir, yes, sir, consistently, consistently amazing, and so I was talking to him about it and he was just like man, it's not hard. So Once he said that, he told me it wasn't difficult. He told me how he did it, which he was doing it on a pit. But and that's how I started doing it I made an open fire outside and oh so this is an open fire.
Speaker 2:So so let's just go, let's run through the the program, so we have a stake in hand. What, what cut using a grill open fire. How are you doing?
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, we just made an open fire out there in the yard and we put a little. We have a grating that we put over it and then a griddle, and so what we did was I didn't do anything besides take the steak out of the pack and Put a little salt and pepper on it both sides not not a whole lot either and Put some butter on the griddle, got the medium medium-high heat whenever we're on the stove. I started cooking it on the stove recently, but when we were out on the fire, it's just how, whatever the fire was, you know, okay, I got you pretty, pretty hot.
Speaker 4:We put the steak on and I would say probably, hmm, I'm gonna say maybe like three, four minutes, because I like my steak medium rare Okay, most everybody over here likes it like that too so that I would say maybe, yeah, three, four minutes, and then flip that thing over and that was it, man, just salt, pepper and butter salt, pepper and butter.
Speaker 4:That's it when I flipped it the first time, tim. I'll put a little slice of butter on each one after I flip it and that's it. Another couple minutes, three minutes, and Put it on the plate and let it set for maybe five minutes and then serve it up. And so far there's been a couple of times that been better than others, and I'm not sure if it's just the cut of meat that we're getting a better cut One day as opposed to the next, or maybe I just wasn't watching the watching the stakes good enough, but I was really surprised at how easy it was to cook a really good steak. Like I said, medium rare is how we eat it and Now, did you have, did you have char marks on it?
Speaker 2:Now you mentioned a griddle you had on there and Open fire rating yeah so do you use both?
Speaker 4:Yeah, whenever I tried that when we were, when we were cooking on the open fire, I tried to put some grill marks on it with the grading. Really, I don't. That was a while back, I don't remember how that one turned out. I think it was good. But recently, for the past maybe a couple months, we've been under a burn band, so we've been cooking the steaks inside on the stove top. But yeah, that's pretty much. It Fault in pepper and butter man you know, isn't it true?
Speaker 2:I tell you, it seems like the best hamburgers I cook. Or simple, they thin, they're not these giant, two inch thick burgers, you know, like a giant, half smush meatball, you know just a thin, not a slider, but close to it, and Salt and pepper and you put it on the grill or wherever you cook in a black cast iron, you know, I like to when up, because I'll loot. You lose a lot of salt and pepper with when it starts to render. You know the oils from it. But I like to take that and as soon as I'm about to take it off, I'll salt and pepper to both sides, light again, and then flip it on the plate ready to go.
Speaker 2:And I tell you what, to me it just turns out so much better than sometimes you have you ever had. You know, you go by somebody's house hey, we're going to have hamburgers, and they put these things on there, and you look at the hamburger meat and there's all kinds of green peppers, there's onions, there's all you know carrots, I don't know all kinds of stuff. It's like you got meatloaf, almost, you know right. And then you go to eat it and you have this look, it's good, it's okay, but it ain't a burger. It's not a good beef salt pepper burger right right you know, or there's a super, super thick.
Speaker 2:I think restaurants are getting away from that. Do you find that? You know how? It was a fad for a while, huh.
Speaker 4:Like you said, my favorite burgers are the ones that we can go to Homa and go to Ronnie's the donut shop. They got them really thin, like crystal burgers. Yes, you know the really thin patties.
Speaker 2:Those sliders.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like a little slider right.
Speaker 2:They are, that's my favorites. They're excellent. Well look, I hope I didn't put you on the spot there.
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all, I just I heard that you were there and I hear about this simple filet. And you know, when you're using a filet, you don't want to just be willy-nilly with it because it's expensive piece of meat. And when you say, hey, it turns out really good, I'm like, well, I want to share that. So now tell me this before you go I know there's meat markets you probably deal with. Where do you find? You know, is it just a local store type thing that you? Where do you buy your meat?
Speaker 4:Believe it or not, we just go right there to the Walmart right down the street.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 4:And they have been having some like we haven't got a bad cut of meat over there. We get the. Sometimes they'll have the filet medallions.
Speaker 2:I've seen that. I've seen that. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So you get a pack for maybe like 12 bucks and it's like, it's almost like a perfect appetizer for everybody. You know, if you've got a couple of friends over, you get a little pack of filet medallions for $12. Wow, and then you put them on and then you got everybody like a couple of bites. A little appetizer is perfect. And then you and then you get the little petite filets of filets and put them on and it's more of the entree. But yeah, believe it or not, walmart.
Speaker 2:Wow, well, that's nice to hear. Normally I try to go to I like Rousers, claiborne Hill. You know there's, of course there's stores in New Orleans we go to also that are very good and and you know it's consistent, good meat. But you know what I'm going to try, that I'm going to go and I'm going to look around a poke around a meat department at Walmart and I'll look for those medallions and if I see them I'm going to pick some up and I'm going to try your recipe, salt pepper. I think I'll do mine on cast iron inside.
Speaker 4:I don't know if I mentioned it, but that's how we've been cooking it, and so my mother-in-law had a what's that? A princess house brand, kind of expensive. Actually, we looked it up as a little pricey on this thing, but anyway, it's a little round 16 inch cast iron with like an ammo on the bottom. Yes, that's what we use for the steaks.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:But it works out really well.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. Well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try that. I'm going to go to Walmart. I have salt and pepper, I have butter, I'm just going to yeah.
Speaker 2:Man, I'm going to do this. I love simple because I really I find the more complicated some dishes are. It's like with gumbo. Gumbo is complicated, you could say, but as long as you keep it within the realm of the original recipe, you're going to come out with a good, a good gumbo. It's just when you start getting fancy and stuff with things that you it sometimes it messes it up. I guess it's maybe us amateurs, you know, we, we, we don't know how to do it like the pros.
Speaker 4:I'm surrounded by amazing cooks over here. So whenever you want to be there yeah, whenever there's something that that is more on the easier side, and it's good.
Speaker 2:That's what I try for, you know here you go, I love it, I love it. Well, man Trace, look, thank you for coming on. I hated to put you on the spot, but I really didn't. It didn't matter.
Speaker 4:Oh, no problem at all, tim, it was good to talk to you. Here you go.
Speaker 2:All right, well, look, we're going to talk to y'all soon.
Speaker 3:Thank, you for joining us and and don't hang up, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, I won't poke you. What I want is when you, when it's uh, when you get that other recipe ready the, the, the crab balls let me know. And and I want to share that Let me know what you come up with that.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I will. Look, this is my man. You, you turn this on to some scallops. Yes and uh, in fact, the one that we talked about, lou, that was the first time he had eaten it. Now you can buy scallops at Walmart, you can buy them all over, but look, you turn this on to fresh scallops. So I think I'm not familiar with where to get fresh scallops. So where did you get those fresh scallops? How could I get a whole lot of fresh scallops if everybody wants them?
Speaker 2:Okay, so the ones that I I got and this was some time back well, I brought um, you know, I don't know, I think it's like a five pound, but but that's when I was in a seafood business and I was commercial fishing, so I had, I was had access to, you know, to to different wholesalers and stuff. But here's what you want to get. If you want a good scallop, it's called a dry scallop. So these things are caught, shucked, never frozen. They put in a big, uh, uh container and and they shipped, and and and you getting them, you know, the next few days. But I'm going to tell you you can go to, uh, rousers should have dry scallops. All right, yes, and, and the big ones, you can get the big ones, um, and just for people that don't know scallops, when you cook them and you open the package, I don't care if they, how fresh they are, scallops are going to stink, um, they just do that, they just have. They have a strong, strong, uh, seafood odor to them. But don't be alarmed and don't think, oh, this is bad, it's not it, that just comes with the territory. That's just a scallop, you know Um. So, but, yeah, you, you can get that at Rousers. Uh, I'm almost positive you can get them. Now you know what else isn't bad they, if you can't find that, you can find them.
Speaker 2:Iqf, the individually quick frozen. The big ones, um, I have tried them. Here's the key to it they have to be thought out in the refrigerator and it may take a day and a half to get it refrigerated. Temperature If you try to do it quick, if you run water over it, all of the all in proteins, just they go nuts and lose all its texture. It's just you know it's not good. So I would say either way, poki, you can get them frozen and that way, if you want, you can just reach in and grab them like french fries. Grab you two or three out of there, let them defrost and seal them back up. Real good. Two or three, hey you.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:I know you almost have to eat 10 at a time.
Speaker 3:I think when you came down he had brought a gallon.
Speaker 2:It was, it was a gallon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we put the hurdle and I remember that.
Speaker 2:So and that's a whole nother recipe.
Speaker 3:Cook. Some mean scallops that are in your place house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a whole nother recipe.
Speaker 3:That was the IQF, but they were good. But I was thinking I said, boy, some good fresh scallops. I wanted to ask you that.
Speaker 2:They are good. There's a look, there's a science. I say science, there's a. There's a good way and a bad way to cook a scallop. And one of the simplest things to remember when you put your scallop on a hot, hot, you know, whatever you're putting it on, you can't touch it. You can't. If you try to move it and scrape it, no, all the good caramelizing is gonna stick on that, on that pan, and you're gonna lose it. It will release in its own due time. It's gonna release and then you can flip it if you want, but don't scrape it up. It'll come loose on its own and soon as it does, you know it's red. Now, you got that. What kind of color is it? It's like a. It's like a orange. Well GOOD.
Speaker 3:It is, it is yeah it's a good color.
Speaker 2:You'll know the color. There you go.
Speaker 3:Well listen, hey, we look forward to that. Okay, it's like that music you play so. Yeah, it is no that's not it. Thank you, Tim. I wanted to ask you that and I've been forgetting. So thanks for inviting us on your show. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, man, I'm so glad that Trey was there. We got the steak thing. I love simple recipes, and so anyway we'll. Hey, we're gonna look forward to next time, pope.
Speaker 3:He's coming along good. He knows how to ball crawfish, he knows how to ball crab, he knows how to ball shrimp. All of that lobster he does a good lobster. So, he's a new man that has taken over over at the house.
Speaker 2:Wonderful All right, pope, we'll see you later. Okay, thank you so much, all right, bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Well, it's always nice to talk, to talk to friends, especially Pokey Cajun, poke, cajun, pokey, down in Galliano, louisiana, boy, they have the food. It's wonderful man, I tell you. He can walk right out his door across the street, buy a lafouche, catch all the fishy ones, crabs, everything right there. What a life, what a life. Well, anyway, hey, have you now? We talked about earlier.
Speaker 2:I mentioned about paprika. Where in the world did paprika come from? Well, evidently, you know they grow the pepper. It's from a pepper. It looks like a. I don't look like a jalapeno pepper, it looks like a, like a overgrown Tabasco pepper. You know, it's like a regular pepper. It looks like Hungry, the country hungry is well known for for paprika. They put it on everything. They put paprika on things like you and I put salt and pepper. It's at the table. Well, paprika's at the table too.
Speaker 2:In Hungary They've had this in their culture 300 plus years, I think they, I think originally they got it from. It's a Turkish, came from Turkey, from over there, and of course you know there's different versions of it around the world, but Hungary is known for paprika. That's where just about everything You're gonna get paprika on it, but paprika's. It's interesting because just a regular paprika, you know it has it has a nice little taste to it. You know it adds some color. But now you can get different types. If you just use an irregular, fresh ground paprika, there's not a whole lot of taste to it but it does offer some, does offer a little bit of a little bit of color, and in a state they have some that is spiced. Now, what is spiced paprika? The simple version is well, let's back up.
Speaker 2:Regular paprika is the paprika pepper that is cleaned of its seeds and the stem and then just the red pepper is ground and that's now it has to be processed and dried and so, of course, that's paprika. There's a super fine paprika. That is that it's. It's handpicked. In other words, they'll go through their little farm, They'll handpick only the perfect ones. You know, when you're picking an apple off a tree, or an orange, and man, you see that one is just like, oh, that's, that's the perfect. You know a blackberry, whatever, and you see it, you know, oh, that's the good one. Well, that's what they do when you get this real nice paprika.
Speaker 2:They'll go through and handpick these peppers. They will take the stems off. Now it doesn't seem like a big deal, but they take the stems off, then they take the seeds out, everything by hand, then it's ground and you wind up with with just a cut above with paprika. Then you have you say, well, I want some spiced paprika. What they'll do is take the seeds and put that in with the pepper and then ground it up. Now you got a spiced paprika.
Speaker 2:Most of the paprika it seems like a lot of it is. They'll get peppers in from everywhere, pull them together and they send them through these machines and the little piece of stem that's normally picked off of the you know the higher end stuff, they put the stems the everything and grind it up into a little powder. That, you see, and that's paprika. You can get it without the seeds and then it's a little different flavor. But generally that's what paprika, where it comes from, it's a. It's a red pepper that looks like a typical red pepper, except that you can eat it and it isn't going to burn your mouth up. So it's a very mild pepper. And so if you, if you, want it spiced even more, what they'll do is they put the seeds back in, grind it up and then they'll add cayenne. So if you ever get paprika and it's hot and it's got a pepper to it, it's because they've added cayenne to it.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, paprika's a. You know it's an important ingredient when, when, when you're cooking things. You know it's a nice little accent piece, it adds color. You know, you do deviled eggs and you put paprika on the top and if you want a little, you get the spice paprika and you got a little cayenne mixed with it. You know it adds color, a little flavor. So anyway, that's our little thought of the day.
Speaker 2:Uh, paprika, where it comes from, and uh, why does it taste different? Well, you know, that's why. Well, listen, thank you again for joining us. Uh, we got things set up here at the studio. Like I said, we're going to have, we're going to have the.
Speaker 2:We have the ability now to go live offsite when we go to a restaurant. We're going to, we're going to try to do that. And and you know the acoustics, but we have to work on that when you're out in a restaurant, because if you're sitting at home listening and it sounds like you're in the middle of a bar room and you can't hear people talk, that's annoying. So we don't want to do that we may do a test run, and and and. When we're finished we'll ask for some feedback and say, hey, what did you think Should we, should we not do?
Speaker 2:That Is live irritating over the uh on on the air when you're listening to it, uh, and then it would give us feedback, cause, look, the fact is, the show is all about you. You know, without you we don't have a show. But we we're so grateful the and the listeners. We have listeners. It grows every, every week. It grows leaps and bounds, uh, new countries I think we had 23 countries now, um, and it it's just such a joy to hear, hear feedback from different places, uh, different areas in the country. It's fun, it's enjoyable. So, thank you so much for being part of the Gulf Coast food show. And you know what we're going to close out with Ethan Langwood Tipper. Tina, we'll see you next week. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
