Recipe #28 - Catfish Courtboullion

Kevin Belton is a chef from Louisiana who I enjoy watching cook on our local PBS station. He is very animated, and enjoys doing what he does, no matter what he is doing. I caught just the end of one of his shows a couple days ago, and he was doing a catfish courtboullion. Now I've had catfish from the Kalamazoo River, the Detroit River, the Muskegon River, the Boy Scout lake that shall remain non-specified, and the Allegan River below the dam. But I've never ever heard of courtboullion. (You say co - boo - YON.)

So I went online looking for this particular recipe of his but it was not to be found. Actually, there were very few courtboullion recipes at all. But I found a couple, and then merged them into what I created last night for our Ash Wednesday dinner.

Ingredients:

turn of the pan EVOO
1 sweet vidalia onion diced
1 sweet red bell pepper diced
2 celery ribs diced
2 garlic cloves minced
4 roma tomatoes diced
several slices of pickled jalapeno slices, with seeds
dried garden herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil
creole seasoning (I will reproduce my version of this, but my list is in another room and I'm lazy)
14 oz chicken broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 bay leaf
1/4 c noir pinot
splash of lemon juice
dash of hot sauce
1/2 c long grain brown rice
1/2 c water
small drip of EVOO
1/2 c diced green onions, for garnish
2# catfish cut into slices

Now friends, I way overdid it on the heat for this one. I think I left too many seeds in those chili slices from last years garden, or maybe my 1/2 tsp Cayenne powder ended up being 1/2 tbs. Either way, I had a cold beverage to help out with the heat, but the flavor was absolutely spot on.

This is how we assembled it:

In my favorite dutch oven, I sauteed the onion, peppers and celery in some EVOO.

After about five minutes, I added the garlic, garden herbs, jalapeno, and tomatoes and stirred it all together.

Then I added the stock and soup, bay leaf, Creole seasoning, and hot sauce.

On the back burner I cooked the rice until the water was gone.

This got the lid put on it, and we let it simmer with the fire on medium high for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
I added the fish, making sure each piece was submerged, and let it cook on low another ten minutes, then turned off the fire and let it sit for another five.

Serve over rice and then top with the green onions.

What a treat this was! I'll make it again; thank you Kevin Belton!!