What We’re Cooking This Week: Pasta With Cajun Gravy

Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.

When Jon Beckel and Daris Ray opened Le Bistro Montage on Halloween in 1992, it became the first restaurant in Portland to offer Creole and Cajun food. But the $1.50 mac and cheese was all that anyone really noticed. When I reviewed Montage a few months later, I called its offerings “a cross fertilization between the ethnic polyglot of Louisiana’s delta country and Oregon’s own mosaic of fresh regional foodstuffs.” A lot of words, but no mention of the cultures behind the food.

Paul Prudhomme had put Cajun food in the limelight a decade earlier, and it’s likely that his blackened fish was on a menu somewhere in Portland by the late ’80s. But the restaurant revolution occurring here was all about rustic French and northern Italian cuisines with good pizza. The only place in Portland you’d find gumbo, jambalaya or étouffée was the home kitchen of a Gulf Coast expat.

But Ray had cooked at New Orleans’ famed Commander’s Palace, and he brought home the Louisiana kitchen staples like the so-called holy trinity of onion, celery and green pepper; the aromatic vegetables that provide the flavor base for Cajun and Creole cooking. He used them to create Montage’s Cajun gravy, the backbone of the restaurant’s spicy mac, jambalaya, and specials like a rabbit sausage linguini.

My own 30-year-old memories of Montage are a little fuzzy, but I’ve spent enough time in Louisiana to re-create the basics of Creole flavor (and despite the name, Cajun gravy leans more toward the sophisticated dishes of the New Orleans gentry than the rustic country fare of the displaced Acadians). And I was able to track Ray down; he confirmed that my version is pretty close to what he used to make.

Recipe

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons flour

½ onion, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finelychopped

1 jalapeño, finely chopped

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 cup water or stock

¼ cup cream, optional

Kosher-style sea salt, ground black pepper, garlic powder, red pepper

1 pound pasta (I prefer a short pasta such as penne or casarecce.)

First make a roux by mixing the olive oil and flour together in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring frequently to prevent burning, until the roux turns a light brown.

Add the onion, celery, and jalapeño to the roux, reduce the heat to medium, and cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are very tender. Stir in the tomato paste and garlic, cook for another minute, and then add the water. Let the sauce come to a boil, add the cream, and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package. Drain and add the sauce, mixing well to completely coat the pasta. Serve immediately with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.