Last night, I finished work late and didn’t want to go to the store, so I kinda whipped something up based on what ingredients I just happened to have in the house. It worked out in the end, but there were a few back-and-forth ideas, and one side that just didn’t work out.

I had: boneless-skinless chicken breasts, celery, onion, roasted red bell peppers (in a jar), a single egg, olive oil, butter, one large potato, risotto rice, homemade chicken stock, half a bottle of sparkling wine, sour cream, some key limes left over from the pompano, and a lot of spices.

The original plan was a cajun chicken over a crisped potato pancake, but I tried to be healthy and used egg white instead of a whole egg to bind the potato, and it just fell into a mess trying to fry it up in a pan. I’ve had potato pancakes most of my life (Polish/German background not to mention I was raised Catholic — good meatless Lent dish), and I’ve made them zillions of times, but things were just not binding last night. So, instead of salvaging a soupy mess of scorched pan/liquid potato-oil for something that was just going to be dressed with the main course, I changed tack and decided to make a semi-instant risotto thing I do.

The basis of most Cajun food is a “trinity”, similar to a French mirepoix. I once heard that the French Acadians substituted bell pepper for carrots after settling in Louisiana because it was tough to grow carrots in the warm, swampy soil. I don’t know how true that is, but trinity is onion, celery, and bell pepper, diced or chopped. I like using roasted red bells instead of green because they’re sweeter, and they look prettier.
More Pictures and recipe here