Robin's Catfish Courtbouillon

Thought I’d share this catfish courtbouillon recipe that I cooked last night for Robin. It’s not her recipe, but she gets naming rights since I cooked it for her. A few caveats here before I get started. First, nobody in my family cooked a courtbouillon at all. I was first exposed to it by the cook at our duck camp and instantly took to it. Second, I kinda winged this one. I had an idea of the basics and just went with what felt right. I’m sure there will be some coonasses out there who will shake their head and say no that’s not right. Hey, maybe, but this is my gig, and I thought it turned out just as I remembered. Lastly, courtbouillon is pronounced "coo-bee-yawn" in south Louisiana. Not to be confused with couyon. Proper French pronunciations can also take a hike.

• 1.5 -1.75 pounds of catfish fillets
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 onion (white or yellow)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• Celery
• 1 8oz tomato paste
• 1 8oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato soup or tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 1/2 -1 cup vegetable stock
• Cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt to taste (or just use Tony Cachere’s like a real coonass)
• 2-3 cups of rice
• 1 loaf French bread
• 2-3 bottles of Turbodog (for the cook)

1. If you’re an average guy like I am, chop up the pepper, onions, and celery ahead of time. Doesn’t have to be a fine chop; Cajun cooking is simple cooking. There’s no fancy crap going on here. Rough chops are OK. Chop enough celery to equal the amount of bell pepper you chopped up. Combine onion, pepper, and celery in a bowl and set aside. Mince 2-3 cloves garlic (depending on how much you like garlic) and set aside.
2. On low heat, melt the butter in a black widow (4-5 quart cast iron skillet). If you don’t have a black widow, stop here and go buy one. You can’t cook cajun food without it — especially on an electric range. Once the butter is melted, slowly mix in the flour and make a roux. Remember that you can’t stir a roux often enough. However, you can ruin it very easily by not stirring enough. Grab a Turbodog and spend the next 30 minutes stirring and drinking. If you’re an awesome cook like everyone else in my family, you can multitask the earlier chopping during this process, do your taxes, and make an awesome roux all at the same time. I’m not that good, so I chop ahead of time. You’re going for a caramel, light-medium roux here — not the dark roux you’d make to cook gumbo.
3. Once the roux is done, turn up the heat a smidge and slowly mix in the onions, peppers, and celery. They’ll cook down a little, but you’re not going for translucence here on the onions. Just enough to release some of their juices — about 4-5 minutes. Things will look a little starchy, just keep stirring. Next, mix in some vegetable stock a little at a time. You’re not looking for swimming vegetables here — just enough to keep things stirring easily. Next, add in the diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Things will thicken up again, so add a little tomato soup to loosen it up. I used tomato soup instead of sauce since I already had tomato paste. If you don’t want to use paste, you could skip it and just use tomato sauce instead of soup. Add the minced garlic. Next, add the salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to your taste. Personally, I try to watch how much salt I eat because the lifespan of a coonass is quite short. I used a little fake salt, some black pepper, and a fair amount of Tony’s. Drop the heat to very low, cover, simmer for at least 30 minutes. Like all tomato-based dishes, the longer you stew it for the better. I stewed this for two and a half hours. Stir about every half hour and check the taste after the first hour, adding salt/pepper/Tony’s per your taste.
4. Half an hour before your simmer is done, dress your catfish into 2-3" steaks. Yeah, I know that a lot of recipes call for cooking catfish heads in the pot or adamantly only using wild catfish but that just wasn’t going to happen here, nor will it probably work for you. First, nothing says no next date better than saying "Hey babe, I cooked you a meal with a catfish head in it!" Secondly, I just don’t feel like dealing with whole catfish. It worked out great with farm raised catfish from Sun Fat seafood in the Mission (San Franciscans, this is easily the best fishmonger in town). They do have whole catfish if you want to use the head meat.
5. Once your simmering is done, give it one last good stir then throw the spoon in the sink. Don’t pick it up again. Slowly drop the catfish into the pot, turn up the heat a smidge (same as when you added the vegetables). Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Right now, start your rice cooker, preheat your oven to 400 for French bread. In the last 5 minutes, toss the bread into the oven. Once everything is done, pull out the bread, remove the black widow from heat, and serve the rice into shallow gumbo bowls. Carefully serve the courtbouillon over the rice. I say carefully because catfish meat is very tender and can break apart easily. You want to serve them as steaks. This is why you don’t stir after you’ve added the catfish to the courtbouillon — stirring would break it up.
6. Serve with French bread, vinaigrette salad, and a Cotes du Rhone wine (red or white). I chose the 2005 Coudoulet de Beaucastel red and thought it was great (Robin did, too). Got it for $35 at BevMo and would recommend it for this dish. If you’re on a budget, skip the wine and drink some Turbodog instead. The wine is easily the most expensive thing here; without it you should be able to make this dish for $15 or so. Serves 4-5 … or 2 hungry cajuns.

Some pictures to guide you along:

Low heat for da roux!

This is the start of the roux if you properly mixed in the flour slowly.

This is for the cook. Making a roux is constant work, so pamper yourself.

Now we’re done with da roux!

Mix in da veggies and cook ‘em down.

Add a little vegetable stock if things get a little starchy.

Mix in the diced tomatoes and paste. Hrmm….no, not red enough yet.

Add the tomato soup. Now it’s red enough! Camera was a little dark here. Shouldn’t be *that* brownish-red.

Turn it down low for simmerin’. 2-3 hours preferred.

This is how it looked the next day when everything was finished. Sorry, no pictures from the night before as I was too busy noticing how great Robin looked.

This wine was great with the dish.