As we get into holiday entertaining, it’s time to stock up on the South’s favorite appetizer condiment: pepper jelly. And when you’re talking about pepper jelly, few people make it as good as Kevin Boutte, owner of The Garden Shed.
The New Iberia native has been a vendor at the Delcambre Market for eight years selling his sought-after jellies: jalapeño, Caribbean red, Thai chili, lemon and lemon habanero. “The Caribbean red and Thai chili are my best-sellers,” Kevin notes. “The Thai chili is sweet with a little heat and then you get a second wave of heat on the back end; it’s great as a steak marinade. Lemon jellies go well with fried foods. One customer used my lemon jelly over ice cream.”
Kevin also makes seasonal jams, and this year’s blackberry jam was toasted bread’s best friend. “Customers have been asking for pineapple jam, so I’ll make some next year,” he adds.
Fans of chow chow will love his Green Tomatoes Hot Damn Chow Chow. The name says it all. Made with a variety of peppers including habaneros, ghost peppers (and occasionally cayenne peppers) the recipe is 1/3 green tomatoes, 1/3 sweet peppers, 1/3 hot peppers and “other stuff.” So customers know what to expect on the heat scale, Kevin gives samples. “Some think it’s not that hot, and others ask for something to drink after tasting it,” he smiles.
Another seasonal favorite is mirliton bread. Made only in November and December, the bread originated from Kevin’s mother’s recipe for pumpkin bread which he substitutes with the vegetable pears. A whopping two cups of mirlitons go into a batch of four small loaves.
This summer saw the reintroduction of sweet honey mustard, made with sweet banana peppers and local honey, along with a spicy honey mustard made with the Hungarian wax pepper (hot banana pepper) and a little apple cider vinegar that adds to the spice factor. “The spicy mustard has been more popular than the sweet,” observes Kevin, who as a young boy learned to cook by watching his mom prepare three meals a day. Lucky for us, there was just enough left of the batch for the December market.
While at the market this month, be sure to stock up on Kevin’s frozen foods, like his popular corn and shrimp bisque, spicy red beans with andouille sausage and the shrimp and okra gumbo. Okra was plentiful this summer, with Kevin selling 300 quarts of the smothered vegetable. “It’s my mother’s recipe; I cook it in a Magnolite pot in the oven for three to four hours. I don’t put a lot of seasoning, because I find that I sell more when I keep it plain so that customers can season it to their liking,” he notes.
Though normally a quiet man, Kevin says he enjoys interacting with the people at the Delcambre Market. “I can’t explain the atmosphere,” he says.
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