Cajun/Creole · snack

Calas (Creole Rice Fritters)

Calas (Creole Rice Fritters) reads sweetness 7.5, richness 5.9 and salinity 3.6 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Cajun/Creole snack, about 13 hr 34 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Sweetness 7.5 · Richness 5.9 · Salinity 3.6 · Warm Spice 2.4 · Nutty 2.2 · Funk & Ferment 2.0 · Umami 2.0

What's in it (11)

Time & effort: about 13 hr 34 min (34 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 189.4 kcal, 3 g protein, 8.5 g fat, 25.4 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains egg — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (8 steps)

  1. Calas are the oldest street food in New Orleans and their history is the reason to make them. They were sold hot in the French Quarter at daybreak by Black women, many of them enslaved and permitted to trade on their own account, calling Belle cala, tout chaud through the streets; the money some of them made buying and selling calas bought their freedom. The word itself is West African, from a Liberian and Sierra Leonean rice-fritter tradition, and the dish is a direct rice-culture inheritance. They had nearly vanished by the late twentieth century and were brought back deliberately by New Orleans cooks and food historians, Poppy Tooker foremost among them.
  2. The rice is cooked deliberately soft, which is the opposite of every other rice rule in Louisiana cooking, and the batter is fermented overnight with yeast. That overnight rise is what makes a cala light and slightly sour, and it is what separates it from a rice pancake. Baking powder versions exist and are quicker and duller.
  3. Boil the rice in the water 25 minutes, uncovered, until it is very soft and beginning to break up — deliberately overcooked. Drain off any remaining water and let it cool 30 minutes, until it is barely warm.
  4. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let it stand 10 minutes until it foams. Mash it into the cooled rice with a wooden spoon, breaking the grains up further. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave it at room temperature overnight, 12 hours. It will smell distinctly sour and yeasty in the morning, which is correct.
  5. In the morning beat in the eggs, sugar, flour, nutmeg and salt until you have a thick batter that drops heavily from a spoon. Cover and rest 30 minutes.
  6. Heat the lard in a deep heavy pan to 175 C (350 F). Drop the batter in by tablespoons, three or four at a time, and fry 4 minutes, turning once, until they are deep gold all over and cooked through — they puff and roll themselves over as they cook.
  7. Drain on a rack, dust heavily with icing sugar and eat them within five minutes, with strong chicory coffee. They are a breakfast, not a dessert.
  8. Substitutions: peanut oil can stand in for the lard.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.