Chicken Big Mamou

I made this dish the Monday before Mardi Gras. Mamou is one of my favorites from the Paul Prudhomme Louisiana Kitchen Cookbook, along with his jalapeno-cheddar yeast rolls. Both are great for a wintry day at home; fortunately it was a holiday, so I could spend the day watching it snow and puttering around in my kitchen -- this is especially important for bread baking and all the punching, rising, and shaping that goes along with bread from scratch.

Since I had all that time, I also took pictures of the cooking process -- always a great inspiration to get into your own kitchen and cook! The full Mamou recipe is readily available online if you Google it, so I won't include it here. I highly recommend the cookbook if you like Cajun cooking, or you can probably get it from your library.


Assemble all the ingredients for the two spice mixes -- one for the rich tomato sauce and one for the chicken rub.

I assemble the spice mixes in small bowls; as you can see, there are lots of onions, both white and scallions, chopped pretty fine. Oh, and butter. Lots of butter! It already looks good deconstructed.

Heaven on earth is a bunch of onions sauteeing in butter! This is the first step to the sauce -- one cup of white onion and minced garlic.

You add in tomato sauce, Worcestershire, spice mix, chicken stock, half the chopped scallions, tabasco, etc., and simmer for 40 minutes before adding the chicken. It smells so good!

I used about 2lbs. of chicken breast, cubed up. Mix it up with the rub mix (these are heavy on the pepper, as you can see in the first photo -- black, white, and cayenne. Saute in more butter along with the rest of the scallions until it's cooked through. It then goes into the sauce after its 40-minute simmer.

Add the chicken to the sauce. You'll be doing lots of tasting at this point. You may want to lap it straight from the pot but control yourself. It's hot! Cook the pasta and get a plate.

Ooo la la! On the plate with a fresh yeast roll.