Kenneth Temple's Red Beans and Rice | An Introduction to Cajun and Creole Cooking | Food Network

i'm kenneth temple and welcome to the kitchen i hope you are excited about this class today because we're about to make a new orleans staple red beans and rice i'll put a little twist on my red beans by adding smoked sausage and smoked turkey next i know a little different but let's get cooking before we begin you need to make sure you have two pounds of soaked overnight red beans that are drained plus you need to have three cups of white or brown rice whatever you like first things first we're going to clean our smoked turkey necks so we're going to take two pounds of smoked turkey necks and add them to our hot water don't be scared just use some tongs and dip it on in there don't be like me and just throw it all in there cause then it's gonna splash on you you're gonna scream you're gonna holler we don't want those problems also we're gonna add two tablespoons of salt kosher salt and bring it up to a boil we're going to let this cook for about 10 to 15 minutes just so we can get all those impurities out this looks great as you can see these little impurities floating around you may not think it's a lot but it really matters so what i'm going to do is i'm going to drain this cover it with 10 cups of water add a bay leaf then push it on the back burner so it can simmer i know i'm not the only one that just got a smoked turkey neck facial so now i'm going to add my bay leaf to it put it on the back burner and get it to a simmer while we prep our red beans so now that our stock is simmering in the back it's going to roll for about 10 to 15 minutes let's start breaking down our vegetables so we can get these red beans on first thing we're going to start with is our bell pepper very easy way of cutting your bell pepper is just to go around the edge of the bell pepper so you don't have any seeds or pith in your bell peppers so now we're just going to chop these down you don't want big chunks of bell pepper you don't want little chunks of bell pepper always remember when you're cooking that things that cook a long time you can cut them just a little bit bigger if they're going to cook for a short period of time you can cut them finer because they're going to cook faster just one of those inside of chef tips so we're just going to break down this bell peppers and we're going to break down our celery and our onion and then we're almost home with our red beans and rice anytime that you make any dish that's cajun creole you will need to have the holy trinity onion celery and bell pepper if you ever come across a recipe and it does not have those three it's not the real deal every cuisine has three base vegetables that they use particularly the one that we're all familiar with here is the french style which is onions carrots and celery but in louisiana you know we gotta do things a little bit different so we swap out the sweetness of a carrot for the sweetness of a bell pepper sometimes you can leave one of the trinities out but for the most part every time you make a louisiana dish you will always have onions celery and bell pepper and the distant cousin well it's more like the first cousin garlic too now if you don't have onions celery and bell pepper it's not the holy trinity which means it's not cajun creole cuisine last but not least everybody's favorite onion in louisiana we always use spanish yellow onions you can use a white onion in its place but for the most part you always want to use a spanish yellow onion do not put vidalia onions in anything it's it's too sweet it's gonna ruin your dish so the age old question is how do i keep from crying when cutting onions well between me and you there's two tricks the first one is chop very fast the second one is to keep your onions in the refrigerator keeping the onions in the refrigerator actually slows down the gases that gets into our eyes and makes us cry like we just finished watching the beautiful love story now red bean mondays became a thing back in the old days when people used to have to do laundry on mondays and one way that they can work and eat at the same time was well we're getting a large pot of water on to wash these clothes we might as well get a large pot of water on so we can cook some red beans so that's how red bean mondays became a thing because back in the day in louisiana wash day was on mondays not on thursdays like you do yours anymore now let's get to cooking we're going to add two tablespoons of oil to our pot and now we're going to add our trinity to our pot get it all in there no trinity left behind beautiful and give it a little stir to make sure that all the vegetables are coated with the oil now while that cooks let's break down our garlic so you get recipes every day and it says x amount of cloves of garlic but then you have this problem when you run into one garlic not being the same as the other garlic right so if you find yourself in that situation just consider one of these jumbo cloves about two to three garlic cloves that's what i always do but if you only get all of the normal sized garlic cloves you'll need eight of these but for the sense of all of these jumbo cloves i'm gonna use these guys because i like a little garlic use as much as you love or as little as you love too so we're gonna smash the garlic and take out the day's frustration the kids might be getting on your nerves or maybe it's just your boss or your significant other so we're just going to chop this down you can hear this beautiful sound of our onions and celery cooking just listen and it's something special it might just be because i'm from louisiana that that smell of onion celery and bell pepper just does something amazing it's just like the signal that good food is on its way come here so the beautiful thing about red beans and rice is that no matter when you make the red beans it lasts a lifetime in the freezer okay really don't leave it in there for five years but red beans are really good in the freezer for about six months i know sometimes we'll find things just in the freezer and we think that it has a little frost break and then it's done take it out and put it in a pot red beans taste like it was made yesterday so always mark your food with a permanent marker so you know the date don't play the guessing game on how long this has been in my freezer and in the fridge the red beans will last about seven days if you can keep from eating it all beautiful now that that's done oh yeah look at that starting to get nice and translucent that's my new favorite word translucent [Music] now i like to use smoked turkey sausage just to make it healthier when i was creating this recipe everybody told me you had to use pickled pork salted meat ham hocks in order to get the right flavor on the red beans well i was on a mission to figure out how to make these ray beans just as delicious without losing the smoky flavor and also keeping it just a little bit healthier that's how i ended up with smoked turkey necks that substituted the ham hocks and that's how i ended up with smoked turkey sauces to substitute honduras sausage or traditional pork sausage just to make it healthier and flavorful at the same time now this recipe took me seven years to master just to get it right and this recipe you all are making with me today is seven years of perfection seven years of good eating seven years of what you're doing kenneth now the beautiful thing about using smoked turkey necks is it adds the same smoky flavor that makes red beans and rice traditional something about the smoky flavor that just adds this extra depth of love to red beans and rice you can always use a smoked sausage of preference and even if you want to make this dish vegan you can use a plant-based sausage in place of this and just omit the smoked turkey next and with a little bit of liquid smoke then you'll have all of those wonderful flavors that's traditional now we're going to add our garlic two bay leaves and one teaspoon of dry thyme give that a little stir soon as the garlic hits it you can smell the fragrance of the garlic just jump out and say thank you for adding me to the party smelling great smelling great now we're going to add our two pounds of drained soaked overnight red beans as you can see your red beans should have exploded and opened up that's what you're looking for if you let these soak a little bit longer the red beans will begin to sprout so for some of y'all who's out there into sprouted beans you're almost done now i'm going to add 2 tablespoons of worcestershire sauce i know it's the word that we all struggle to say but this adds a depth of flavor or what everybody starts to learn recently is umami it has that nice meaty flavor that goes along with the meat the beans as it all cooks and makes love together now let's add our smoked sausage and let's grab our turkey next and turkey stock get you a spoon with some holes in it some tongs just get you something to scoop out the smoked turkey next that's not your hands it smells amazing now if you want to skip this whole step of making your own turkey stock just wash it like we just did and then you can use chicken stock oh yeah this ain't gonna fit but we're gonna make it fit cover your beans with your turkey stock give it a stir to make sure everything's nice and covered so we're going to bring this up to a boil then we're going to cover it and we're going to let it cook for an hour and 30 minutes but while it's cooking make sure you give it a stir every 10 to 15 minutes just to make sure that the beans aren't sticking to the bottom and to check your water levels so we made some extra stock that's why we did 10 cups just in case as you're cooking your red beans you notice that the liquid levels is reducing faster than you would expect that way you can cover with the extra stock but even if you don't use it anyway after it cools off just save this because this stock is better than any grocery store stock you can purchase so we're going to cover our beans and let it simmer for an hour and a half just until the beans are nice and creamy and that our smoked turkey necks are starting to fall apart hit the pause button cut on some music and i'll see you back soon it's been an hour and a half and i can smell the aroma of the beans let's check them out [Music] look at how nice and creamy the beans are starting to get as you can see we still have some whole beans but now this is the secret to making these beans traditional new orleans you want to take the back of your spoon and just begin to smash the beans right on the back and this is just allowing that meatiness of the beans to begin to get nice and creamy and it's just going to give you a beautiful gravy don't smash a lot don't smash a little but smash some beans they look great now cover them and let them simmer for another 30 minutes always make sure to check your liquid levels just to make sure your beans aren't sticking to the bottom of the pot and you have a little liquid in there this is the seven year secret making our seasoning mix and then adding it at the very end i spent years always layering my flavors and i had great beans but doing this final technique made these beans amazing what we're gonna do is we're gonna take one tablespoon of kosher salt one tablespoon of black pepper two teaspoons of cayenne now i love my heat but you can always add as little or as much more as you would love two teaspoons of cumin now cumin isn't traditional in this recipe but i find that the smokiness of the cumin adds a great layer of flavor that nobody would expect and two teaspoons of granulated garlic and garlic powder works too so i'm going to stir this together with my fork until it's nice and combined beautiful set this aside now let's chop up our garnishes so now we're going to chop some italian leaf parsley it's very important you don't want the stems of the parsley you just want the leaves the stem of the parsley can actually be bitter so you don't want any bitter love in your love of red beans do you no so what i like to do is i like to grab my parsley and squeeze it together and then get a nice chop on them and it almost creates these little strings of ribbon of parsley that looks great on the final dish see that looks really really good right really easy you don't have to chop it all the way super fine and do all of that fancy chef stuff just chop the parsley and also we're going to take some green onions and we're just going to slice those down always take off the tips because they've been hanging out the longest and starting to wilt and then get you a nice rough chop green and white parts do not do not throw away the white parts the first thing i actually ever learned to cut was pecans and green onions green onions is a great thing to learn how to start your knife skills because they don't roll all over and they're not clunky so now that our green onions are nice and mixed this is what you do you'll bring the two together and make them one just play with your food a little bit right here okay and this is gonna be our garnish now you have parsley and green onions all in one you don't have to do them one at a time this looks great my red beans are smelling amazing let's finish this dish off oh yeah look at how pretty this is i noticed during the 30 minutes cooking that my beans started to get thicker that's why we have the extra turkey stock so i added about a cup of the turkey stock just till it got to this beautiful consistency because one thing you want to remember is after your beans finish chilling and you eat them the next day you want to add just a little bit of stock to it just to loosen them back up because they will thicken as they chill this is what you're looking for this beautiful bean consistency now we'll add our seasoning blend and this is the money right here y'all this right here changed the red bean game the red beans and now as you stir it you'll begin to awaken all of the salt the peppers the cumin and you will see a slight change in the color profile of the beans and it actually got just a little hint darker just from adding that seasoning i know you all don't know no better but this is love in the pot right here this is love in a pot let's try it out do you see how nice and creamy these beans are you have a little bit of gravy you still have some whole beans that's perfect you don't want to mash all of the beans just a little bit goes a long way [Music] that's it that's it no more talking let's grab our rice and our plate and let's plate this wonderful dish up now always have a little fun with your rice as you can see i put some fresh thyme and some bay leaf in it just to add a little flavor profile to the rice now it's very important that you know who you are in life i'm a more beans than rice guy you can be a 50 50 or you could be a more rice than beans guy i'm a more beans than rice guy because i came to have red beans and rice a little left hand johnny oh yeah just let it happen you can just smell the love in this kitchen and in this pot and we can't forget some of that turkey neck look at that oh wait a little bit more now we're just going to clean up our sides garnish it with some more green onions and parsley and since my grandma said if it ain't spicy ain't right i'm add a little bit more hot sauce you may be thinking we're finished but we're not finished yet you have to have some garlic french bread on the side to sop up that last little bit i love to eat my red beans with a fork you may eat church with a spoon i'm not going to trust you really but to each his own and that's it y'all that's how easy it is to make red beans and rice the new orleans way oh yeah right now i instantly hear brass bands playing in the background rich creamy not too spicy beautiful texture on the red beans nice and soft the smoked turkey sausage is perfect in this dish you

Channel: Food Network

Views: 248,019

Keywords: food network, food, cooking, recipe, cook, chef, eat, recipes, easy recipes, easy recipe, food network recipes, Kenneth temple, Louisiana classic, southern food, family dinner, family meals, creole, Cajun food, Cajun recipes, red beans and rice, Louisiana food, Louisiana, Creole Seasoning, Southern, Cajun, red beans, rice, dinner, Creole cuisine, creole dinner, rice and beans, South Louisiana, dinner ideas, southern recipes, southern cuisine, Smoked Turkey Neck Stock, turkey sausage

Id: cSie0gBzsMI

Length: 21min 42sec (1302 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2022