Introduction to Making a Catfish Courtbouillon Recipe

Series Summary

Cajun and Creole cuisine originate from a city full of life, nestled along the southern coast of the United States; some call it the Big Easy, some call it New Orleans, Louisiana. As a city that represents a crossroads of influences from all over the world, mixing music, people, religion, and culture, New Orleans—or Nola for short—has produced some of the most interesting and popular concoctions of food and drink that the southern United States has ever had the pleasure of tasting, including crawfish etoufee, jambalaya, gumbo, and yes, pecan pie.

In this free video series, our expert will show you how to make a traditional Nola recipe called fish court bouillon, a tomato-based stew. The dish has its origins in classic French cuisine, but has changed dramatically over time… and in the hands of Louisianan chefs. Our cook prepares his particular version of the fish stew with catfish and Creole seasonings, which includes a staple of Cajun/Creole cooking, the holy trinity: green peppers, celery, and onions. Watch these video clips for tips and a step-by-step guide to making Creole style catfish court bouillon.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Karl James and on behalf of expertvillage.com, I am going to share with you today a recipe that I learned from my mom. It's a dish that she used to prepare quite often at my request. It's called Fish Courtbouillon. Basically fish Courtbouillon is a thick rich fish stew and it is brimming all kinds of those creole flavors. I love this recipe and I love this dish. Today we are going to use catfish. You can use any kind of fish that you like. A lot of times she uses catfish because she liked catfish but on top of that one of the traditional fish is a red fish that you can use. Back then they used to use a lot of the fish heads in the backbone of the fish so that you would actually get pieces of bone in the fish but it brought out such great flavor. Today we are going to use fillets and I hope you enjoy it. "