Episode Transcript
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Doug (00:01):
Hey Pittsburgh Dish
listeners, Doug here.
This week we're serving up aspotlight episode and kind of
revisiting our summer reciperoad trip, Yet again.
When a really kind person thatcooks from the heart comes into
your life, it's nice to givethem a little bit of shine.
For me, that is Captain CobyBailey of Lafayette, Louisiana.
Coby is a Navy veteran,firefighter, husband, dad and an
(00:25):
amazing home cook.
Coby has competed on seasonfour of The Great American
Recipe on PBS and I'll just sayhe's done very well.
Personally, we've connectedthrough social media, talked on
the phone a couple of times andhe was gracious enough to send
me some of his Cajun seasoning.
Let's give him a call and gethis masterclass version of of
his Cajun seasoning.
Let's give him a call and gethis masterclass version of a
(00:47):
traditional Cajun dish.
Good morning, hey.
Good morning, Coby.
How are you Doing?
Fantastic.
How are you?
I'm doing really well.
Thank you so much for takingsome time to be on The
Pittsburgh Dish.
Well, thank you for having me.
So, Coby, I'm calling for acouple reasons.
Number one I want to thank youfor this amazing package of
(01:12):
seasonings that you justrecently sent me.
You have been doing, I believe,a YouTube channel and kind of
creating some of these spicesfor a while.
Is that right?
Coby (01:21):
I do.
I have a YouTube channel calledCaptain Coby's Cajun Cooking
and what we do is I try to do astep-by-step kind of tutorial on
how to make fantastic Cajunfood Fantastic Cajun food.
Doug (01:37):
You are a lifelong guy
from Louisiana, Is that right?
Oh yeah.
Coby (01:41):
Born and raised.
I tell everybody I can onlyhide in Louisiana.
I talk kind of bad.
So if I had to hide outanywhere I'd have to hide out
over here in Louisiana.
Doug (01:52):
Goodness Well, I love it.
Another thing that we have incommon, I mean a couple of
things we both love to cook.
We also have both competed onThe Great American Recipe on PBS
.
I was on season three.
You are being featured onseason four.
How has that experience beenfor you?
Coby (02:09):
That was truly an amazing
experience for me.
It's filled with.
Sometimes when you watch it onTV it kind of looks effortless
and I think the film crew theydo a great job with that.
That's right.
But it is a lot of pressure onyou on there.
But it's also exciting.
I played sports all throughhigh school and even outside of
(02:32):
high school, so that competition, I'm very competitive.
So it was, you know, in adifferent way.
I mean, you're competingagainst other people, but not,
you know, it's not rough andtough with it, no.
But the great thing about thisone is and I'm sure you had the
same thing and we were such goodfriends on there we would I
(02:54):
would say, hey, you need someseason, come get some.
If it's going to help, you comeget it.
You know, even the, even thefilm crew was like we love the
Great American Recipe, we lovethis program.
It's kind of nice, it's not socutthroat.
Doug (03:08):
That's right, not as
yelling at you, that's right, I
don't want that either.
Yeah, everyone becomes kind ofa mini family with that shared
experience.
I want to say a couple ofthings I really thought you
brought forward was not onlyyour family and your Cajun
traditions, but really thattradition of service you've
always had.
You were a retired Navy veteranand then also a firefighter for
(03:29):
well over 25 years, is thatright?
Coby (03:32):
It's been 27 years
actually.
I've been very fortunate in mylife that I had a great group of
friends that I hung around within high school.
We were a lot like family and Ithink, have your kids a good
group of friends that they hangaround with.
It was important to me.
Yes, and I had that exact samething when I joined the Navy.
(03:54):
I mean those guys to me they'relike brothers.
I feel if I was in a bond andmy car wasn't working, Jim from
Michigan would come down hereand work on my car if I went
back home.
I mean that.
And even in the fire service,same thing.
You know it's life and deathwith those guys.
While you're in the fire youdepend on each other, you know
(04:14):
to do those things and at theend we go back, we have a good
time and we cook a lot at thestation.
So a lot of those things areall centered around food.
Not so much in the Navy, eventhough you have to kind of go
mess, cranking what they callmess.
You got to do mess duty for 90days, so I've been cooking in
every aspect of my life.
Doug (04:34):
I was going to say I
figured that food still brings
all those good people togetherwith you.
I was wondering if you couldyou share one of your recipes
for our listeners today.
Coby (04:46):
I would love to, and one
one thing I did when I got to
the show.
I wanted to make sure that whenpeople think about Louisiana
they always think about gumboand crawfish and jambalaya.
So I wanted to make sure I madethose things on the show to
showcase what people have ageneral idea about Louisiana and
(05:08):
kind of the right way to do it.
You know there's a lot ofspinoffs of jambalaya and they
put some crazy things in there.
I would never, not never eatthat, but I'm like man, I don't
know about that, but everybodyhas their spin.
So what I would like to do foryou today is just give you a
good traditional Cajun gumbo.
All right, Chicken and sausagegumbo, that sounds perfect.
(05:30):
That is the most made gumbo downhere in Louisiana.
It's cheap.
I did do a seafood gumbo on theshow but it's a little pricey
when you start getting theseafood.
We all know that.
You know kind of hurt thewallet a little bit.
But chicken and sausage fairlysimple.
Okay, you have to start outwith a roux.
All you need is equal parts.
(05:52):
So if you're going to do Ialways make two cups of flour,
all-purpose flour with two cupsof coconut oil and you can use
whatever you like.
I try to do the coconut oil.
It just burns cleaner andhotter a little bit faster.
I like that.
And what you're going to dowhen you're making that roux you
have to stir that continuouslyand you want to get that just a
(06:16):
little bit darker than peanutbutter.
Doug (06:18):
Oh, that's a good tone.
I like this.
I like cooking where I get avisual.
Coby (06:23):
Just realize this the
darker your roux, the darker
your gumbo.
Okay, so if you go lighter,you're going to have a light
gumbo.
If you go a little bit darker,you'll have a darker gumbo.
But a good rule of thumb isjust a little bit darker than a
peanut butter.
Now you got to be careful andyou got to stir this constantly
so that you don't burn it.
If you burn it, everything'sgoing to taste burnt.
(06:44):
So that's why you got to kindof stir constant, make sure your
corners of your pot is gettingstirred, you know pulled up all
those things.
You got to stay on that.
Okay, what else you need to dois have your two onions and one
bell pepper cut.
I would cut that before I startmy roux, and that way, when you
get your roux to the color thatyou want, you turn it off and
(07:06):
you dump your vegetables inthere immediately, kind of
helping to soften those veggies.
Oh, it's going to soften.
It's going to soften, but whatit's going to do is going to
stop that cooking process ofthat and it won't get you root
darker and burn it.
That's a great tip, right?
So once you, once you get thatdone, you'll see it, it'll be
cooking for another good five,maybe 10 minutes.
(07:26):
You'll still start cooking downthose veggies.
Ok, then you can add, youprobably about, I would say, a
gallon of water and you stirthat together and you're going
to have to get that.
You have to wait till thatwater starts boiling.
Once the water's boiling, youcan kind of you can kind of let
it go a little bit, cause it'sgoing to boil that root out.
But if, if you let that waterset or the root set on the
(07:47):
bottom, it's going to burn onthe bottom.
So again, you can't constantlystir that until that water
starts boiling pretty hard.
Okay, once that's done, youhave to let that boil for at
least one hour, one hour minimum.
The longer the better, but onehour minimum.
Doug (08:02):
And right now we just have
the roux, the water and those
veggies, that's it.
Coby (08:06):
Okay, wow.
So while that's boiling, youneed an hour.
You're going to take yourchicken and you're going to
season it with some preferablysome Captain Coby's.
Doug (08:17):
You know we'll link to
that, We'll remind folks of that
, that link at the end.
So yeah, we'll get the Cajunseasoning on it.
Coby (08:24):
I like to put a little
mustard.
Mustard is a fantastic binderand it's so flavorful, so you
don't have to drown it inmustard.
Get a good mustard on yourchicken, season it heavy with
your Cajun seasoning and you'regoing to put that in the oven
for one hour.
Oh okay, so while your water'sboiling, your chicken is also
cooking in the oven for one hour, all right, and when you get to
(08:49):
that one hour mark, you'll takeyour chicken out and what
happens is you'll brown thatchicken.
If you don't brown your chicken, you can put it in raw.
It's not wrong to do it thatway.
But once you let that chickencook for longer than an hour,
then it just starts fallingapart in your gumbo.
Yeah, or you can do boneless,skinless, however you like, but
that brown food, that roastyflavor too would add something
(09:11):
to the gumbo, for sure,Absolutely.
So you're going to take yourchicken, you're going to put it
in your water mixture with theroux.
You're watering your rouxtogether.
Okay, dump all that in there.
And then you're going to takeall the grease that's left over
from that chicken, from thechicken.
You're going to dump that inyour gumbo too.
Oh yes, and in your gumbo too,oh yes.
(09:32):
So, and a lot of people arelike, oh my God, what's
happening?
But you need that chicken fatand that flavor that's going to
bring some flavor into yourgumbo.
Doug (09:39):
Yes.
Coby (09:40):
Okay, so while that's
cooking you go ahead and you get
you a good smoked sausagewhichever kind that you like,
the smokier the better and youchop that up and you put it in
your gumbo and you let that cookfor one hour and then, right at
the end, you take your greaseout.
Doug (09:57):
Okay, like skim it off the
top, you mean.
Coby (09:59):
Yeah, skim your grease off
the top.
It's going to have a goodlittle, you know, maybe like a
half inch of grease over the top.
Okay, take that out.
And then you taste your gumbo,you taste your gravy.
You taste your gumbo, you tasteyour gravy, you taste your
juice.
It's like a soup.
This is made like a soup, yes,and if you think you need more
seasoning, well then you justadd it, you season it to taste
(10:20):
from there.
Perfect, cook you some rice,yes, and serve that over rice.
Doug (10:25):
It sounds amazing, Coby.
Thank you so much.
I want to make it for sure.
Coby (10:35):
Well, I'll tell you what
the first cold front that comes,
probably in october, is.
When we get a cold front, it'sonly going to get to probably 57
degrees over here.
Yeah, yeah, all the gumbo potis going to be rattling
everybody's waiting for that oneno cold spell to make a so good
.
But uh, I love that.
Yeah, so that's, that's reallyhow that goes.
In fact, my wife made a gumbo acouple weeks ago.
She said I'm just hungry for it.
Yeah, even though it's 109degrees heating index over here.
Doug (10:56):
You guys got and you got
the humidity down there, I'm
sure, oh, it comes with it.
Coby, let's just remind folksagain one more time.
You have been competing onseason four of the Great
American Recipe on PBS.
If folks have missed some ofthe season or they want to watch
my season, season three, theycan always stream it on the PBS
(11:20):
app and they can also find youon YouTube at Captain Coby's
Cajun Cooking and then we weretalking about that seasoning.
If folks want to actually buyyour Cajun seasoning, I think
it's Captaincobys.
com, is that right?
Coby (11:30):
That's right, and I a lot
of people.
There's so many differentspellings of Coby.
I am 54 years old.
When I was a young kid nobodywas called Coby.
It was such a, I say uniquename I kind of didn't like it at
first.
I love it now but since thefame of Kobe Bryant there's a.
There's a lot of Coby's outthere.
I'll spell it for y'all it'sC-O-B-Y, so it's Captain C-O-B-Y
(11:56):
, cajun Cooking and same thingas CaptainCobyscom.
Doug (12:01):
All right perfect.
Coby (12:02):
If you want to go to the
website.
And we have all kinds of stuff.
We have seasoning and pumpkinseeds and all kinds of things.
Doug (12:07):
I've had those pumpkin
seeds and they didn't last very
long either.
So thanks again.
They're all pretty good.
Coby (12:13):
I'd like to tell your
listeners, if you don't mind,
that if you're having a littletrouble and you're not, you're
not quite sure on how to makethe gumbo, I do do a
step-by-step how to make a rootand I also do a step-by-step how
to make the gumbo on my YouTubechannel.
So if you're not quite sure,you want to follow it.
Gumbo on my YouTube channel.
(12:33):
So if you're not quite sure youwant to follow it, follow along
and I promise you you'll have afantastic gumbo.
Doug (12:36):
Well, you know, we will
post links to that on our blog
as well, so people can find youand your step-by-steps
Appreciate that.
Yeah, Sounds perfect.
Kobe Bailey, I just want to saythank you once again for taking
some time to be on thePittsburgh Dish, wishing you all
the best and again thanks forall that Cajun cooking so
delicious.
Coby (12:53):
I love it and I hope to
bring a little bit of Cajun
culture up there to Pittsburghwhere you at.
I love it.
Well, thank you so much.
Doug (13:07):
Appreciate it.
Thank you for having me on.
If you enjoyed the show,consider buying us a coffee for
this episode or supporting theshow monthly.
You can find links to thoseoptions at the bottom of our
show description and if you wantto follow my own food
adventures, you can find me onsocial media at Doug Cooking.
That's our show for this week.
Thanks again to all of ourguests and contributors, and to
Kevin Solecki of CarnegieAccordion Company for providing
(13:29):
the music to our show.
We'll be back again next weekwith another fresh episode.
Stay tuned.