Couche Couche

This is another traditional food that gets misrepresented. I can not tell you how many times I have seen and heard people call cornbread and milk couche-couche. Cornbread and milk is not couche-couche it is cornbread and milk. It is not bad. I grew up on cornbread and milk. It was never called anything else but cornbread and milk. My mother never made couche-couche. I encountered it later in my life and fell in love with it. Only one restaurant in south Louisiana has it on its menu. If anyone knows of another let me know. Cafe des Amis in Breaux Bridge is the one I know. OK now for the technical stuff. Cornbread is a baked product. Couche-couche is fried and steamed on the top of the stove in a cast iron skillet. Below is the skillet heating up with fat (in this case bacon drippings). Heat it on high until almost smoking then bring down to medium.





Below is the mixture of corn meal (stone ground in this case), salt, baking soda, and baking powder with liquid (you can use milk I usually use water). The consistency should be of wet sand. Although it has all the ingredients usually found in cornbread it takes a different course




Now you put the mixture in the skillet and let it fry for a minute or two on medium. At the end of that time you scrape the skillet bring up the crust that has formed and stir into the mixture

I like a lot of crust in my couche-couche so I do this process at least 5 times. Below is the result of that

Then you put the heat on low and cover and steam for 15 minutes.

Into a bowl with milk. The traditional accompaniment is Steen's Cane Syrup but I like preserves also especially fig since that is what I put in my cornbread and milk as a youth. This time I had a sorta of combo of that. A vendor at the local farmer's market was selling jars of syrup left over from canning figs. The best of both worlds.