Transcript: Soul Food

Budget Health Nut
Episode “Soul food”

Joe Dias: Hi and welcome to Budget Health Nut, I am your host Joe Dias. The focus of our program is preparing meals for you under $25 while serving anywhere between 2 to 8 people, depending on our dish. In other word I am bringing you 5 star flavors on a 2 star budget.
Now here at Budget Health Nut we like to offer some smart choices for some tasty cooking while also reducing calories compared to eating out at restraints all the time. Now keep in mind, moderation is the key here and focusing on your portion sizes.
Now today we are going to do some soul food. Blackened catfish and we are going to sear that in a pan. Then also along side some collard greens. Then also a long side some collared greens, and some red beans and rice, one of my favorite dishes. So let's take it into the kitchen, we will blacken up some catfish for your soul food style. And I really can't wait to bite into it; it is one of my favorites. I am sure to be one of yours, I will see you there.
All right welcome to the kitchen. Here we are a little bit of soul food today; we are going to do some blackened catfish. And of course you cannot do without the sides, collared greens with some red beans and rice, and all along what a side of yummy cornbread. Now I will keep the butter a way from all that though, because I think this dish is going to be hardy as it, just pretty much as it is. And the blackened catfish is easy; it is not really that big of a deal. I am not a big fan of fried food; fried catfish to meet kind of takes the flavor out of it.
So the blackened stuff, which really consists of black pepper, chili powder, cayenne, onion powder and some garlic powder. You mix those altogether, dredged the fish with it and you just flash fry it in the pan. Pop it in the oven for eight minutes, and that bad boy is done. Now the thing you are going to have to plan ahead for are the collards, and the red beans and rice. Those take a little bit longer. Sometimes up to two hours and with some garlic and some onion, those things cannot miss.
So let's go ahead and turn on the heat here and get this thing boiling. And what I'm going to do is reduced as water and the ham hock to about half way below the ham Hock OK. And what I'm going to do is soak this ham Hock in the water and add some onions and garlic of course and we are going to put a little bit of cayenne in their, the heat things up, again also great for the bloodstream. I use it a lot in my cooking. A good blood thinner, it gets things pumping.
The biggest keys to red beans and rice a gay and is preplanning, all right? So that is really the biggest trick with cooking in the kitchen successfully anyway, is planning a dish, the red beans I had them soaking overnight. And what happens is they get really plump and they suck in all that water. I think the overnight thing is great, but if you only have 2 or maybe three hours in advance you might want to start them in the morning so that you can cook them. Because this is a dish that really takes about three hours to reduce down and cook it right. Especially with the hard being, the red beans. And then you are going to add some rice later, which takes a little time to fluff up to.
So this is getting ready to boil up here, let me add these beans, put the lid on it and really we are done for the next hour or so on this bad boy. Okay we checked on these red beans and rice, and they only have about 20 minutes left on it so it is time to start the catfish. I got some nice big huge fillets of catfish, just the way I like them. You know maybe it will be too much for our friends but I think I can eat a whole one.
The dredge is probably the most important part on the blackened part. Um, what we are going to do it is a mixture of cayenne, chili powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. And we are going to make those altogether, and then we are going to take our raw catfish. Now meanwhile while I'm doing that I have my oil already heated up. Like I said we are going to go ahead and sear that, and blacken it in effect. Then we are going to pop it in the oven, and let it cook to about seven or eight minutes until it gets flaky.
All right, so let's dredge that up, very nice and into the pan, ooh, watch the splatter a little bit OK. Because the fish, you are going to want to back up. Let me grab my tongs here. And about two minutes, honestly the other side gets really black really quick. So you are going to want to take a little peek under their, a little peek. Okay maybe one more minute and it should be ready to flip. Okay let's go ahead and flip it. And what is going to happen is I am going to want to do it the same amount time on that side, put it in a baking pan. Or maybe even just a clear baking dish, pop it in the oven seven or eight minutes, and we have fish.
So uh, we will go ahead and played up the red beans and rice, the greens, and of course the catfish. The catfish is the star of the show. I will see you there and I can't wait to chow down on some soul food. Whew.
Whew, all right man we blew up some soul food today, I want to thank Andra Milian for coming today. Registered herbalist, licensed, as well as a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine thanks for coming. Let me break down the plate for you real quick, of course we have our red beans and rice, can go with soul food without it. Then of course the spicy greens in some cornbread. And what takes of the most part of our played the yummy blackened catfish. I can't wait to dig in. Can you break down and tell me a little bit about the plate for me, what do we have going on?
Andra: Well, what I love about this is portion sizes, so the size of your Palm if you are a guy especially on this fish. The size is about a deck of cards or the size of your Palm for your protein. Two handfuls of Veg, you cannot go wrong with that. I like the fact that in the red beans and rice, the rice is a whole grain. It is brown rice. So that is great because the whole grain takes longer to break down than white flour or white gluten grains.
Joe: So it will give you a longer energy?
Andra: The collard greens are a nice cooling, they are a bitter green, and they are a bitter flavor which in Chinese medicine is cooling. So that is a nice offset to the spices in the fish.
Joe: And the cayenne and the red pepper also lend itself to that to, good for circulation.
Andra: Right, good for circulation, very energetic heat building meal.
Joe: Good. Well as far as calories are concerned we are looking at you know, it is a tough one to really tackle here so I'm not really going to lie to you. The only really good thing about that is I didn't deep-fry the fish. From that aspect I'm still looking at a hefty 15 to 1400. But I think if you juxtapose that may be eating out, you're looking at maybe 1800. Because they load you up on those portions, they get so big.
Andra: Huge portions, lots more fat’s.
Joe: Yes that is true, so I think I help that with the olive oil instead of the butter. And on top of that pricewise, with this because the catfish was so big I went ahead and splurged a little bit. It is about $5.50 a plate. But the blackened I know for a fact because they just had some the other night, I paid $14 at a restaurant for that. So you're fried fish places you might spend a little bit cheaper, but again you are sacrificing your health that way.
I will tell you what let us just dig in, and let's just past the taste test and see what happens.
Andra: I am going to try some of these beans.
Joe: You know what I'm going for the fish, why not let's try. Oh nuts, let's try this, this might be really good, lemon with fish. It is like they are married to each other.
Andra: Really nice really good.
Joe: Holy Moly that is awesome, my goodness.
Andra: Is it, let me try some of my greens too.
Joe: Let me begin here. Whew that’s spicy.
Andra: I like just the little kick in the end.
Joe: Alright well I think this was a winner, I tell you what you guys go try the spice rub that I showed you for the blackened catfish. And you cannot go wrong, cheers to you and your family. And go ahead and enjoy some soul food, take it easy. Thanks for coming Andra.
Andra: Thanks.
Joe: Very yummy let's try to more fish.