I wasn’t quite sure how “authentic” 12-29: New Orleans Beans and Pasta would be when first looking this recipe over–Simply Delicious doesn’t exactly nail it on cultural faithfulness a lot of the time. A lot of that has to do with the time at which the books were written–many ingredients, methods, & tools that are easily accessible now were not 30 years ago.
However, this is essentially an American recipe, so I would assume it shouldn’t be that far off–if this is in fact a real New Orleans dish. 🎷
I wonder how many different linens/vases/glasses/odd statues they had to accumulate to photograph all of these different recipes. Just a thought I had while looking at this picture. Another thought: who decided on some of these things? What makes this picture decidedly New Orleans? ⚜🎉
The seasonings they suggest there are basically making a version of creole seasoning, which you can make yourself for other dishes, or buy premixed.
Ingredients. Here we go with the substitutions: swapped pinto beans for white beans, my own blend of chili powder for mixed chili spices (a mistake, too much cumin for this recipe), shishito peppers for canned chili peppers, and tomato bouillon for funsies. This is going to be a very multicultural dish–would it count as fusion cuisine?
Boiled some noodles–they show more of a linguine or fettuccine type noodle in their pictures, but I was in the mood for something that would be more similar in size to the rest of the ingredients in the dish. Farfalle was the only non-spaghetti noodle I had in the house at the time.
Sliced the shishito peppers–if nothing else, they’ll be a nice dash of color.
At this point it just seems like weird chili.
Now it’s bizarro chili. I guess at least it’s colorful? 🌈
Cheese sounds good in theory, but it’s going to get thicker and stickier now. I realize I’m not doing a great job of selling this dish, but it’s just not the kind of dish I tend to like to eat. Don’t let me dissuade you from it though–my husband Adam really liked it.
This recipe is in the foreground, and the pot in the back contains 3-4: New Orleans Bean Soup. Since the ingredients were so similar, I figured it was a good idea to make them both at the same time.
Final dish. Not my bag, but it was appreciated anyway. For a relatively cheap, easy, and somewhat interesting weeknight dinner dish, it’d probably get the job done.
Grade: B+
