This is "country" (as in country gumbo, country tacos)

Went out for lunch this past week with the boss. We went to the Shuck 'N Dive on Federal Highway, and no they don't have their own website, either. So, you get this generic link.

If I knew they weren't going to have a website, I would've taken pictures of something besides my bowl of 'country gumbo,' but it's a nice Cajun-style joint with the bar in the middle of the room. This is south Florida, so they had outdoor seating, too, but it was a warm day and Eddie was in a suit so we sat inside at the bar (all the tables were taken).

The walls are covered to the last square inch with trappings from Louisiana: a lot of NFL Saints and LSU momentos. There's paintings that harken to Mardi Gras. You're getting the picture.

Like I said, I ordered a country gumbo. The description on the menu seemed a little off. It consisted of pulled pork, Andouille sausage and okra, and rice in a Cajun spiced rue.

Well, gumbo is normally a seafood soup with okra, shrimp, crab and oysters. It's common for gumbo to include crawdads (crayfish). Then there's chicken gumbo (okra and chicken).

What I got barely had any soup in it. It was a stew and it had a lot of rice. The Andouille was sliced thin. The 'soup' was a reddish, peppery, spicy liquid. It was tasty. It could have used more okra, which was there more for decoration than nourishment.

COUNTRY GUMBO AT THE SHUCK 'N DIVE

All in all, it was alright and reasonably priced. Reasonably priced is something you don't come across often in Fort Lauderdale, so I don't knock it.

The "county" label on the gumbo, I'm sure, had to do with including sausage in the mix. Same thing happens in Texas with tacos. If the cook uses chopped Polish or German sausage with the eggs and tucks this into a taco, you are getting a "country taco."

I threw together a country taco plate this morning. I chopped poblano and serrano peppers with onion and lightly grilled. The pepper doesn't usually go into a country taco at the restaurant, but then again, I wasn't getting a hot sauce; so this was my substitute.

Chop a link of Kiolbassa beef sausage, stir in a couple of eggs, and you've got enough fixings to fill four tacos. Now all I need is a cup of coffee!

Buen provecho!

Making a plantain compromise

Look at this dish. Nice presentation? I was a fine arts student for awhile, thank you for noticing.

All beef smoked sausage with plantain on rice

 It looks good, but how does it taste? Well, turns out it's missing an ingredient. The dash of Cholula Hot Sauce comes later.

Plantains are ubiquitous in Florida. They compete very well with the potato here. The plantain pile in the grocery is serious - serious as in there's a potential for an avalanche.

It is an option to the potato in fast food franchises, at Cuban and Jamaican cafes. We have plantains in Texas, too, but they don't go over quite so big along the San Antonio River.

I like plantains, but you have to be careful about choosing when to cook them. If they're still kind of green, it tastes like a potato with a hint of banana, and that's great if that's what you want. I like to let them go yellow and bring out more of their sweetness. Trouble is, that sweetness can overpower the rest of the plate.

So, keeping that in mind, I started with a leftover pot of white rice and broccoli. Nothing complicated there, I just boiled rice with chopped broccoli and a dash of salt.

I took out one link of Kiolbassa all Beef Smoked Sausage, sliced it into quarter-shaped sections. I took half of a plantain and sliced it the same way. A little butter on the skillet and it's time to grill the plantain next to the sausage, keeping my heat low. I wanted to make sure the plantain cooked through without scorching the sections.

I heated the rice and broccoli in the microwave and spread it on a plate. Artfully laid out the plantain and sausage in a circular pattern. I then cut a small block of Mexican cotija cheese and crumbled it all over the plate.

The saltiness of the dish is in the sausage and cotija cheese. The plantain fills out the palate, so you have strong flavors in competition. But do they blend together well?

I proceeded to sit down and try it out. It was ok, but ...

That sweetness of the plantain, it kind of takes over. So I got the Cholula, spinkled it all over and tried the dish again. That hit the spot. Imagine a spicy sweet sauce in a Chinese entree. This has a similar effect.

The hot sauce on sweet plantain helps blend it into the rest of the meal.