I’m not quite sure why they chose February 22nd to be National Margarita Day, but I’ll take it!
Years ago, a family relative in Florida sent us Cushman’s HoneyBells. They look like fiery red bell-shaped oranges, and they are the sweetest and juiciest fruits you’ll ever have! But they’re not really oranges at all.
HoneyBells are a unique natural hybrid of Dancy Tangerine and Duncan Grapefruit. The plants are grafted to a sour orange root-stock, and when the tree reaches maturity, it looks just like a grapefruit tree…but with oranges growing on it.
Tangelos are very similar, and can often be found at your local supermarket.
I usually make my signature margarita, the Algarita, with pineapple juice. But when I can get hold of Tangelos or HoneyBells, my recipe takes on a new twist.
2 oz. Patron silver tequila (or your favorite)
1/2 oz. Cointreau orange liqueur (or your favorite)
4 oz. fresh squeezed HoneyBell juice
1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
The Honeybells are so fresh and sweet, you can skip the Cointreau if you like.
Fill a tall glass with ice and add all the ingredients. Stir. Pour into a large margarita glass. Garnish with lime wedge. Salt optional.
Any other time of the year, substitute pineapple juice, orange juice or a combination of both for the Honey Bells.
If I asked you to name a cocktail that defines New Orleans, you might say The Hurricane. After all, it’s a tourist favorite at the famous Pat O’Brien’s on Bourbon Street.
But the official cocktail of New Orleans is the Sazerac, a potent concoction that was created early in the 19th century by Antoine Amédée Peychaud, a Creole apothecary who emigrated to New Orleans from the West Indies and set up shop in the French Quarter. He was known to dispense a proprietary mix of aromatic bitters from an old family recipe, now famously known as Peychaud’s bitters.
Sazerac ingredients.
Around 1850, Sewell T. Taylor sold his New Orleans bar, the Merchants Exchange Coffee House, to become an importer of spirits, and he began to import a brand of cognac named Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils. Meanwhile, Aaron Bird assumed proprietorship of the Merchants Exchange and changed its name to Sazerac Coffee House.
Legend has it that Bird began serving the “Sazerac Cocktail,” made with Sazerac cognac imported by Taylor, and allegedly with bitters being made by the local apothecary, Antoine Amedie Peychaud. The Sazerac Coffee House subsequently changed hands several times, until around 1870, when Thomas Handy became its proprietor. It is around this time that the primary ingredient in a Sazerac changed from cognac to rye whiskey, due to the phylloxera epidemic in Europe that devastated the vineyards of France.
At some point before his death in 1889, Handy recorded the recipe for the cocktail, which made its first printed appearance in William T. Boothby’s “The World’s Drinks and How to Mix Them” in 1908, although his recipe calls for Selner bitters, not Peychaud’s. After absinthe was banned in the United States in 1912, it was replaced by various anise-flavored liqueurs, most notably the locally produced Herbsaint, which first appeared in 1934.
In March 2008, Louisiana state senator Edwin R. Murray filed Senate Bill 6 designating the Sazerac as Louisiana’s official state cocktail. The bill was defeated on April 8, 2008. But, after further debate, on June 23, 2008, the Louisiana Legislature agreed to proclaim the Sazerac as New Orleans’ official cocktail.
The Sazerac, served at the Sazerac Bar in New Orleans.
It’s always more fun when someone makes your drink for you!
Peychaud’s bitters are now owned by the Buffalo Trace distillery, home of many a fine bourbon, and also the makers of Sazerac rye, a registered trademark. So the Sazerac Bar has to pay a fee to use the name. That also explains why they use Sazerac rye in their version of this classic cocktail.
But like many popular drinks, everybody has their own version of a Sazerac. In fact, if you Google the drink, you’ll find dozens of versions: with cognac, rye, or bourbon (or even a combination)…with a sugar cube or simple syrup…and with a variety of absinthes.
Note: you can buy simple syrup–I prefer it in this recipe over sugar cubes–but it’s easy to make at home. Simply combine a cup of sugar with a cup of water in a saucepan and heat it until all the sugar dissolves. I keep my simple syrup in the fridge in a sealed container.
2 oz. rye whiskey (I use Old Overholt ) 1/2 oz. simple syrup 3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters Absinthe, to rinse, about 1/4 oz. (I use Herbsaint) garnish lemon peel
Add ice to a rocks glass to chill it. (I also put it in the freezer.)
While it’s chilling, get a cocktail mixing glass, add some ice, and combine the rye, simple syrup, and the bitters, and stir. (Thirty times, according to tradition.)
Take the rocks glass out of the freezer, pour the ice out, and pour the Herbsaint into the glass, swirling it around to coat the glass, then pouring out the excess.
Strain the mix of rye, simple syrup, and bitters into the rocks glass with the Herbsaint.
Run a lemon peel around the rim of the glass and garnish with it.
For me, rye, specifically Old Overholt, is the down-and-dirty way to go. After all, this is not a kiddy drink. A few sips, and you’re feeling no pain.
A Sazerac at the Napoleon House in New Orleans.
Though sipping a Sazerac in New Orleans is an amazing experience in itself, and I’ve had it at the SazeracBar as well as the Napoleon House and other bars in NOLA…perhaps my craziest Sazerac experience happened at the famous White Horse Tavern in New York City, the Big Apple’s second oldest continuously running bar. (It opened in 1880.) I think this is where I was told to use Old Overholt in my Sazerac, and have ever since.
Dylan Thomas was a regular there, and other celebrities, like Norman Mailer, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Hunter S. Thompson also had drinks there. So it’s probably not surprising that my buddy, Lee, and I overindulged on Sazeracs at this historic tavern.
It was a very cold winter’s night in the late 1980’s–a blizzard, in fact–and we decided to go out drinking in the city, because I was back home in New York on holiday vacation from Alabama, where I was working at the time. We had more than our share of Sazeracs, when we decided we would walk to a new eatery called the Gulf Coast, located on the west side. (All we knew was that the restaurant was about 10 blocks from where we were, but after 4 Sazeracs, “where we were” was questionable, to say the least.)
Now, this was before the internet–before cell phones–before Uber–and no cabs were running (because it was a blizzard, after all)–so we decided we would walk! Not the smartest thing we’ve ever done. It only took a few blocks for us to realize, even in our drunken stupor, that we made a very bad choice! We were certain that we would be found, huddled and frozen in an alley somewhere, only after the spring thaw.
The storm was so bad, we couldn’t even find our way back to the bar. Miraculously, somehow, we did make it to the Gulf Coast, and we lived to tell the tale.
As Homer Simpson once said: “To alcohol…the cause of, and cure for, all of life’s problems!”
Sazeracs. Try your first one at home. Or take an Uber!
Fat Tuesday is February 17! Laissez les boss temps rouler!
Back in the 80’s, I worked at a radio station in Mobile, Alabama. My New York buddies thought I was crazy to move to the South, but that’s where the job was. When they realized that I was only a 2-hour ride from New Orleans, I wasn’t so crazy after all! I spent every possible weekend there: the food, the music, the people…
When I moved to Rhode Island, I really missed all the fun of the Big Easy. So I decided to have a Mardi Gras party every year. I’d invite 80+ people, and I cooked all of the dishes myself. I made all the classics: red beans and rice, crawfish etouffe, gumbo, Cajun chicken (my own recipe), and, of course, jambalaya.
For the seasoning mix:
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
I find it easier to measure and chop all the ingredients before I start cooking.
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups finely chopped onions, in all
1 1/2 cups finely chopped celery, in all
1 1/2 cups good quality chopped ham
1 1/2 cups chopped andouille sausage (Here in RI, I use local Portuguese chourico from Fall River, MA)
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce (I use Frank’s Red Hot)
3/4 cup tomato sauce made from pureed whole tomatoes
2 cups uncooked rice (I like Texmati brown basmati rice)
3 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade)
1 lb. peeled and de-veined wild-caught American shrimp
Over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan. Add 3/4 cup of the onions and 3/4 cup of the celery. Cook until the onions are translucent.
Stir in the seasoning mix, then the chopped ham and the chourico, and then the cayenne pepper sauce. Cook until the onions are a dark brown, about 20 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add the remaining 3/4 cup of the onions and celery. Cook about 5 minutes.
Open a can of whole tomatoes and puree them in a food processor to make sauce. Add 3/4 cup of this and cook for about 5 minutes.
Stir in the rice, mixing well. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 12 minutes.
Add the chicken stock, stir well, and bring it all to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, over very low heat until the rice is tender but firm, about 15 minutes.
Remove the cover, toss in the shrimp, stir, then put the cover back on and cook for 5 minutes more.
Sometimes it’s hard to get wild-caught American shrimp at my local seafood store or supermarket. But for me, buying tiger shrimp or other Asian products is not an option. Once I learned about how they are farmed, I decided I’d never eat those shrimp again!
When I find wild-caught American shrimp locally, I buy extra to keep in the freezer. (The better supermarkets, like Whole Foods, have them.) For many years, I bought my shrimp online from http://www.cajungrocer.com. Not only will you find shrimp there, you’ll find many other Cajun classics: King cakes, Turduckens, andouille and alligator sausage, even live crawfish. And the price of their shrimp, even with shipping, is the same as the nasty Asian shrimp you buy in the store. Make some room in your freezer, order large to save, and stock up on the real deal!
Inspired by a recipe from chef Martin Yan, these beef skewers are absolutely delicious when grilled over hardwood charcoal, but are mighty tasty when roasted in the oven as well.
Choose a piece of beef that has some marbled fat throughout…that will give it extra flavor. Ribeye is a good choice, although this time around, I used a beautiful hunka grass-fed beef flap. I trimmed as much fat and silver skin off the beef as I could, then I sliced it thinly on the bias–that is, against the grain of the meat.
Marinate the beef for at least 4 hours in the fridge…overnight is even better.
2 tablespoons sesame seeds 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup white wine (I used an unoaked Chardonnay from Australia) 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 tablespoon sugar 2 green onions, minced 2 teaspoons minced garlic 2 teaspoons grated ginger
Place the sesame seeds in a small frying pan over medium heat. Cook the seeds, shaking the pan frequently, until the seeds have lightly browned, about 4 minutes. (If you’re using black sesame seeds, they won’t turn brown, but they’ll have a dry look to them.) Immediately remove the sesame seeds from the pan to cool, then place them in a spice grinder, and pulse until they’re ground up.
Place the crushed sesame seeds in a bowl with all the other marinade ingredients, mixing well.
Slice the beef on the bias into thin strips about 4″ long. Place all the beef in the bowl with the marinade, and squish it around to make sure all the meat makes contact with the marinade.
Place the bowl in the fridge for at least 4 hours…overnight is better. Squish the meat around every couple of hours if you can, to ensure it is coated well.
Once the meat is done marinating, remove the bowl from the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
Get out those bamboo barbecue skewers that have been sitting in the kitchen drawer for years. If you’re grilling outside, you’ll want to soak them in warm water for an hour so they don’t burn while you’re cooking. If you’re using the oven, you won’t have to.
Start skewering the beef…about 3 pieces of meat per skewer. Spread them out on the skewer a bit so they aren’t bunched up.
If you’re grilling outside, start a hardwood charcoal fire, and spread the coals out so that you have a medium fire. If it’s too hot, the beef will burn. When the fire is ready, place the skewers on the grill and watch them carefully, turning them so they cook evenly.
If you’ve got a convection oven (an “air fryer” for you youngsters), pre-heat the oven to 350. Place the skewers on a grate that is raised an inch or so above a sheet pan, so that the warm air in the oven can circulate all around the meat.
Place the sheet pan in the oven and cook the beef until it has browned nicely on the top. Then pull the pan out of the oven, and flip the skewers over, returning them to cook a little more on the other side.
Enjoy your beef skewers with whatever you like! I served mine with stir-fried vegetables, lo mein with a peanut-chili sauce, and dumplings with a homemade dipping sauce.
I recently bought a one-pound bag of wild-caught American shrimp and had this craving for a poboy. Just so happened that the night before, I made myself a pizza, and I took part of the pizza dough, rolled it into the shape of a torpedo roll, and then baked it, saving it for a sandwich the next day.
I thought a slaw would go really well with the fried shrimp on the sandwich, so I graded some carrot and thinly sliced some cabbage, and I combined it with some leftover Alabama white barbecue sauce that I had in the fridge. It sounds crazy, but the ingredients in the sauce work perfectly for a coleslaw: mayo, vinegar, etc. Not only would the slaw add crunch to the sandwich, the Alabama sauce, with its acidity, would take the place of a remoulade for the shrimp.
All I needed now was to dredge the shrimp and fry it, to put the sandwich together.
Once the shrimp was thawed, I took eight of them (it was a package of medium-sized shrimp that came 32 or so to a pound) then I patted them dry with a paper towel, setting them aside.
I was ready to start putting this bad boy together.… Or I should say, Po boy.
First, the slaw…
1 medium carrot, grated 1/2 small cabbage, thinly sliced1 cup mayo 4 tablespoons sour cream 4 tablespoons white vinegar 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon granulated garlic 1 teaspoon granulated onion 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon sugar
Place the carrot and cabbage in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the other ingredients well. (Technically, Alabama white sauce uses buttermilk instead of the sour cream, but that’s what I had in my fridge, and it’s delicious with it!) Pour as much of the Alabama white sauce into the veggies as you like, depending on whether you like a wetter or drier coleslaw.
Set the coleslaw aside in the fridge, covered, until you’re ready to use it.
Save that extra Alabama white sauce for your next batch of grilled chicken!
Slice the torpedo roll in half lengthwise, and lightly toasted. Set it aside.
The set up.
1 egg, scrambled 1 cup rice flour 1 tablespoon Tony Chachere’s Cajun seasoning
In one bowl, scrambled the egg. Drop the shrimp in there, and toss them around.
In a second bowl, combine the rice, flour, and the seasoning.
Take the egg-covered shrimp, and drop them into the seasoning bowl and toss around until they’re well coated. Fry them in a pan of avocado oil until they’re golden and cooked through. Drain them on paper towels.
To assemble my Poboy sandwich, I put some mayo on both sides of the bread. Then I placed a nice thick layer of the coleslaw. Then the shrimp on top of that. And then, for even more crunch, I covered it with some baby lettuce.
If I’m at a steakhouse and craving beef, I’ll usually order a cut like porterhouse or ribeye…great cuts of meat that need nothing more than a little salt and pepper, and a skillful grillmaster. The prep on that slab of meat before it even hits the grill has already been done: carving, dry-aging, trimming.
At home, I eat only humanely raised grass-fed beef. It’s expensive, so I buy the cuts that cost less, but need a bit of TLC before cooking. A cut like beef flap, which comes from the bottom sirloin butt (the back of the animal), looks like a skirt steak, a hanger steak, or a flank steak because of its thinness, but each comes from a different part of the animal.
Though the beef flap is somewhat thin, I will often slice it lengthwise into two thinner pieces, because the meat’s thickness often varies, which can give you uneven cooking. I like to cook it hot and fast on a hardwood fire grill, but still keep it medium-rare. If the weather is really unforgiving, like it is right now, cooking the beef in a hot cast iron skillet works really well, too.
Marinades are the key to tenderizing and flavoring tougher or cheaper cuts of meat. What you put in your marinade really depends on what flavors you like.
The recipes below are for 3 to 5 lbs. of beef. I always make more, because leftover marinated grilled beef makes an awesome steak and egg breakfast the next day!
A cold night is no excuse not to grill!
The instructions with all of these marinades is basically the same: combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cut the beef flap (or whatever cut of meat you’re using) to a manageable size so that it fits a gallon-sized Ziploc bag easily. (Smaller, thinner pieces will also absorb the marinade better.) Place the beef in the bag, and then pour the marinade into the bag. Squeeze the excess air out and seal the bag. Gently squish the bag around so that the marinade makes contact with all the meat. Place the bag in a bowl in the fridge overnight, squishing the bag every few hours to make sure the marinade penetrates the meat. The bowl will prevent any accidents from happening in your fridge in case the bag leaks. The next day, remove the bag from the fridge and let it come to room temperature before grilling the meat. Discard the leftover marinade.
ALZ MARINADE #355
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Combine the ingredients. Marinate the meat overnight in the fridge or several hours at room temperature. Grill.
Marinating beef flap.
On the North Fork of Long Island, in the middle of wine country, there’s a restaurant that’s been around for a long time: a sort of hole-in-the-wall place you might not think twice about visiting, unless you hear that they’ve got a special secret marinade for their beef. The place is called The Elbow Room (I think they’ve expanded to a second or third location by now), and though I wasn’t impressed by the quality of their beef, I was impressed with its flavor. Here, with the help of friends, is what we think comes as close to that marinade as we can get. Gravymaster is a product you can find in any supermarket, usually in the gravy section. This marinade also works well with beef tips or a London broil.
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Gravymaster
2 large Vidalia onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons celery seed
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Combine the onions and garlic in a large food processor and purée. Add the remaining ingredients and run the processor until it’s smooth and sort of resembles root beer (below.)
Marinate the meat overnight in the fridge or for several hours at room temperature. Grill. Awesome with beef sirloin tips (below.)
This incredibly simple marinade falls into the “Italian” category. You could almost use it as an Italian dressing on salads, but it works really well as a marinade for beef.
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
The balsamic vinegar I use is not the expensive aged stuff that costs a fortune. It’s the $9-a-bottle stuff you can find in any supermarket. Simply combine the ingredients. Marinate the meat in the fridge overnight or for several hours at room temperature. Grill.
Fat Tuesday is coming! This is a great recipe to cook up if you’ve got friends coming over. Let’s do some Cajun-style cookin’! Poo-yah! I garonteee!
I lived in Mobile, Alabama, back in the late 80’s, and if you asked the locals, they’d quickly tell you that Mardi Gras originated in Mobile, not New Orleans.
Joe Caine paraded through the streets of Mobile dressed in a Native American costume in 1868, and is credited for our current way of observing the Mardi Gras celebration. Of course, it’s hard not to think of New Orleans when you hear the phrase “Mardi Gras,” and I spent many a weekend on the streets and bars of the Crescent City back in the mid-80’s…actually was part of a Mardi Gras parade one year.
It was then that I fell in love with Cajun food, and needed to learn how to cook it. I bought cookbooks by two of the greats: Justin Wilson and Paul Prudhomme. I learned about layers of seasoning, and often I’d use those ideas in my own dishes.
When I moved to Rhode Island in 1990, I had yearly Mardi Gras parties at my house, and I cooked massive batches of these Cajun chicken breasts, using a spice mix I honed from my cooking experiments.
Double-dipping in the seasoned flour is a messy step, but it makes them extra crunchy and flavorful.
You can make this recipe gluten-free, simply by using a GF flour instead of the all-purpose flour.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
4 eggs
oil for frying (I like using a high smoke point oil like avocado or grape seed)
Cut the chicken breasts into manageable pieces, about 3″ square. If they’re too thick, slice them horizontally to make two thinner breasts. You want them about 1/4″ thick. A piece of chicken that’s too thick won’t cook all the way through. Plus, you want more crunchy crust per bite…trust me!
Combine the flour, salt, paprika, onion, garlic, basil, black pepper, thyme, white pepper, and cayenne in a bowl. Mix well.
Separate the 4 eggs, scrambling 2 eggs in each of 2 separate bowls. This keeps the first bowl “clean” and not gummed up with flour. You’ll see what I mean once you start, because it’s a bit messy. So, crack 2 eggs in the first bowl and the other 2 eggs in the second bowl. Scramble them up and put the bowls on either side of the seasoned flour bowl.
Pre-heat a pan of oil or a fryer to 350 degrees.
Dip the chicken in the first egg bowl and then the seasoned flour mixture. Shake off the excess flour and dip the chicken in the second egg bowl, making sure the flour is covered by egg. Then dip the chicken back into the flour for a second coat. I like to bread all of my chicken pieces before I start frying them so that I can get my hands clean for the next step.
Carefully place the chicken in the pan. Don’t overcrowd the pan. Work in batches. Fry the chicken until it’s cooked all the way through and golden brown. Drain on a wire rack or paper towels.
Nothing like a hot, fresh batch!
If you need to feed a crowd, just double or triple the recipe. I used to make a 10x batch for my Mardi Gras parties!
I have to give credit for this recipe where it’s due. A few years ago, we traveled to Washington, DC, and one of our best dining experiences was at the Blue Duck Tavern, a stunning restaurant matched by its unique and beautifully prepared plates.
One of the most memorable appetizers I enjoyed was the roasted beef bone marrow, which had a delicious pretzel crumble on top. The moment I had a taste, I knew that I would have to recreate this for myself at home.
The bone marrow plate at the Blue Duck Tavern in Washington, DC. (Enough garlic for ya?)
Bone marrow played an important role in the evolution of early man. Perhaps that’s why some of us still have that primitive craving for it.
Early man had small teeth and ate anything he could lay his hands on, especially meat. But he was no hunter. Attracted by circling vultures, he probably scavenged the leftovers from a big kill such as an antelope left in a tree by a leopard, or a large animal such as a wildebeest that had been slaughtered by lions.
Because meat is relatively easy to digest and rich in calories and nutrients, early man lost the need for the big intestines of apes and earlier hominids. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular – the brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the body’s total energy production. The concentrated calories and nutrition found in meat was responsible for an increase in the brain size of early humans.
But around two million years ago, telltale cut marks on the surface of animal bones reveal that early humans were using crude stone tools to smash open the bones and extract the marrow. Stone tools allowed early man to get at a food source that no other creature was able to obtain – bone marrow. Bone marrow contains long chain fatty acids that are vital for brain growth and development. This helped further fuel the increase in brain size, allowing our ancestors to make more complex tools. Many historians believe that the blunt force required to break bones with tools to extract the bone marrow was a crucial ingredient in the development of the human hand, and the unique dexterity it has over that of apes.
Of course, these days, we can simply go to our butcher and ask them to slice some beef bones for us so that we can enjoy the marrow like our ancestors did. It’s much more civilized.
My box o’ frozen bones.
They key to roasting marrow bones properly is to keep an eye on them. The bones can go from frozen solid to blazing hot in no time, and that means the marrow can go beyond its rich, gelatinous perfection into a puddle of fat at the bottom of your pan in mere moments.
3 lbs. beef marrow bones (I like them sliced lengthwise)
I keep the beef bones frozen, moving them to the fridge until I’m ready to roast them.
Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
Grind them up!
Place a handful of salted pretzel sticks in a food processor, and pulse them until the pretzels are ground fine. When you’ve got 3/4 cup of ground pretzel powder, move it to a bowl and add the parsley, onion, garlic and black pepper. (No salt is needed if the pretzels are salted.)
Lay the bones flat on a baking pan. If they wobble, place them on a layer of coarse salt to hold them steady. Sprinkle the pretzel mix on the bones, a little drizzle of olive oil on top, and place them in the oven.
Now you watch…there’s that one point where they go from “not quite yet” to perfection to “Oops! Too much!” …so be careful!
Perfection!
Some toasted bread on the side is all you need!
If you’re cooking gluten-free, try Snyder’s of Hanover GF pretzels. They are awesome…you’ll never know the difference.
Mardi Gras is a couple of weeks away!! Here’s a great dish from New Orleans…
One of my favorite dishes to come out of New Orleans is Barbecue Shrimp, so on a visit to the Crescent City a couple of years ago, I had to make a stop at the place where it all started.
The first unusual thing you notice about the classic dish, New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp, is that it’s not cooked on a barbecue grill and it has no barbecue sauce.
So why the name?
Its origin goes back to the mid-1950’s, to an Italian restaurant in New Orleans called Pascale’s Manale. The story goes that a regular customer had just returned from Chicago, where he had dined on an amazing shrimp dish. He asked the chef at Pascale’sManale to try to replicate it, and what resulted was actually better than the original. And though no barbecue grill or sauce was used, it is believed that they gave it the name “BBQ Shrimp” to cash in on the backyard barbecuing craze that was all the rage at the time. Whatever they call it, I have to say that it’s worth a special trip to have the dish!
The classic New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp is served with shell-on shrimp, so you have to make a big, buttery mess of yourself as you devour it. And it’s served with plenty of crusty French bread.
At home, sometimes I’ll leave out the bread and go for rice instead. And I’ll peel the shrimp completely, using the shrimp shells to make the stock I cook the rice in.
2 lbs. large wild-caught American shrimp, peeled and de-veined 1 stick butter (4 oz.) 1/2 cup beer 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce olive oil
For the rice…
1 cup rice (I like jasmine rice) 2 1/4 cups water or seafood stock (see below) 1 teaspoon olive oil 1/2 teaspoon Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning
Cook the rice following the directions on the package. I like using stock instead of water when I cook my rice, so after peeling all the shrimp, I toss the shells in a saucepan full of water and I boil the heck out of it, strain it, and use that stock to cook the rice. I add the olive oil and the Tony Chachere’s (available online or at your favorite food store) to the stock before cooking the rice.
To cook the shrimp, I heat a little olive oil in a large skillet over moderate heat. Then I add the shrimp, and sear them on one side (about 30 seconds) and then flip them over to sear on the other side (another 30 seconds.) I’m not trying to cook them all the way through, just get them a bit caramelized. Then I remove the shrimp from the skillet and set them aside.
(I often serve the BBQ Shrimp over the rice with broccoli. If you want to use broccoli, add a little butter and olive oil to the same pan you seared the shrimp in. Cook until the broccoli is nicely caramelized, then remove from the pan and set aside.)
In the same skillet, I heat the butter until the foam subsides. Then I add the beer, Worcestershire sauce, and 2 teaspoons of the seasoning mix. I mix well, then add the shrimp and broccoli back in the pan, simmering for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Chicken Rollatini was one of the first dishes I learned how to make back in my teenage days on Long Island, working at a local Italian restaurant called Pizza City East. (The original Pizza City was in Ozone Park, Queens.) It was a simple dish: a chicken breast rolled up with prosciutto and mozzarella, and baked in a mushroom cream sauce. My version these days substitutes ham for the prosciutto, provolone for the mozzarella, and an Alfredo-like sauce instead of the mushroom cream sauce.
4 chicken breasts cut lengthwise to make 8 thin breasts, about 2 pounds
8 slices sliced ham
8 slices of provolone cheese
Remove the chicken tender portion of the chicken breasts and set those aside for another day.
I don’t like to pound out my chicken breasts. I like the texture of “real meat.” So I take a large breast, and slice it lengthwise to make 2 thinner breasts. I lay the breast down on the cutting board, add a slice of “real” ham (not the deli-sliced stuff, but a ham that I sliced myself), then a slice of provolone, and carefully roll it up, securing it with toothpicks. Sometimes it’s easier to roll the ham and cheese first, then wrap the chicken around it. Place the rollatinis on a baking sheet. Set aside, preferably in the fridge, until ready to cook.
Peel and chop the parsnips and carrots into quarters. Peel and chop the onion in half. Chop the celery into quarters as well. Place all the vegetables on a sheet pan and drizzle olive oil over the top, tossing them in the oil. Roast the vegetables in a 400° oven until caramelized, and the carrots and parsnips are fork-tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the sheet pan from the oven and let the vegetables cool. Once the veggies have cooled, chop them finely with a knife or food processor. Set them aside.
3 cups your favorite rice, cooked
Cook the rice according to package directions. Once the rice is cooked, mix it with the chopped carrots, parsnips, celery and onion. Set it aside.
1 cup cream or half-and-half
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
salt and pepper
For the Alfredo-like sauce, heat a saucepan over medium heat, melting the butter and then adding the cream or half-and-half. Once it’s warmed through, add the cheese and whisk until it has melted and the sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Set it aside, to re-warm later.
Take the pan of rollatinis out of the fridge to warm to room temperature, and reduce the heat of the oven to 350°.
Drizzle a little olive oil over the top of the rollatinis and rub it in. Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over the top and bake them for 30-45 minutes, until the chicken has cooked through.
To serve, remove the chicken rollatinis from the pan and plate on a bed of arugula (optional) with the rice on the side. Serve with the sauce.
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