Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler!

Yesterday being Mardi Gras, I made red beans and rice for Linette and gumbo for me.  I don't know if I make gumbo "correctly", but it does taste great.  Here's what you need:

• 4 oz. vegetable oil
• 4 oz. flour
• an onion, chopped
• a couple of celery stalks, trimmed and chopped
• a bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• as much garlic as you like, 
• 4 cups or so of chicken stock
• a bay leaf
• creole seasoning
• Stuff you want to put in it (see below)

Preheat your oven to 350.  Whisk together the oil and the flour in a large pot.  Put the pot into the oven and let it cook until it is dark brown, about an hour and a half.  Take the pot out of the oven and put it on the stove over medium heat.  Add the onion, celery, and pepper and cook them until they soften a bit.  Throw in the garlic and let it soften.  Add the stock and the bay leaf and seasoning.

Ok, that's the base.  Now where you go from here is up to you.  Last night I made chicken and sausage gumbo.  I added andouille sausage and cut up boneless skinless chicken thighs.  I then let the gumbo simmer for a bet to have the flavors meld.  But you can add whatever you like.  If you're doing seafood, you can add those just a few minutes before serving and instead of chicken stock you could used fish stock or clam juice.  Of course okra is a common additive to gumbo; it thickens it and adds a unique flavor.  My wife doesn't like okra, so I leave it out.  You can also add file powder (ground sassafras), but that's optional too.

With all the possible variations, gumbo is a many splendored thing.

Poulet Au Vinaigre

I made this French chicken dish which comes from Lyon and it was absolutely delicious.  The sauce is superb. Here's what you need in software: 

• A chicken cut up into 8 pieces.  
• A few cloves of garlic, minced.  
• Four or so shallots, also minced.  
• A cup of white wine and a half a cup of red wine vinegar. 
• A tablespoon each of honey and
• tomato paste. 
• A cup of chicken stock. 
• A half stick of unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons.  

For hardware you'll need:

• One large saucepan with a lid
• Tongs and a large spoon
• A fine strainer (optional)

Season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper.  Heat up a large sauce pan to medium high heat.  Add a mixture of butter and olive oil and heat up.  Working in batches brown the chicken on all sides.  Remove the chicken and most of the fat from the pan.  Saute the shallots and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes.  De-glaze the pan with the wine and vinegar and honey.  Boil it down a bit.  Then add the tomato paste.  Reduce it a bit more.  Add the chicken stock and stir.  Put the chicken back into the sauce pan and reduce the heat to medium low and cover.  Cook for 45 minutes or so, basting the chicken from time to time.  When done, remove the chicken to a plate and cover with foil.  Increase the heat to high and boil down the sauce until it thickens.  Take the pan off the heat and strain the sauce (optional).  Return the sauce to the pan and swirl the butter in one T. at a time until it thickens.  Serve the sauce alongside the chicken.  Serve with a macaroni au gratin or mashed potatoes and some green beans.  Also, some good bread.  You'll need it to sop up the sauce.  Bon Appetit!

All Out Lasagna Bolognese and Homemade Ricotta

I cooked this No Holds Barred Lasagna yesterday and it was VERY good, even though we were out of Parmesan cheese.  One of the things that made it really good was home-made ricotta cheese.  It was incredibly easy to make.  You take 2 cups WHOLE milk, 1/4 t. salt, and 2 T. white vinegar, stir 'em together, zap them in the microwave for 4 minutes, then stir for 5-10 seconds until the curds are separate from the whey.  Spoon off the curds into a colander lined with a couple layers of cheese cloth and let drain.  Drain for 5 minutes for something very creamy that you're going to use immediately, drain 15-20 minutes for use in lasagna and ravioli, drain overnight for pastries like ricotta pancakes or gnocchi.

Enchiladas de Pollo con Pepitas

This is a really fantastic tasting dish and serves a lot of folks.  I adapted it from a recipe in Bon Appetit some years ago.  First, the ingredients:

Some chicken.  Use whatever you have.  I used most of a smoked chicken that I had made the other day, which seemed to add some character and sweetness.  Alternatively, you can use some purchased rotisserie chicken.  Or you can cut up a chicken, put it in a couple of quarts of water with a chunked up onion, some roughly chopped celery and a chopped up carrot, together with a few peppercorns and a good amount of salt.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer.  Skim off the foam.  Remove the chicken and let cool.  Reserve the water (now chicken stock) for use in the dish.  Chop up whatever chicken you use into very small pieces. 

A cup or so of raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
4 medium tomatillos
2 onions (divided use)
1 or 2 serrano chilis
2 large garlic cloves
4 cups chicken broth

Corn tortillas
Mexican cheese

Put the pumpkin seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat and heat the seeds until they begin to pop and become fragrant (shake them from time to time so that they don't burn). Grind the toasted seeds in a coffee grinder.

Roughly chop the tomatillos, one onion, the serranos, and garlic.  Throw them in a food processor with about a cup of stock.  Zap until fairly smooth.  Throw the tomatillo mixture into a sauce pan and heat until reduced and thickened a bit.

Heat some oil (2-3 T.) in a sauce pan.  Add the ground seeds and stir until the seeds begin to color.  Add the tomatillo mixture to the seeds.  BE CAREFUL!!!  Basically here you're adding what is mostly water to something that is mostly hot oil.  It is somewhat like adding liquid to a hot roux.  You're going to get some rapid boiling.  Add some more chicken stock.  Heat this sauce until it is reduced and concentrated.  Salt and pepper to taste.

In a small skillet, heat some oil.  Add a corn tortilla for 2-3 seconds; flip; cook for 2-3 seconds; remove to paper towel.  We're just trying to soften these tortillas so that we can roll them up; don't brown them.

Put the chicken in a large bowl.  Dice up the remaining onion and throw it in with the chicken.  Add some sauce to the chicken and onion so that it is nicely moistened, leaving enough sauce to cover the tortillas.  Add some grated or crumbled cheese.  Combine well.

Put a large T. of the chicken mixture in a tortilla and roll up and put in a prepared 9x12 casserole.  Continue with all remaining tortillas until the casserole is full.  Spread remaining sauce over the rolled tortillas.  Add the remaining crumbled or grated cheese.  Cover with foil.

At this point, you can put everything in the fridge (or even the freezer) until you are ready to heat.  Heat it through in the oven at about 350 deg.  After 30 minutes or so, take off the foil and run it under the broiler to grown up the sauce and the cheese.

Serve with refritos, arroz rojo, y cerveza muy frio.

It's Science!

Epi-log, which is a blog from Epicurious, the publishers of Gourmet and Epicurious, listed some interesting tips today:

• The first was keeping avocados fresh.  After cutting an avocado in half, the author sprayed the unused half of the avocado with cooking spray and put it in the fridge.  The next day, the avocado had not turned brown.  This makes sense because avocados turn brown because of oxidation, exposure to air.  If you cover the surface with oil, air cannot get to it, thus no oxidation.  The author said that he then just wiped off the cooking spray and the avocado was ready to eat.  Pretty nifty solution.  My only question is how long before the oil seeps into the avocado, but that question is for another day.
• The second was making a roux in a microwave.  I've done this before and it's pretty easy.  You just melt a little butter or put some oil in a ramekin or other microwave container together with a nearly equal amount of flour and zap it for 20 to 30 seconds and it will turn a straw color.  I have experimented a bit with this, but I don't know if you can get a really dark roux this way.  I am interested in why the roux colors at all.  That would indicate to me that the flour is caramelizing or browning in the microwave and I would like to know how or why that is happening.
• The last tip was rinsing your hands with milk after handling chili peppers like jalapeños.  I've done this before and it works because the milk neutralizes the capsaicin in the peppers.  One tip that was on there that I hadn't heard of was rubbing your hands on a stainless steel knife after chopping garlic to get rid of the garlic smell.  I suppose, but I  am not sure, that that solution has to do with an ionic reaction between the steel and the garlic-smell compound. On the other hand, there's no good evidence that it actually works.

Easy Peazy Ice Cream

On somewhat of a whim, I decided to make easy peazy ice cream and it really turned out well. You can make it in a blender and it's almost instant ice cream. Here's what you need:

One can of sweetened condensed milk
An equal amount of whipping cream
a couple of cups of frozen fruit
Vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Get out your blender or food processor. Dump in the milk and cream and the fruit. I used frozen strawberries and they worked really well, but I'm guessing you could use anything. I'm going to try frozen mangos next. Add a teaspoon or so of extract and a pinch of salt. Zap it until it's smooth.

Done.

Really.

I had put it into my ice cream maker, but that really was unnecessary. I then packed it into some tupperware and put it in the freezer where it got harder. Surprisingly, I didn't get ice crystals.

You can really do this in a blender and it would make for great dorm food ice cream.`

Basa Fillets A La Mexicana

Ok, it was Ash Wednesday and we needed to eat some fish. So, I came up with this easy main dish. Ingredients: basa or tilapia fillets, flour, corn meal, egg(s), salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, oil for frying, shredded cheddar cheese, chopped avocado, pico de gallo. For the avocado and pico, I used this mix that HEB has to make guacamole, but a couple of avocados and some salsa or pico will do instead.

Preparation: take your fillets and dry them thoroughly with a paper towel. Get out three bowls. Put the flour in one, the egg(s) in the second, and the corn meal in the third. Heat up a large skillet on medium high heat and add enough oil to go, say, 1/4" up the side. Turn the broiler on in the oven. Season the flour with salt and pepper. Season the corn meal with cayenne pepper. Whip the eggs until nicely scrambled. The amount of flour, corn meal and eggs depends on the amount of fillets you're using. You need about 1 egg and 1/2-3/4 cup each of flour and corn meal for two fillets. Multiply accordingly. Dredge the fillets in the flour, then through the egg wash, then coat with cornmeal and set on a piece of wax paper.

When the oil is hot, fry up them fillets. After you turn them to fry the other side, sprinkle cheddar cheese on the fillets to cover. Wait a minute or so, then pop them under the broiler. When the cheese is nicely melted and a little browned, take them out of the oven. Plate them, spread on a bit of the avocado and top with pico.

Serve with refritos and rice.