May 6, 2013 New Fudge Recipe and Lunch – Japanese Kitchen and Dinner – PPI Crawfish Etoufée

May 6, 2013 New Fudge Recipe and Lunch – Japanese Kitchen and Dinner – PPI Crawfish Etoufée

I went with Robert Mueller to the Japanese Kitchen for Chirashi today.  He prefers their Chirashi because it includes Robert’s favorite, uni or sea urchin roe.

Sushi Items – Uni (Sea Urchin)

What is uni?

Uni (oo-nee) is the Japanese name for the edible part of the Sea Urchin. While colloquially referred to as the roe (eggs), uni is actually the animal’s gonads (which produce the milt or roe). Uni ranges in color from rich gold to light yellow, and has a creamy consistency that some love and is off-putting to others. It is nevertheless one sushi item that is in incredible demand around the world, which is reflected in its price. Sea Urchins are a rare treat for those who acquire a taste. Uni has a light, sweet, and somewhat briny flavor and is is usually enjoyed as nigiri sushi or sashimi. Uni is also sometimes served with a raw quail egg. Uni is also considered an aphrodisiac by some. It is harvested throughout the world, however the west coast of the U.S. has in recent years become one of the largest sources, and much of the harvest finds its way overseas to eager Asian customers. Each sea urchin contains five ‘lobes’ and the harvesting of the uni is a very delicate process as the meat easily falls apart. Uni is a somewhat seasonal item and is at its best when served from late fall through the winter, with December considered the best month by Japanese standards.

 I love all sushi about equally, so I gave him my uni because he treats the act of eating uni as a religious experience, probably acquired when he lived in San Diego.  I think I also came to a realization today about my Japanese Kitchen ordering technique.  Instead of saying I do not like the red snapper and mackerel, to which they simply eliminate those two items from the selection, I should ask if they will substitute yellow tail for those two items.  Unlike Azuma, Japanese Kitchen only includes one piece of each type of fish, except for two pieces of red tuna.  So I might get more yellowtail by effecting a substitution.  At Azuma, I have perfected my ordering.  Their menu states that the Chirashi Donburi lunch includes 12 pieces of seafood, so I designate the type and number of each seafood item: usually 4 yellowtail, 2 salmon, 2 super white tuna, 2 red tuna, and 2 octopus.

I like the Japanese Kitchen Chirashi very much because it includes more items including pickled umiboshi plums and it makes its sushi rice sweeter.  But it costs $4.00 more than Azuma, so I am ambivalent as to where I go.  

This evening I did not plan a meal so we started to thaw out Chicken Basil sausages from Sprouts and then when I fetched the PPI couscous and Crawfish Etoufée, we discovered that we had a larger quantity of Etoufée than we thought, so we each ate a bowl of it.  I added the PPI ingredients from the Bearnaise Sauce base to it when it was heating, which gave the couscous a decidedly vinegary taste.  Suzette thought it had gone bad until I explained what I had done.

Last week I saw an article in the latest issue of the AARP magazine that said that dark chocolate is good for you and I know that Suzette and I and Willy seem to be addicted to chocolate.  This discovery triggered a new theory that I am developing; that I can make a more healthy and delicious form of chocolate fudge.   

In support of this new theory, last Saturday when I went to Trader Joe’s I bought a Pound Plus bar of 72% Dark Chocolate and then I went to Lowe’s where I bought a can of evaporated milk and a 12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.   Here are the ingredients' wrappings.

 

After dinner tonight I decided to try my new recipe for fudge.  I used the standard Mr. Stover’s recipe, but substituted the 72% Dark Chocolate and reduced the sugar from four cups to two cups and used fewer pecans.  I also did not make the mistake of using condensed milk instead of evaporated milk.  

Fudge Recipe

1/4 lb. butter

4 cups of sugar

1 can evaporated milk 

Bring these three ingredients to a boil and boil for four minutes. 

Then take off heat and add a 1 lb. chocolate bar, 1 cup of chopped nuts, 12 oz. chocolate chips and ½ of a bag of marshmallows (about 6 oz.).  Then stir to combine all ingredients and spread in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish and refrigerate until cooled and hard.

Tonight I noticed the evaporated milk and butter accepted the smaller amount of sugar more readily and it seemed to go into solution better.  The initial three ingredients boiled into a smooth thick liquid and the chocolate and marshmallows also seemed to going into solution more easily.  I tasted the leftover fudge on the sides of the casserole and it was smooth and not gritty like the last batch of fudge.  Also, it seemed super charged with a concentration of caffeine.  A small taste from the bowl gave me in a buzz.  According to Wikipedia, a Hershey bar of 45% chocolate has about ¼ the amount of caffeine as a cup of regular coffee.  Suzette tasted the fudge also and confirmed that I had overcome the biggest problem with the last batch, “It is not gritty.”

So I put the pan of fudge into the fridge to chill.  Tomorrow we will start official human experiments to determine the proper dosage and formulation of ingredients in fudge that will satisfy one’s addictive urge and enhance the anti-oxidant effects of chocolate without overdosing the body with toxic levels of sugar or caffeine.

Bon Appétit

May 5, 2013 A New World Cuisine Day

May 5, 2013 A New World Cuisine Day

Today we wanted to do something special.  After the Zoo Run at around 11:00, we decided to go to Santa Fe to see the New World Cuisine exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art.  We enjoyed seeing all the food related objects and Amish Quilts and Suzette bought a maté drinking straw made out of bamboo.   

When we exited the Museum I saw a banner featuring new ceramics at the Indian Art Museum at the other end of the Plaza and suggested we take a few minutes to view it.  As we walked by the Museum Hill Café we noticed that it was open and saw a placard featuring New World Cuisine.  It was 2:00 p.m. and we were exceedingly hungry so we walked in and were greeted by the Manger, Weldon, who told us if we wanted to try something interesting we should try the special Café Sampler Plate.  We agreed and he showed us to a lovely table by the window facing west with an amazing panoramic view of the Jemez Mountains.  When our waitress came to take our order we asked about the Sampler Plate and she said it was no longer available but then she went to check and reported back that only the appetizer of Sweet corn Custard was not available and we could substitute any of their three soups for it.  We both decided to order albondigas soup with the sampler plate for two and a flight each of the recommended wine pairing for the New World Sampler Plate. 

 

Here are the menus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Our albondigas soup was terrific.  It featured a meatball submerged in a squash, bell pepper, mint, tomato and onion caldo with flakes of rice and bits of egg.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 When the sampler platter for two with the three entrees came, we dug in immediately before taking a picture it looked so good and we were so hungry.   The cold Nopal Salad was the hottest dish; perhaps intensified by the addition of vinegar.   I saw bits of Serrano pepper in the sopa dish but I avoided them and enjoyed the tomato, crema, pinto bean and sopa combination.  As you can see Suzette loved the Poblano Mole, with its pulled chicken in its rich chocolate and poblano mole sauce with the fresh corn tortillas.

 

The wines were excellent.  We both loved the Torrones best with its crisp fruity flavor and its passion fruit and grapefruit bouquet.   The Albarino was also pleasant with a floral bouquet and the Malbec was smooth and complemented the and Dark Chocolate Truffle in a Graham Cracker crust dessert exceedingly well.

 

After lunch we felt revived and invigorated, so we went through most of the Indian Art Museum.  Not only was the new ceramic art wonderful, but there was the best North American Indian basket exhibit we had ever seen.   

Finally at around 4:00 we went downtown to see the William Clift photography exhibit at the Fine Arts Museum. They still had the 14,000 years of New Mexico Art exhibit up and I got to see the Ted Chapman rendering of the Fine Arts Museum again.  After seeing the shows, we went to the book store and purchased a postcard with the Ted Chapman rendering and a note card with a great Cady Wells watercolor done in 1934.

 

 

Finally around 5:00 we left for home after a wonderful art blitz and food excursion.  

Bon Appétit

May 4, 2013 PPI Dinner Party: Rib Eye Steaks, Calabacitas with Kale, Sauce Béarnaise, Vichyssoise, and Crab, Avocado, and Shrimp Dip

May 4, 2013 PPI Dinner Party:  Rib Eye Steaks, Calabacitas with Kale, Sauce Béarnaise, Vichyssoise, and Crab, Avocado, and Shrimp Dip

This evening we had my old college roommate, Mike Runnels and his friend, Mary Ford, over for dinner.

But let me start in the morning.  When we walked out to the garden around 7:30 am, Suzette said she wanted to pull the leeks one of the six beds in the old garden so she could plant new plants, so we harvested three or four clumps of leeks and decided to make Vichyssoise for dinner.  I processed the leeks into about three cups of thin slices and then diced one yellow onion, which when combined with the leeks equaled about 4 ½ cups. 

 

I then peeled and diced four or five potatoes until I had about 4 1/2 cups of diced potatoes.  Then I made 6 cups of chicken stock using Knorr chicken stock base.  These ingredients completely filled a 6 ½ quart enameled casserole.  I added couple of dashes of salt and put it on the stove to simmer for an hour and then into the fridge to chill.

Then around 9:00 am, I went to Trader Joe’s and bought organic heavy cream, a baguette, artichokes and replenished our wine and cognac.  When Suzette came home around 1:30 p.m. we rode to Rio Bravo and took showers and then she added cream to the soup and ran the soup through the Cuisinart to break up the lumps.  When the soup was served at dinner it was still a little lumpy, which tasted okay to me because I like it with more texture.  I asked her why it was lumpy and she said, “Because it did not have enough stock.”  I knew she was right because the recipe (Julia Child – Mastering the Art of French Cooking calls for 4 ½ cups of stock to 3 cups each of onion plus leeks and potatoes and I had almost 5 cups of each, so the six cups of stock I put in should have been 7 cups and I should have used a larger pot.  Alas.

 Suzette wanted to have appetizers in the garden and eat on the patio.  So she set up the tables.  We decided to reduce the amount of food, by eliminating the pinto beans and adding greens from the garden to the calabacitas to make a single dish that combined both starches and greens.   I said I could make mushrooms or a Béarnaise Sauce and she said that sounded nice.   But, I decided to wait until Mike and Mary arrived to ask them what they would prefer with the steak.  I went to the garden and picked a basket full of kale leaves while Suzette set the tables.   I then de-stemmed the kale and cut it into about three cups of bite size pieces and put them into a colander and rinsed them with water and let them stand at the ready.   We poured the PPI calabacitas and corn into a sauce pan and put it on the stove at the ready also.  

We decided to freshen up and extend the Crab and Shrimp salad by adding avocado, so Suzette put the last 1 ½ cups of PPI imitation crab salad into a lotus bowl and put Mike’s corn chips in another bowl and I finely diced two avocados and added them to the salad and our first two courses were ready.

Mike and Mary arrived at 5:30 and we decided to have the appetizer in the garden with a bottle of white wine.   Suzette went to the basement and returned with a bottle of 2011 MacMurray Ranch Russian River Valley Pinot Gris from Sonoma County.  We opened it and tasted it.  It was a little syrupy or had an extended strong character at the side of the mouth to me.  Everyone else liked it and it was a strong wine, so went well with the fish/shrimp and avocado in mayonnaise sauce and the greasy Mexican style corn chips.

After we had gotten to know each other better in the garden and eaten the dip and chips, I asked Mike and Mary whether they wanted sautéed mushrooms or a Béarnaise Sauce with their steak and Mary immediately responded that she would love a Béarnaise Sauce.  So we went back to the kitchen and I started fetching ingredients and asked Suzette to separate three egg yolks and get two sticks of butter from the fridge.   I chopped about 2 ½ Tbsps. of shallot and went to the garden and plucked four or five sprigs of tarragon and poured a little more than ¼ cup of white wine vinegar into an enameled sauce pan followed by a bit more than ¼ cup of the MacMurray Pinot Gris and finely chopped the 3 ½ Tbsps. of tarragon and put two Tbsp. of tarragon in the sauce pan with the wine vinegar and wine and shallots and a dash of salt and white pepper and fired up the burner.  After the liquid had reduced by 2/3 I turned off the heat and let the sauce base cool.   I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of 2010 Chateau de Retout Haut-Médoc Cru Bourgeois (one of Total Wine’s self-imported labels, $10.99) and opened it to let it breath.  It was delicious, silky smooth and a dark claret color made with 84.4% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15.6% Merlot, a classic Bordeaux blend.  The all-important bottom of the back label indicated that it was a certified Cru Bourgeois and “Mis en bouteille au chateau” which means that the entire production of the wine from the growing field to finished bottle of wine was accomplished at the chateau property, a large measure of assurance of the quality control over all aspects of the wine.   Everyone loved the wine.  Haut-Médoc is my favorite grilled steak wine.  When I am in a filet mignon mood I often favor a Pinot Noir because of its delicacy, but for tonight Haut-Médoc was the right fit for this meal.

Suzette suggested that we serve soup and then cook dinner.  She scooped the Vichyssoise into soup bowls.  I had picked a handful of chives from the garden on our way back from our appetizer course and I minced them and Suzette garnished the soup with the fresh minced chives.  I poured glasses of McMurray Pinot Gris and we went to the patio table to eat our soup.  I loved the soup even though it was a little lumpy.  I need to mention two things about the soup.  First, Julia Child is very clear in her cookbook that Vichyssoise is an American invention, so I think we have the latitude to make it lumpy if we wish.  Second, the French would never serve a lumpy potato soup, but we are not French.   Actually as stated above, the main reason for the soup’s lumpiness was the lack of a sufficient amount of chicken stock due to the limitation of the size of the pot.

As we were eating our soup on the patio the wind began to pick up and Mike mentioned that the wind was supposed to increase into the evening, so we decided to eat the main course inside the house.

We returned to the kitchen and Suzette prepared the two steaks for grilling and I started to make the sauce by straining the reduced liquid into another enameled sauce pan.  I beat the three egg yolks until smooth and added them to the liquid and then turned on the heat to low.  Suzette put the steaks on the grill and I cut the two sticks of butter into approximately 12 one ounce slices and started adding them to the liquid.  The butter began to melt into the liquid and turn it an opaque yellow color.  I turned up the heat a touch and added more butter to try to melt the sauce and also raise the heat a bit so it would steam off some of the liquid to increase its acidity and flavor.  When most of the butter was melted I reduced the heat to lower the heat as possible and kept stirring the sauce continually.  When the sauce began to thicken I turned off the heat and kept stirring so the sauce would not break.   As the sauce cooled it thickened further and by the time the steaks arrived from the grill, in a couple of minutes, the sauce had cooled enough to not break.

Suzette added the greens to the roasted corn and calabacitas and stirred the mixture until the greens began to collapse into the mixture and I sliced the steak and we were ready to eat.

We ladled Béarnaise Sauce over slices of steak and took scoops of vegetables and enjoyed our main course at the T.V. room table with sips of red wine.

Since Mike had mentioned and noticed the new bottle of calvados I had bought, after dinner while we were sipping the last of our red wine, Suzette filled a plate with chocolates, caramels and cookies and we snacked on them and I poured three different calvados for Mike to try, the new Berneroy XO I bought at Total Wine, Santa Fe Spirits’ Apple Brandy and Germain-Robin’s Apple Brandy.   Berneroy won the taste test, hands down even though it was the least expensive one.  It was a legitimate XO, which meant a long aging and blending of multiple years' vintages to achieve a smooth calvados. 

Here is Calvados Bernerroy's explanation of the French requirements for ageing and labeling calvados.

"AGEING

The crystal-clear spirit which flows from the still is then patiently aged in French oak barrels for several years under the Berneroy Master Blender’s watchful eye. By law, this eau-de-vie must spend a minimum of 2 years in oak casks before it can be sold as Calvados. Similar to other famous oak-aged spirits from France, calvados is defined by the following quality ranges:

• Fine – minimum of 2 years oak ageing
• VSOP – minimum of 4 years oak ageing
• XO – minimum of 6 years oak ageing

Calvados Berneroy is aged exclusively in older, ‘seasoned’ barrels to preserve its genuine aromatic intensity and to avoid it becoming over-oaked. Over time, its distinctive aroma of fresh apples evolves to develop more complex aromas of butter, vanilla, baked apples and liquorice."

 

At 10:00 we finally said good night after a very pleasant evening of food and wine and conversation.  Mary commented that the meal was more enjoyable because it had been well-paced over three and one-half to four hours, a nice compliment for the French style of eating.

Bon Appétit   

May 3, 2013 Three Great Meals: Brunch – Crab and Shrimp Salad Sandwich, Late Lunch-Rose’s Café and Dinner-Crawfish Etoufée Couscous and No Prep

May 3, 2013 Three Great Meals:  Brunch – Crab and Shrimp Salad Sandwich, Late Lunch-Rose’s Café and Dinner-Crawfish Etoufée Couscous and No Prep

At around 10:00 I decided to see how the flavors had melded in the crab/shrimp salad, so I cut a piece of French sourdough bread (Bosque Bakery) and toasted it for a minute and slathered it with crab/shrimp salad and poured a glass of Le Ferme Julien rosé and had a great breakfast/brunch. 

 

 

At 1:30 p.m. I drove to Rose’s Café at Mesa del Sol to meet with the owner, Rose, who is a client. Rose treated me to one of her Yucatan Specialty Dishes, pollo pibil soft tacos (Rose was raised in the Yucatan).  The plate included three warmed corn tortillas filled with chicken pibil, pickled red onions, a slice of avocado, lettuce and tomato and were served with moros y christianos (black beans and rice formed into a column in a timbale or ramekin and then inverted onto the plate plus a ramekin of what appeared to me to be a fiery hot yucatecan style salsa made with habanero chili that definitely lit up my taste buds ($7.75).

I apologize for not taking a picture of the dish but after lunch and our meeting I asked Rose how she made pibil.  It is complicated but easy.  First, you go to Pro’s Ranch Market and buy a box of El Mexicano Achiote Rojo paste, fresh banana leaves and a bottle of Goya Naranja Agria “Bitter Orange” juice.

Then you grill the banana leaves on a gas grill until they become soft and start to darken.  Then you remove the stem from the banana leave so you have flat strips of smoky soften leaves and you remove any extra charring from the grill. 

Then you make the marinade for the meat (either chopped boneless chicken thighs or pork cushion).  Rose starts her marinade with equal parts of achiote paste and naranja agria.  She grabbed about three or four Tbsps. of the block of achiote paste to show me the quantity she uses for a bucket that holds about three or four pounds of meat.  After the marinade is mixed into the meat, she sprays the bottom of her bucket with Pam and places about 2 oz.  of water in the bucket and then lays a layer of banana leaves on the bottom of the bucket and up the sides so she can wrap the meat completely in leaves (Rose freezes the grilled banana leaves so they are available at any time). 

Then she lays the marinated meat on the banana leaves and wraps the meat completely with banana leaves.  Then she places saran wrap over the top of the bucket to seal the juices in and then covers the bucket with aluminum foil.

Then she bakes the meat in the sealed bucket in a 225˚ oven for 2 to 3 hours until tender and it falls apart when flaked with a fork.

The pickled red onions are also easy.  She covers sliced red onions in white vinegar in a bowl and adds a dash of salt, pepper and some sugar and lets it sit 3 or 4 hours in the fridge. 

Here is a picture of Rose holding her pibil bucket and the ingredients for pibil. 

 

 

 

Pibil has a subtle indescribable flavor, is reddish orange in color, and is tender and delicious.  As you can see the flavors are driven by natural herbs and ingredients without the aid of any salt, pepper or other seasoning we usually associate with food.  Sort of a pre-historic dish and prep.

After going to the "Off Center" small house opening at Sumner and Dene Gallery, we went home and decided we needed to eat some of the accumulating PPI.  We both wanted Crawfish Etoufée but when I offered to make rice, Suzette said, “We have PPI couscous and greens in the garage.”  I immediately fetched the couscous from the garage and then fetched the etoufée and a couple of bottles of beer from the basement.

The etoufée had frozen solid, so we put its casserole on the stove to thaw out and heat.  I made some fish stock with the instant dashi and hot water and added about 1 cup of stock to the casserole to loosen up the etoufée.  Suzette heated a pasta bowl full of couscous and when the etoufée was heated to a simmer, we filled bowls with hot couscous and ladled etoufée over it for one of the best couscous dishes I have ever had.   It had all the attributes I think of a great dish of couscous having, soft steamed couscous filled with lovely greens and a spicy hot meat sauce to make a kind of meat and couscous and vegetable stew, in this case without the need for any harissa.   

I loved all the food I ate today and, unusually for me, did not lift a knife to prep or cook any food all day long other than to cut one piece of bread for breakfast.  

Bon Appétit

May 2, 2013 New Recipe - Avocado filled with Fish Cake and shrimp salad

May 2, 2013 New Recipe - Avocado filled with Fish Cake and shrimp salad

When I was at Pro’s Ranch Market yesterday, the young man in the fish department served me a freshly made imitation crab and shrimp salad made with mayonnaise, celery and onions, imitation crab and chopped shrimp.   I loved it and bought a packet of imitation crab ($ 1.79/lb.), which was actually layers of partially red colored fish cake.

Tonight I decided to make a cool dinner and attempt to replicate the imitation crab salad I had tasted at Pro’s yesterday.

 I started by putting about 1 ½ cups of mayonnaise into a bowl with juice of two limes I then added about ¼ cup of red onion and 2 stalks of celery and 2 large green onions, 1 lb. of imitation crab meat, 10 chopped large boiled shrimp, two chopped sprigs of parsley, about 1 Tbsp. of chopped garlic greens and a couple of dashes of salt.

Suzette thought the mixture was too vinegary and I thought the mixture was too stiff and not very tasty, so I added one chopped vine ripe tomato, which helped flavor and emulsify the mixture.  Suzette added the last two Tbsps. of her avocado and crema mixture and I added about 2/3 cup more mayonnaise.  Finally I added a couple of dashes of Tabasco sauce and felt like I could add nothing more to improve the flavor, so I put the mixture in the fridge to meld  its flavors.

Suzette said, “Are you going to serve avocado stuffed crab salad”?  And I reflexively uttered, “Yes”.  Since she was ready to go pick greens from the garden for a crab salad, I followed her and we picked a basket of lettuce and greens.

While Suzette cleaned and spun the lettuce, I cut two avocados in half and stripped the skin off of them.  When she handed me plates filled with a bed of lettuce, I placed two avocado halves on each of them.

Then I asked Suzette, ”Do you want beer or wine for this dish?”  She said, “A light red wine.”  I asked, “Perhaps a dry rosé?”   She did not respond, which I took as an affirmative response, so I went to the cellar and did not see any chilled rosé of a red, so I picked the next best thing, a bottle of French dry rosé a 2011 La Ferme Julien.   Here is an image of the back label.   Those who are Tour de France fans will have a special appreciation for this wine, as climbing Mont Ventoux is one of the classic elements of any year’s Tour.

 

I scooped three spoonsful of crab salad onto the two avocado halves on each plate of salad to cover them and Suzette set up T.V. tables in our bedroom so we could watch Colbert and John Stewart (our big TV is out at the moment) and poured glasses of rosé and we were ready to eat.  The fresh shrimp helped mask the fact that the crab was really processed fish cake.  I prefer to think that it tasted great for what it was, a processed fish cake and fresh shrimp cold salad.  The clean dry and fruity tasting rosé was perfect with the dinner and even helped balance the fatty flavor of the avocado and mayonnaise.

Here is the salad the next morning.   You can see that the salad has become creamier, which I think is good, because it means the different elements are mixing together. 

 

 

My first memory of this type of cold shrimp salad was from helping a group of women shell and make shrimp salad in Denmark in the summer of 1968.  We were shelling small Baltic shrimp and it was tedious work.  It seemed to take an hour or two to fill a medium sized bowl.  Then they added a light creamy mayonnaise and we ate open face sandwiches of lovely cold shrimp salad on bread. 

Baltic shrimp are typically boiled at sea in salt water, which makes them incredibly plump and fresh and slightly salty, which is a lot like the kind of shrimp I buy at Pro’s Ranch Market that seem to be frozen whole and thus are infused with salt water, so the Mexican shrimp, when boiled impart a slightly salty taste to a dish, which I love (think “Mexican shrimp coctel”).  Anyway that salty flavor in our fish cake and shrimp salad triggered a déjà vu memory of summer in Scandinavia for me.   

 

Bon Appétit 

 

May 1, 2013 Dinner- Tamales and Beans garnished with greens, tomato, onions and avocado

May 1, 2013 Dinner- Tamales and Beans garnished with greens, tomato, onions and avocado

Suzette had dinner with the girls tonight and I did not want to cook, so I decided to heat up a couple of pork filled tamales from the freezer with some of the PPI beans we made for Willy’s party.   I diced 2 Tbsp. of onion and sprinkled it on the top of the tamales and beans and squirted four or five dashes of Cholulu red sauce onto the tamales and heated that in the microwave. 

While the tamales and beans were heating in the microwave, I went to the garden and picked two cups of fresh lettuce and greens and rinsed tem in a sieve and diced 1 vine ripe tomato and ½ avocado for the garnish.

When the tamales and beans were hot I laid the garnish on top in layers with the greens on top, rather than arranging it.  The result looked more like a salad than a plate of New Mexican food.  I had no interest in designing a presentation because I was going to cur up the salad and mix the garnish with the beans and tamales anyway.   I opened a bottle of Sessions beer to wash down my fresh New Mexican dinner.  The reason the dish looks so ugly is because after I cut up the lettuce and began eating, I found that the beans were not as hot as I liked, so I put the bowl back into the microwave for another minute of heating.

My new motto is “Looks ugly, tastes great.”  The fresh salad ingredients balanced the heaviness of the tamale masa and the beans.  The new motto will not displace this blog's main motto, which is "Leftovers can be made into fresh, exciting and delicious meals with just a little effort."  This meal is a great example of both mottos.

Suzette ate some of the beans when she arrived home around 8:00 p.m.  Everyone likes the beans.  I guess because they taste better as they are reheated repeatedly and the mirepoix cooks into solution.

After dinner I found the PPI chocolate chip brownie with coffee flavored whipped cream that Susan Palmer made for Monday evening's dinner and enjoyed it for dessert with the last of a glass of Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio.

The big TV seems to have died, so I am happy to have a new book assigned to read for Book Club, The Poisonwood Bible.

Also, this morning I went to Pro's Ranch Market and bought 10 avocados (5 for $.99), 10 large limes ($.99/lb.), 2 lbs. of yellow onions ($.59/lb.), a red onion ($1.19/lb.), a bag of imitation crab meat ($1.99/lb.), two 14 oz. bags of Michael's tortilla chips ($.99/bag), cilantro ($.33/bunch), green onions ($.50/bunch), milk ($2.68) and LaLa mango yogurt ($2.99 for 32 oz.).  I plan to make guacamole and a Mexican style crab and shrimp salad as appetizers or a cool light meal.

Bon Appétit

April 30, 2013 Dinner- Crawfish Etoufée

April 30, 2013 Dinner- Crawfish Etoufée

I must be in a down home retro frame of mind with Texas steak dinner last night and one of my favorite Cajun dishes tonight.  Actually, I try to balance my surf and turf and we were heavy on the turf last night. So I went pretty heavy on the surf tonight.  

First let me show you Paul Prudhomme’s recipe for Crawfish etoufée and then I will describe how we made it.

We use one large skillet and one large enameled casserole (Le Creuset 6 3/4 to 7 quart).  Suzette made three cups of seafood stock with some PPI chicken parts and dehydrated instant dashi cooked in water for about thirty minutes and I diced 1 cup each of celery, onion, and red bell pepper, plus 1 Tbsp. of fresh garlic.  Then Suzette said, “We are making one half of the recipe, so we need ½ cup of green onion.”  So I chopped up the two large green onions we had picked from our garden.

Tonight we put ¾ cup of oil instead of the 7 Tbsp. of oil into the skillet and started sprinkling in flour slowly stirring all the time to eliminate any lumps, until the mixture thickened and took on color.  When we had a thick light brown paste we added to the skillet 1 cup each of finely diced celery, red bell pepper, and onion with 1Tbsp of garlic and most of the seasoning (thyme, white pepper, black pepper, basil and salt).  The heat under the roux mixture was reduced and cooked for a bit.  Then Suzette put 4 ounces of butter into the casserole and I added 1 lb. of crawfish tails and heated the casserole until the butter melted and then cooked the crawfish (Nantucket Shoals $14.99) in the butter for about five minutes.  We then transferred the roux mixture to the casserole and added three cups of stock and ¼ cup of chopped green onion and cooked the roux and crawfish mixture adjusting the seasonings by adding salt until it tasted good and bit of water to smooth the dish to a creamy consistency.  We then added three cups of greens, mostly de-stemmed kale, cut to bite sized pieces from our garden to the casserole and cooked the mixture some more.   Suzette said the flavors were not right.  I tasted and got a sharp spicy flavor.  So Suzette added an additional 4 ounces of butter to smooth out the flavors in the dish and we cooked that in until the butter melted.  After about another five minutes we had a full casserole of etoufée.   The consistency was very creamy, yet the bell pepper was still crisp although the celery and onion had softened and the greens had collapsed.

I heated 1½ - 2 cups of PPI basmati rice in the microwave and fetched two bottles of Negra Modelo from the basement and we were ready to eat.

I put approximately ¾ to 1 cup of cooked rice into each of two pasta bowls and then we each ladled scoops of etoufée onto the rice.  It was delicious.  Still one of my favorite Cajun dishes.  Like Jody said when he came into the kitchen while we were cooking the dish to discuss Suzette’s car repair, “We used to catch those little critters in the ditches in Corrales.”  Didn’t all of us, who lived near creeks, catch crawdads when we were young?  Perhaps there is that element of childhood fascination in this dish also.   I find it to be an elegant dish, akin to Homard Á L'Américaine (Lobster w/ Wine, Tomatoes, Garlic & Herbs).

This recipe makes enough to serve 8 to 10 people so it is a great party dish.  For parties, Suzette likes to make dirty rice with chopped chicken livers and gizzards cooked into the rice. 

Here is what was left after Suzette and I took all we could eat, still about five to six cups of etoufee.  Note that the dark color of the dish is due to the darkened color of the roux, which is important because cooking the roux cooks and flavors the flour.  Roux is essentially a thickened cream sauce base made with oil and flour instead of butter and flour.  The resemblance of the etoufee sauce to the sauce in Homard A L' Americaine is striking, because both make a seafood stock from the leftover parts of the seafood cooked in water.  Both dishes include fresh vegetables and spices and herbs in the sauce and the body of the dish in both is a seafood cream sauce. 
 

 

Bon Appétit