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Have a spicy Thanksgiving with these Cajun recipes

Krista Driscoll
kdriscoll@summitdaily.com
Give your Thanksgiving dinner a touch of flair this season with some Cajun-inspired recipes from Raymond “Captain Griff” Griffin, owner of The Lost Cajun in Frisco.
Krista Driscoll / kdriscoll@summitdaily.com |

Catch Griff on TV

Raymond “Captain Griff” Griffin, owner of The Lost Cajun in Frisco, will host a short cooking segment on Fox 31’s “Good Day Colorado” on Tuesday, Nov. 25, around 8:45 a.m. Tune in to see more recipes for Cajun sides and appetizers for your Thanksgiving table.

Give your Thanksgiving dinner a touch of flair this season with some Cajun-inspired recipes from Raymond “Captain Griff” Griffin, owner of The Lost Cajun restaurant in Frisco.

“Everyone always does turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce or corn,” Griff said. “Whatever they do, add a little flair to it” with the “trilogy” — his term for a mix of chopped onion, bell pepper (yellow, orange and red) and celery, with a bit of minced garlic thrown in. It’s the base for many Cajun dishes from his hometown of Barataria, Louisiana.

“Use the trilogy in your cornbread dressing. Use it in your gravy with the giblets. It’s all wholesome products, it adds color, and it brightens up any dish.”



“In Louisiana, everything is seafood-based, with celery, vegetables,” Griff said. “It’s grown locally, inexpensive, easy to cook and feeds a lot of people — a little color, a little spice in your life from the folks in Louisiana to Summit County.”



CAJUN DEVILED EGGS

Once the eggs have been boiled, these Cajun devils take less than five minutes to prepare.

4 to 6 eggs

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Trilogy (onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic)

Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning

Salt and pepper

Finely chop the trilogy, mix in a bit of minced garlic, and throw a couple of tablespoons of the mixture into a medium-sized bowl. Slice the boiled eggs in half, and pop the middles out into the bowl. Add mayonnaise, and stir. Add Tony’s seasoning, salt and pepper to taste. Arrange egg halves on a plate, and stuff with mixture. Top with more of the trilogy for color and another dash of Tony’s for spice.

BARBECUE SHRIMP

These shrimp get their flavor from your favorite barbecue sauce and a dash of the holy trilogy of onion, bell pepper and celery with a bit of garlic. Use only a capful or so of barbecue sauce so the flavor isn’t overpowering.

“You don’t want to do too much because you want to be able to taste all of your vegetables,” Griff said.

½ ounce cooking oil

5 or 6 large, tail-on Gulf shrimp

Trilogy (onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic)

½ ounce barbecue sauce (any kind, whatever you like)

Lemon juice

Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning

White rice, cooked

Slivers of garlic bread

Chop the trilogy, and add a bit of minced garlic. Sautee the vegetables and garlic in oil for a few minutes over medium-high heat. Butterfly the shrimp slightly by running a knife across the back, and add them to the pan. Sautee for a few more minutes until shrimp are fully cooked, and then add lemon juice, a half-ounce of barbecue sauce and Tony’s seasoning. Cook until barbecue sauce begins to caramelize. Serve over a bed of white rice with slivers of garlic bread and another dash of Tony’s.

HOMEMADE BEIGNETS

At The Lost Cajun, the beignets are made from scratch, but for those of us without the time to perfect these fried pastry doughnuts, Griff offers a simpler version that doesn’t require any more skill than the ability to open a tube of store-bought biscuits.

“In the morning, while everyone is cooking, the kids are running around saying, ‘I’m hungry,’ and they don’t have time to have breakfast,” Griff said. “So make some beignets to satisfy them and keep their mouths shut. In Louisiana, you sit them outside and they can make a mess, they have all the energy, and they’re good until lunch.”

1 can store-bought biscuits (any brand, not the flaky kind)

Flour

Frying oil (The Lost Cajun uses soy oil)

Confectioner’s sugar

Heat the frying oil to 375 degrees. Open the tube of biscuits, and pat down both sides of each biscuit with flour. Roll each biscuit out until it is thin, and then use a pizza cutter to square off the edges. Save the edge scraps to make beignet bites. Lay the dough squares in the hot fry oil. When they float to the top of the oil, splash a small amount of oil over the tops of the dough to make them rise. Fry until the beignets are golden, flipping them once. Drain the cooked beignets on paper towels to soak up some of the oil, and then dust with confectioner’s sugar. The dough scraps can be fried in similar fashion and dusted with sugar to make beignet bites.


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