Continuing with the trend of exploring the culinary exploits of my family, this week I will explore my brothers’ favorite dish.
A little background, I have two younger brothers who are identical twins. They go just about everywhere together, do everything together and eat mostly the same foods.
This particular creation was the product of a singular thought had by one of them, “What if?”
They are huge fans of spicy foods, in fact the spicier the better, and one dish they regularly made was cajun seasoned pork. It is pork, cut up into chunks, and cooked down in a pan with cajun seasoning and water.
It is hot, that is for sure.
However, one day they decided to take it a step further.
They had boiled some plain macaroni noodles, another food they like, and they decided to try mixing the two.
They poured the cooked pork into the cooked pasta and mixed them together. The result changed dinner as they knew it, or so they joke.
The pasta acts as a nice counterbalance to the spicy pork, offering a rich meal with different textures throughout.
It is worth noting that chicken can also be used, it does not have to be pork.
CAJUN SEASONING
Ingredients
1 teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon of crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon of garlic powder
1 ½ teaspoon of paprika (can be adjusted up or down depending on desired heat)
½ teaspoon of black pepper
½ teaspoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon of italian seasoning
Directions
■ Add ingredients together in a container and mix well.
CAJUN PASTA
Ingredients
Cajun seasoning
1 pound of pork or chicken (cut doesn’t matter)
16 ounces of preferred pasta
Directions
■ Cook pasta in boiling salted water.
■ Cut meat into 1 inch pieces.
■ Place the meat in a skillet with a small amount of water, and season with the cajun seasoning.
■ Cook on medium heat until the meat is done, stirring often.
■ Don’t drain the meat.
■ Drain the pasta, and add a little pasta water to the meat pan to loosen it.
■ Combine the meat and pasta in a bowl and stir well.
■ Can add more cajun seasoning to make it spicier if desired.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 46 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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