Cajun cuisine

Cajun cuisine originates from the French-speaking Acadian or "Cajun" immigrants in Louisiana, USA. It is what could be called a rustic cuisine — locally available ingredients predominate, and preparation is simple. An authentic Cajun meal is usually a three-pot affair, with one pot dedicated to the main dish, one dedicated to steamed rice, skillet cornbread, or some other grain dish, and the third containing whatever vegetable is plentiful or available.

Characteristic Cajun dishes

• Gumbo
• Potato Salad, almost always served with gumbo, and usually in it
• Gumbo z'Herbes
• Cush-cush (Cajun corn mush)
• Boiled crawfish
• Maque Choux (corn based stew, sometimes with crawfish or chicken)
• Boudin (Rice and pork sausage)
• Tasso (spicy smoked pork)
• Catfish Courtboullion (or Redfish)
• Crawfish etoufée
• Hogs Head Cheese
• Shrimp or Alligator Sauce Piquante
• Cochon de Lait (roast suckling pig, similar to Barbecue)
• Jambalaya
• Skillet cornbread
• Crawfish pie
• Andouille sausage
• Dirty rice, or "rice dressing"
• Rice and Gravy - usually a brown gravy based on pan drippings, which are deglazed and simmered with extra seasonings and served over steamed or boiled rice.
• Fried Frog Legs

Non-Cajun dishes

This is a listing of dishes sometimes mistakenly called or thought to be Cajun but having origins elsewhere, usually in New Orleans or in northern Louisiana, and sometimes are relatively unadopted in Acadiana:

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• Beignets
• Deep fried turkey
• "French bread" as found in grocery stores
• Oysters Rockefeller or Casino
• Calas
• Red beans and rice
• Smothered Cabbage
• Chicken and Dumplings
• Bread pudding
• Bananas Foster
• Tomato gravy (a North Louisiana specialty)
• Popeye's Fried Chicken (a US chain originally based in New Orleans)
• Blackened anything
• Cajun fries
• Spicy Cajun McChicken
• Cajun sausage (other than those listed above)
• Pralines, which have Belgian roots, although there are Cajun variations of pralines