Cajun Vegetables at Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen by Ruth Paget

Cajun Vegetables at Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen by Ruth Paget 

Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen is most famous for its deep-fried chicken sandwich combination meals, but I sometimes like going to Popeye’s for a spicy Cajun vegetable meal. 

Louisiana vegetable sides often feature an addition of spicy andouille sausage, whose ancestor is a mild andouille sausage from France. Andouille sausage from Louisiana is made with pork butt, garlic, salt, black pepper, and spicy cayenne pepper according to the Taste of Artisan website. 

This type of andouille sausage is added to a sauté of onions, green bell pepper, celery, tomato paste, garlic, cooked red beans, chicken stock and hot sauce to make a stew according to the Damn Delicious website. Once the stew is cooked, these beans are served alongside cooked white rice. 

Red beans and rice is a Cajun comfort food from the Louisiana countryside. I like to order it with a chilled coleslaw, a chopped salad made with cabbage, carrots, and onions with a cream dressing. 

Popeye’s also offers Cajun fries with cayenne-heavy Cajun seasoning and mashed potatoes with spicy Cajun gravy. 

Monterey County does not have a Popeye’s as of August 2024, but there are two locations within the Congressional district: 

-Watsonville Auto Mall outside Santa Cruz 

-Gilroy Cross Mall by Barnes and Noble outside San Jose 

I like exotic fast food at a reasonable price, and Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen is just perfect for this. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Ferdi's New Orleans Fare in Seaside, California by Ruth Paget

Ferdi’s New Orleans Fare in Seaside, California by Ruth Paget 

I used to eat lunch at Ferdi’s, a New Orleans café, in Seaside (California) when I was in graduate school at San José State University in library and information science.  

I would go to Ferdi’s with my up-and-coming filmmaker friend C. We ate Po’Boy Sandwiches with spicy fried fish or oysters on the left side of the restaurant. The right side of the restaurant was a “sit-down” restaurant for dishes like Shrimp Creole. 

We were on the Cajun or country side of the restaurant. We drank icy cold Coca-Colas with our Po’Boy Sandwiches. Baton Rouge, Louisiana is the gastronomic capital of Cajun cooking, which features many deep-fried dishes. 

The gastronomic capital of Creole cuisine is obviously New Orleans, Louisiana. Like the city’s architecture and gardens, the food of New Orleans has both French and Spanish roots. 

New Orleans has several dishes that can be made in large quantities that caterers might be interested in trying. Some of these dishes might even be suitable for freezer storage, which might make New Orleans cringe, but Paul Bocuse in France made a fortune on his frozen food. I found several dishes among the 288 recipes in The New Orleans Cookbook: Creole, Cajun, and Louisiana French Recipes – Past and Present by Rima Collin and Richard Collin that could be adopted for frozen or refrigerator storage such as: 

-baked and breaded oysters – warmed up these would taste good dipped in sriracha mayonnaise for a modern twist 

-Creole shrimp and crab gumbo that is thickened with gummy okra slices. This stew uses a classic Creole flavoring combination of onion, green pepper, and shallots to flavor it that many other Creole dishes also use such as Shrimp Creole. 

-Cajun oyster and sausage gumbo thickened with filé. Filé is a powder made of dried sassafras leaves 

-navy white bean soup seasoned with onions, shallots, and green peppers and pieces of French garlic sausage 

-red bean soup seasoned like the white bean soup 

-spicy red beans and rice 

-white beans, rice, and smoked sausage 

-jambalaya – a rice dish whose Spanish ancestor is paella. Rice is the major cash crop of Louisiana 

-crabmeat au gratin – a baked dish of crab, heavy cream, and cheddar cheese 

-crawfish étoufée –a one dish meal made with crawfish tails, onions, green pepper, celery, and shallots over rice. Crawfish is pronounced “crayfish.” 

-spicy shrimp Creole is called shrimp sauce piquante in the cookbook and is served over rice 

-trout amandine is served with a sauce made of butter, sliced almonds, and lemon juice 

-New Orleans Trout Sauce Normande – made with butter, poaching liquid, and Calvados (apple brandy) 

You can try dishes like these at Ferdi’s in Seaside, California or make them at home using the very useful 288 recipes in The New Orleans Cookbook by Rima Collin and Richard Collin. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books