Please get in touch to offer comments, send us your recipes and join our mailing list.
Welcome to Thyme Flies, a place to find southern, and Cajun and Creole recipes as well as plain old home cooking.
It's also a place to spend a little thyme.
Halloween, my favorite holiday, is almost upon us and one of the reasons
I love this time of year are the tasty pumpkin pies my Mother and Grandmothers used to make.Here is an
old yet simple recipe that I hope you enjoy as much as I do.
1 ½ cups fresh pumpkin
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 cup milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp butter
¼
tsp salt
Combine ingredients.Mix thoroughly.Pour into pastry-lined
pie pan.Bake in hot oven (425 degrees) for about 25 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.Serve with whipped cream on top.
Located a half block from Bourbon Street, the Bombay Club features spirits, music and nouveau Creole cooking. Here is an original recipe from
their website. Try it and enjoy. Creole Crawfish and Tasso Chowder Ingredients:
½
c. Salad oil
½ lb. Bacon, diced
1 cup Tasso, finely diced
1 Large Onion, diced
3 Celery stalks, diced
1 large
carrot, diced
1 ea. Red and Green Peppers, diced
2 ears Corn, remove kernels from ears
1 Tbs.
Tarragon, Thyme, Kosher Salt
1 ½ Tbs. Garlic, minced
2 tsp. Fresh cracked black pepper
1 ea.
Bay leaves, 1 pinch Cayenne pepper
½ c. White wine
¼ c. Worcestershire sauce, 2 dashes Tabasco
1/2 gal. Shrimp stock or broth
1 c.
Blonde roux
1 qt. Heavy cream
4 c. Crawfish tails, pre-cooked
3 ea.
Russet potatoes, cubed and par-boiled
Directions: Heat oil
in a medium stock pot, add bacon, sauté 3 to 5 minutes or until bacon is slightly crispy. Add Tasso, onions, celery,
carrots and peppers, sauté for 5 to 7 minutes.
Add corn, garlic, herbs, and spices, sauté another
2 to 3 minutes. Deglaze with white wine, Worcestershire, and Tabasco, simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Add shrimp stock, bring to a boil then whisk in roux,
stirring well, so no lumps form. Turn down heat and simmer for 5 minutes, add heavy cream, crawfish, and strained potatoes.
Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Season to taste.
Eric'sWeb
When Anne and I first married, we lived in a large house with many windows
that overlooked a small body of water called SkiIslandLake.My Cousin Skip worked for Capitol Records, recently
transferred to OKC from Austin, Texas.
Since he was new
to the City, he spent lots of time with us and we enjoyed him immensely.Skip would usually ride a bike from his apartment
to our house.He was slender and had a goatee and thinning hair he usually covered with a jaunty Panama
hat.
Skip knows more about the recording industry than almost anyone on earth, and he and his
wife Connie recently retired to Austin
after years in New York City and Los Angeles. Whenever Skip visited
Anne and me during his short stay in Oklahoma City, he always brought us LP’s or tapes, mostly of new and rising artists
that we had never heard of before, but soon would.
He could make salsa and guacamole dip like
no other person I have known, before or since and here is his simple recipe.
5 green onions
1
clove garlic
¼ cup fresh cilantro
1 half lemon or
lime, squeezed
3 or 4 jalapeno peppers, seeded (How hot do you want it?)
3 ripe tomatoes
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
After making
sure all the ingredients are crisp and ripe, uniformly dice on a chopping block with a sharp knife and then blend very gently
in a food processor.
After transferring the ingredients to a large serving bowl add the lemon
juice (or lime if that’s what floats your boat) and salt and pepper to taste. Chill for an hour
or so in the refrigerator while you slug a few Coronas or Tecates, or just grab a bag of your favorite tortilla chips and
indulge yourself immediately.Either way you will be in Heaven. Eric'sWeb
You can’t visit New Orleans without trying the oysters. An early-day chef from France began using them, trying to
find a substitute for escargot, an almost impossible commodity to procure in the colony.New Orleans chefs now prepare them a thousand different ways, from fried to raw. Here is a simple but wonderful recipe from
theAcme Oyster House
on Iberville. As their name implies, they know oysters. Try this recipe and enjoy.OYSTERS LOUISIANA Ingredients:
4 oz. butter - melted
1.5 pints oysters - drained
4 green onions - chopped finely
3 cloves
garlic - minced
½ lb. fresh lump crabmeat
½ cup bread crumbs
Salt
and pepper to taste
Directions: Melt butter in a skillet. Add oysters and cook until dry. Add onions and
garlic and cook slowly for at least 10 minutes. Fold in crabmeat and crumbs. Simmer 5 minutes more. Add salt and pepper to
taste.
My second wife Anne and I ate at Mr. B’s on Royal Street for the first time shortly after its opening in 1979.
The B in Mr. B’s stands for Brennan, a name synonymous with fine dining. I love the restaurant and I featured it in
a scene in my novel A Gathering of Diamonds. Here is a recipe for their version of gumbo (oh yes, it is very good!) from their website.
Mr. B’s
Gumbo Ya Ya
Making a roux is tricky business. Some pointers to keep in mind: cook your roux over
moderately low heat because too high heat will cause the roux to speckle and if that happens you’ll have to throw it
away and start over; add the flour gradually to the butter or oil; you must stir the roux constantly with a wooden spoon,
your arm will get a workout; and never, but never leave your roux unattended.
This recipe makes a lot of gumbo,
6 quarts, so you’ll have enough for a big party or you can freeze some for later.
1 lb. (4 sticks) unsalted
butter 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 red bell peppers, in medium dice 2 green bell peppers, in medium dice 2 medium onions, in medium dice 2 celery stalks, in medium dice 1 1/4 gallon (20 cups) chicken stock 2 tablespoons
Creole seasoning 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes 1 teaspoon chili powder 1 teaspoon dried thyme 1 tablespoon chopped garlic 2 bay leaves 2 tablespoons kosher salt 1 lb. andouille
sausage, cut into 1/4 inch-thick slices 3 1/2 lb. chicken, roasted and boned hot sauce to taste boiled rice
as accompaniment
In a 12-quart stockpot, melt butter over moderately low heat. Gradually add a third of the flour,
stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, and cook, stirring constantly, 30 seconds. Add a third more flour and stir constantly
30 seconds. Add remaining third of flour and stir constantly 30 seconds. Continue to cook roux, stirring constantly, until
it is the color of dark mahogany, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Add bell peppers and stir constantly 30 seconds.
Add onions and celery and stir constantly 30 seconds. Add the stock to roux, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Add all
remaining ingredients except chicken, rice, and hot sauce and bring to a boil. Simmer gumbo, uncovered, 45 minutes, skimming
off any fat and stirring occasionally. Add chicken and simmer 15 minutes. Adjust seasoning with hot sauce. Serve over rice.
Yield: about 6 quarts
CREOLE SEASONING
1 1/2 cups paprika 3/4 cup ground black pepper 1/2 cup kosher salt 1/3 cup granulated garlic 1/3 cup dried thyme 1/3 cup dried oregano 1/3 cup dried
basil 1/4 cup granulated onion 1/4 cup cayenne
In a bowl, combine all ingredients. Store in an airtight
container
My friend John always hosted a Thanksgiving party when he was married to
his first wife Lil and they lived in the Heritage Hills addition of Oklahoma City.
The party began with only a few couples but escalated over the years until at least
a hundred people came and went. I always liked their Thanksgiving party because while Lil did most of the cooking a preparation,
John made batch after batch of whiskey sours.Here is John’s
recipe, at least as best as I can recall. Hic! ·2 quarts orange juice ·12 ounces maraschino cherries ·4 ½ cups sugar ·2 ½ cups water ·6 quarts bourbon ·6 pints lemon juice ·6 oranges, sliced ·6 lemons, sliced ·Dash of Angostura bitters
Pour orange juice into two ring molds, arrange half the cherries in each, and
freeze. Make simple syrup by boiling water and sugar 5 minutes. Cool; combine with remaining ingredients in large containers
and chill 24 hours or overnight. Pour over frozen mold in punch bowl. Serve in punch cups over crushed ice.
I grew up eating my Mother's home cooking. I didn't know that we were poor, but we were - moneywise, that is.
We never missed a meal, and, as I look back, I now see that everyone was a culinary masterpiece. That's what we're after
here - the realization that simpler is sometimes (if not always) best.
Please check out Eric Wilder's book Murder Etouffee for the best Cajun and Creole recipes, and so much more!
