Boudin.....what would you do

I received a package of boudin today from a co-worker. His uncle from Louisiana made a big batch of it. There is a mix of wild boar links and regular pork links (he's not sure which is which). I'm from Washington state (living in Austin) so I really have no idea what to do with this outside of warming it up and eating it like a brat.

I thought it would be fun to bring the members here in on this. Post your ideas on what I should do with these. I'll try to pick a couple and cook them at home, taking photos and notes along the way to post back here. Here are the tools I do not have at home. Pressure cooker, sous vide, vacuum sealer, fryer. Outside of that I'm an open to anything (bearing in mind I have a 9 - 5, a 2.5 year old and second due in a week).

Congratulations, in advance, on the new arrival. (Your "second," not the boudin -- though perhaps you should be congratulated on that arrival too.)

I don't have anything helpful to suggest for the boudin -- my closest ties to LA are my son's attendance at Tulane and a local best friend who is from LA but not much of a cook -- but it seems to me that you should plan on cooking anything in the next week, and not expect to have much or any free time after that.

Good luck, regardless.

FWIW: http://boudinlink.com/Recipes/Boudin_Peppers/Boudin_Peppers.html

Waiting for Labor of Love to chime in as I believe he a Cajun Chef

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Serve it with red beans and rice, a salad and cornbread.

My best experiences with Boudin have been at crawfish boils...split it into multiple batches, and interleave with boiling crawfish, potatoes and corn. Your water volume should be determined by the volume of food you are making...I think you need about 5-6 batches of crawfish (and the seasonings that go along with them) to get the water nice and seasoned. That's my limited experience.

tkern could probably provide some recommendations as well. At his restaurant I've had it simply grilled, but I know they do other things with it.

Grilled boudin is the traditional route but the casings will rip. Just how boudin cooks. You could always uncase it and stuff it into something like a boned out chicken.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'll probably try the red beans and rice per Pensacola. Be easy to prepare, easy to eat.

tkern, grilling was what I originally thought I'd do, but wasn't aware of the casing ripping. The stuffing the chicken is an interesting idea. In my short time here I have developed an itch to try ballotine chicken.

Zwiefel, that's how the cajun store down here serves them for lunch (that way, and just by themselves w/ beans and rice). Unfortunately I missed the crawfish season.

We have a bar snack that we roll boudin into balls flour/egg/bread crumbs and fry it.

tkern said:

We have a bar snack that we roll boudin into balls flour/egg/bread crumbs and fry it.

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At home I would do a patty if I was going the fried route. Easier to fry in a pan. Put a fried egg on top of it and make a sauce for it if you'd want (creole mustard, cane syrup/molasses, and vinegar is one variation you'll see). A little salad on the side to make yourself feel better and you're good to go.

JDA_NC said:

At home I would do a patty if I was going the fried route. Easier to fry in a pan. Put a fried egg on top of it and make a sauce for it if you'd want (creole mustard, cane syrup/molasses, and vinegar is one variation you'll see). A little salad on the side to make yourself feel better and you're good to go.

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Both of these sound good. It should be interesting.

Some stores down here make boudin kolaches. While the taste is good, the texture leaves something to be desired.

I would use it to fill piroshkis. Homemade piroshki, fresh fried are the best. Indulge a bit What could be better than fatty meat fried in a dough crisp bread?

A) put it in a ziplock bag, put the bag in a crock pot, or pot of simmering water to heat it. Cut the casing, spread it on toast with mustard and pickles.
B) heat same as above but squeeze directly from the casing into your mouth like a meaty freezer pop. This is "roadside style"

Because the meat has been boiled to bits already and the high content of rice boudin does not like direct, sustained, or high heat. That's why I recommend the ziplock method for heating.

If you are feeling fancier debone a bird (good excuse to Google Jacque Pepin) and roll the uncased sausage in the bird. My boss has a recipe for a similar turkey roulade floating around the internet, I think it was in Saveur, but the Pepin directions are better. I really just like it with mustard. When I was making it every day I would pull out a little bit hot from the mixer and make a little white bread sandwich. Maybe I'll make some for Christmas this year. Boudin...

Yeah I dont have any secret wisdom for boudin really. I wouldnt eat it with red beans personally, but thats just me. Im used to just eating it straight up or using it as stuffing primarily. Stuffing a pork loin, quail, or whole chicken would probably be my favorite uses. Or serve it straight up on crackers, toast points or whatever along with some mustard (not yellow or dijon but rather creole mustard or some other spicy whole grain mustard) or pepper jelly, or maybe cream cheese and pickled jalapenos. It works in omelets, or over grits w/ poached eggs....Alot of bars in my area like to take it out the casing and portion it into balls/freeze/ batter and fry the balls to order. Good finger food/football game snack.

This reminds me of the convo I had with my wife. She needed to add iron to her diet. The Dr gave her a list of iron rich foods with liver being #1. She had never had liver before (but said she hated it), and I mentioned I had liver and onions when I was kid (with gravy). I told her I was sure someone out there had recipes to incorporate liver into a dish that wasn't liver and onions. Pulled up trusty google and here were the top 10 results.
Liver and onions
Liver and onions
Liver and onions
Onion and livers
Liver and onions
Liver and onions
etc....

I imagine there are recipes out there, but it gave me a chuckle.

Dirty rice. I'll post a recipe later, but a good way to sneak liver in.

Liver: looks like you're only considering beef liver. But I believe chicken liver contains even larger concentrations of iron. So lots of possibilities there, including pates, pasta variations, etc.

Ok. We have it regularly with garlic onion and capsicum. The trick is to have it as fresh as possible And to get the skin off. May need to ask my parents for the recipe.

Rami and Dardeau, look forward to it.

Larrybard, I'll check at our grocery Saturday, see what they have around. Thanks.

I like to grind chicken livers into all sorts of stuff, meat for bolo, dumpling filling, meatballs, etc. I also like them fried. I'm not really into calves or pork liver too much, most of my livery fun comes from chicken and rabbit livers. I also really like them fried.

Dirty rice:
This is a restaurant sized amount. Scale down, or freeze in small amounts without the rice added.

In a large pan brown 8# ground pork (70/30 fat, or ground butt if grinding it yourself) until very dark, deglazing. This is a sugo kind of deal where you brown, let the meat stick, deglaze with chicken stock, scraping with a wood spoon, repeat. You want this very dark, all the fat rendered out, with a dryish, crumbly texture. You want to season with salt, pepper, and cayenne at the very beginning, the salt really helps the pork sear.

Once you have the desired color and texture, add one gallon of diced onion, four or so bruniosed seeded jalapeños, and a quart of sweeter peppers, bells or poblanos, diced. This should fry a little in all the rendered fat from the pork. Continue to brown and deglaze until the veg is almost totally browned and broken down, add 3T of chopped garlic and 2T of chopped fresh thyme. Cook that through until the garlic is brown, but not burned and add 1/2-1# of finely chopped or ground chicken liver, depending on your love of the organ meat. Do not cook it very hard, the more you cook it the more irony and organy it will be. Just cook it through. This is your base, freeze or refer what you don't use.

If scaling down, add cooked rice to the pan, if cooking from a stored base heat the base in a sauté pan till warm. Add cooked white rice until you get your personal desired meat to rice ratio, add a little stock to bind it all together, and mount in a nice knob of whole butter to make a little sauce, not too loose, more helping the whole mass stick together, like heating risotto. Mix in a shitload of sliced green onions. Imagine your grandmother made it. Eat it with roast chicken, confit duck, braised rabbit (using each critters livers for the rice) etc. if you have any questions ask!

And with adding organs to anything, like bolo or other ground meat things add it at the end, and cook it lightly. It really makes a difference not hammering it. Even frying them.

rami_m said:

The trick is to have it as fresh as possible And to get the skin off.

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Also this, there is a little membrane that needs to be peeled off with a paring knife.

Dardeau, that sounds really good. I promise I will make it. I don't know when, but I will make it.

Btw, one grandma mostly made cheese toast ( cheese melted on toast) and the other made ableskevers, fried pies, doughnuts and piggies (pork sausage bfast links, wrapped in bisquick wrappers. Essentially pigs in a blanket). She grew up just down the road from Solvang, CA. So not a lot of gma cooking memories that are applicable to this.

i like it made from pork belly, plain steamed. might try braising in abita beer next time.

I find belly too fatty for boudin, you skim off most of the fat in the cooking process. Now stuffing crispy rendered belly with boudin is another story.

I think I have an idea. I have no idea if it will work, if it will be good or anything like that. You guys can feel free to chime in and let me know your thoughts on whether it will work together. It's more like an experiment.

So, in the freezer at home I have several vacuum sealed filets of cured, smoked chinook salmon that I caught on the Columbia river last September. It is very, very good. So here is what I want to try (and probably fail. But hey, that's part of the fun)

Slice the boudin into rounds. Sear the rounds quickly on a hot cast iron skillet. See if I can get a crust on each side. Cut the salmon into thin strips, wrap around the boudin rounds (much like you would bacon wrap something). Let the residual heat of the boudin warm the salmon. You would have bite sized pieces of smoked salmon wrapped boudin. I would think you would need something clean and acidic to cut through the fat and salt of both, but I'm not sure what that would be.

I also kicked around the thought of wrapping these pieces up in a bit of puff pastry or something, then baking.

Feel free to tell me I'm crazy. It will probably be terrible, but hey, you never know. I have 4 links, so I'd probably only try it with one. Give the others a more traditional life. :0

you're crazy.

I would not sear the boudin. Remember it is mostly rice so you have to be careful not to burn the rice. Maybe wrap uncased boudin in salmon and sear that?

Boudin also dosent slice too hot.