Something Piquant this way Comes

This is a recipe I found in a beat-up old cookbook of my mom's. Paul Prudhomme is a chef from St. Landry Parish in Louisiana, right damn smack next to the parish where the Stagg family hails from. He always looked like Dom Delouise to me. I had to make due with a meager pantry, but it turned out delicious(ly?)


Paul Prudhomme's Apple-Raisin Stuffing

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
3 tbsp butter
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup rice
2 tsp each salt & pepper
1 tsp each garlic powder, mustard powder, and cayenne pepper
1 large chopped, un-peeled apple
2 cups chicken/beef/veggie stock

Heat enough oil to coat the bottom of a heavy sauce pot. Heat the oil until you, if you're at all like me, feel you'll go mad from the waiting. Heat the oil until it smokes, but turn it down a smidge or you'll set the alarms off. I've done that. Often.

Scrape the onions and green pepper - scritch scritch splash - into the pot and stir them up good. Let them brown, just a few minutes. Once they're aromatic and caramel-y colored, add a few tablespoons of butter and a generous handful of raisins. Let the butter melt and the raisins plump, which will take another 3 or 4 delicious minutes.

Now you add the rice. Stir in the spices, and keep stirring the rice. Let the oil coat the rice, and you want all the spices to penetrate. Add the apples. You want the vegetables and fruit and rice and spice to all mix together for a few minutes.

Add the stock. Cover the pot and bring the rice to a boil. Turn the heat down and let simmer for 5 minutes or so. Finally, remove the rice from the heat and let all those flavors meld and pique and settle; about 30 minutes.

Don't be hasty like me. Be a patient cook. Not everything needs to be al dente.