The Three Main Food Groups of New Orleans

The USDA has no doubt spent millions of dollars in development of the Food Pyramid to help guide Americans into healthy eating habits. It encourages a broad diet full of fruits and vegetables, and moderation in other areas such as flavor.

It doesn't appear this Food Pyramid concept has yet made it to the Big Easy, similarly with public nudity laws.

I share with you today the Three Food Groups of New Orleans.

Crawfish

 

South Louisiana is much in love with these little crustaceans. In season from spring though mid summer, it is as if God wanted you to sit outside and drink cold beer while sucking heads.

And suck heads you must. The head cavity of the crawfish holds a fatty nectar of the gods, it also soaks in some of the spicy liquid that they are boiled in. And as you would expect, there is a specific technique to proper head sucking. The head is pointed down while the tail is twisted off lest you want the liquid to escape. The head can then be tipped up into your mouth, the head is pinched and the delicious juices firmly sucked from their hiding place. While this may sound a complex process, after a pound of hot mud bugs and a 6 pack of cold beer you will be an expert. 

Muffuletta

While at first glance it may appear an unassuming sandwich, partaking of a proper Muffuletta is an experience impossible to describe. A wide flat Italian loaf topped with sesame seeds, filled with mortadella, salami, mozzarella, ham, and provolone.  But what makes the Muffuletta is the olive salad. diced giardiniera and olives, it is that special combination of salty and vinegary that makes this a sandwich above all other sandwich.

Beer

The Third Food group of New Orleans is perhaps the most universal of foods. 

A dark stout, perfect for breakfast with Cocoa Pebbles.

A cold Amber, a well balanced drink under the hot summer sun washing down meat on a stick..

 

 

And equally well with crawfish nachos.

 And who could forget about an Amber with deep fried meat on a stick?

So while New Orleans may lack in areas such as; public education, drainage or having a non-corrupt government,  there is no lack for delicious and well balanced meals.

Fromage de Tête

 

An innocent enough looking block. Like a shiny meatloaf perhaps? 

The  taste; meaty, salty, clove? 

The texture; tender, but slightly gelatinous, fat, but not too fatty. The perfect texture for on top of hearty toast.

To the French Fromage de Tête,  cheesed head. To the Cajun 'Hogs Head Cheese'.   The head part will become self evident shortly, but 'cheese', what does cheese have to do with it?  

Froma is the Latin term for the box that cheese was placed into and pressed. And as such became the root to the French word for lovely curds of milk pressed together in cheese, fromage. Similarly lovely pieces of velvety pork can be pressed into a form, covered in delicious aspic and chilled.

So no cheese was involved in the making of this delight, but there was much Head.

 
My local and much loved butcher Cleaver and Co. was lucky enough to have a local pork farmer come to them with a handful of pigs and quite the story....

The Farmer, let us call him Mick Donald, is getting up there in age, he is actually quite Old.  Old Mick Donald had a farm, a farm with a beautiful Devon Black sow, let us call her Miss Piggy, in the prime of her life. She was out in the pen, enjoying the sun in nothing but her birthday suit, doing her Miss Piggy thing when a wild boar  strolls by and sees her beautiful hams. It is love at first oink, he knows he has to get a taste of her porker, and breaks through the fence.

This boar is quite the gentle pig, and he tells Miss Piggy how beautiful her butt is (that is the shoulder, not what you were thinking of).  They share some lovely slop, and an after dinner mud bath.  Then Miss Piggy gets what she was really after and squeals like a pig, because she is a pig.

The Boar asks for Miss Piggy's number and promises to call. But she never hears from him again. But 115 days from that day she sees his face again in her little piglets. And those little piglets grew up to be what every little pig wants to be when they grow up, Pork.


So I couldn't pass up on a half Devon, half wild boar of my own.

The head was split and quartered, brain removed. Cheek and jowl reserved for another dish.  Head and tongue were simmered with mirepoix, garlic, pepper, clove and a little Herbs de Provence for about 3 hrs. The meat removed from the pot, stock strained and returned to pot to reduce.

The meat is allowed to cool to touch, separated from fat and bone. Meat is coarsely ground and packed gently into a terrine. When the stock has reduced by half, seasoning is adjusted, strained again and poured over meat. Chill, slice enjoy.

Sous Vide

French for 'Under Vacuum'. An odd term as the vacuum part has taken a back seat to precise temperature control of a water bath.  You can even 'sous vide' an egg with no more prep than taking it out of the carton.

I have a Sous Vide Magic temperature controller. I primarily use it with a cheap 5 quart rice cooker, but have also plugged in a hot plate and made a water bath of a big old pot of water to cook the BaBoDuChicKeyIlle.

The device has a temperature probe that you place in the water and it performs PID control to turn off and on the heater element to maintain the set point temperature. For meat control of +-2 degrees is all that is needed, and this controller can handle that easilly.

Eggs are a queer little device, the white sets at a higher temperature than the yolk. But the yolk is the part you want a just thick set, and the white firm.  And both of them are sensitive to very small changes in final temperature.  The perfectly cooked egg is a cruel cruel  mistress. 

 

The plastic bags allow all the juices and flavors to be sealed right next to the food. The above picture being pork cheeks seasoned and then packed with an adequate amount of duck fat. Slow cooked for 72 hrs at 145*F pork cheek Confit is a delicious delicious thing.

 Dusted with a little flour and fried to crispy goodness, still bright pink from the small amount of curing salt used to add that special taste only nitrates can bring to a party.

After cooking steak sous vide you will never want to make it any other way. Season steak with 1% its weight in salt and a pinch of MSG, vacuum pack. Into a 125*f water bath for bright pink center,  130*F for more rendered fat and more of a pale pink center.  Cook for 1 hr, then remove from bag, blot dry and into absurdly hot cast iron skillet to color for a minute on each side.   If that isn't sex on a plate, nothing is.

Wine

"In wine there is Wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria."  I doubt Ben Franklin actually said that, but its a great quote either way.

Wine is an amazing thing. Who really wants to eat a bunch of grapes, not I. But pour them into a glass that can get me drunk, now that is a fruit I can get behind.

Jack Keller's webpage is where I adapted most of my recipes from. He has some out there recipes on there too; Onion, Jalapeno. I think I'll pass on those. 

The Papaya and Mano wine were made from dried fruit and are utterly vile. If anyone is interested I believe there is four bottles of each left.

The Berry Wine I quite like.  When the frozen fruit would go on sale I would buy a dozen bags. Blackberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries and some Welch's red concentrate makes a pretty good dry red.

 

I like orange juice with breakfast. I like it even better for breakfast with cheap champagne. Why not have the alcohol in it right from the bottle and save valuable moments early in the morning?

Using frozen orange juice concentrate diluted per directions on container, sugar was added to get target alcohol content of 11%.  Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast was selected for its ability to ferment out Malic acid as I had concern the finished wine was going to be overly tart.  I was very satisfied with the end results.

When a google image search for 'Orange' was ran, Halle Berry in her orange swimsuit from Die Another Day was one of the top results. That was all the justification I needed to put her on a label.

Designing the labels for the bottles is almost as entertaining as drinking the wine itself.  Well, not really, but it gives me something to do while drinking last year's products.

Pizza

There are only two types of Pizza, thin and deep dish. Anything else claiming to be pizza is poor imitation.

Deep dish pizza must be properly deep, 3/4 inch minimum. If your deep dish pizza is cooked through in less than half an hour you are being lied to about it's deepness.  

Geno's East of Chicago are proper preparers of this type of pizza perfection. And I suggest all who wish to reach enlightenment study here. Come hungry and patient. Long hair and Bourbon Sour are optional.


I do not pretend to  compete with Chicago's pizza in my home kitchen. I practice the art of thin crust at home.  And as there are rules for deep dish, so must you follow the One Commandment of thin crust pizza; No Bending.

Thin crust pizza must have a crisp crust, if it is flexible enough to bend, then you have a soggy crust. No doubt those who are members to the cult of New York style pizza will disagree with me here.

  

I ate at John's Pizzeria in New York. and it was quite good, other than the soggy, flimsy crust.  No that I have offend millions of people; on to the discussion of pizza cooking hardware.

While I would love to have a wood fired, brick oven to cook my pizza,  my bank account and local zoning laws do not support that. 

So the a ceramic Pizza Stone is the nearest many will come to that goal. I have owned two such devices, and as shown above, they both cracked. They are also impossible to scrub the little bits of burnt cheese off.  The self clean function of a modern over is very effective at carbonizing all mozzarella remains off of a pizza stone. That same function also works well to turn one pizza stone into multiple small stones, as I found out with my first model.

Given the severe limitations of a ceramic pizza stone, I purchased a Baking Steel from Stoughton Steel. Basically a laser cut plate of 1/2 inch thick mild steel. No doubt Stoughton has a great margin on these things, but fools like I buy them, so more power too them.

This  30 lbs hunk of steel lives in the bottom of my oven. I did try to place it on a rack, but the bow the rack took was concerning.  Preheat oven for half an hour at 550*f, then switch the broiler on and you are ready to enter Crispy Crust Nirvana.

Pancetta.

Pancetta is an Italian bacon, not smoked like American bacon.  Recipe adapted from Ruhlman's "Charcuterie"

 1500g pork belly
Cure:
3 garlic cloves
8g curing salt
25g salt
8g msg
17g brown sugar
10g black pepper
6g juniper
3 bay leaves
3g nutmeg
1 tsp tyme
1 tsp orange zest

Rub all the love in. Then vacuum pack and let cure for 7 days

When cured, rinse off surface, pat dry, roll and tie tightly.  Let sit uncovered in fridge for another week to dry out a bit.  Then sous vide for 72hrs at 145*F.  Chill, slice.

Fry up and enjoy

BaBoDuChicKeyIlle

New Orleans is the home to the famous TurDucken, a chicken stuffed inside a duck, inside a turkey. So for Thanksgiving 2013 I knew I had to pay homage to that glutenous masterpiece.  But the party I was going too was only about a dozen people. No way could I use a whole turkey. Also, the traditional TurDucken was significantly lacking in porcine products.

A trip to the grocery and I was inspired;

BaBoDuChicKeyIlle it would be.
Ba, Bacon
Bo, Boudin.
Du, Duck
Doe, a deer, a female deer.  No wait that is a song, never mind.
Chic, Chicken,
Key, Turkey
Ille, for the most delicious of all that New Orleans has to offer Andouille.

Bacon was shingled on large sheet of plastic and sprinkled with transglutaminase (Meat Glue). The chicken was boned out and laid flat.  More meat glue and the boneless skinless turkey breast is added in the center.  Flanked either side by Boudin and Andouille. The duck breasts were added to either end, skin side out to allow it to be rendered and crisped as God intended its skin to be.

Wrap, torchon, vacuum pack, Sous Vide at 150*F overnight. Beer bottle shown for scale only, I promise...

The day off thanksgiving, pull out of it's plastic wrap, truss to hold everything in place.  Pat dry and 20 mins in a 500*F oven to bring to crispy goodness.

 

Enjoy with a side of  Lipitor. 

Chocolate Mousse with Salted Caramel

What is it about salt and caramel and chocolate that go so well together?

Bottom layer is just white chocolate, melted, spread on silpat, cut into squares before too hard set.

Mousse

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate , chopped fine
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
5 tablespoons water or Bailies or Bourbon
2 large eggs , separated
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon table salt
1 cup heavy cream (chilled)

Melt chocolate, cocoa powder, water/Booze in double boiler, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove from heat.

Whisk egg yolks, 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar, and salt in bowl until ribbon stage. Whisk chocolate into eggs and set aside to cool until just above room temp.


Beat egg whites and remaining sugar until soft peaks. Fold into chocolate/egg mixture.

Beat cream until stiff, fold into other mixture. Place in piping bag and chill.

Caramel

1 c sugar, 1/2 c water.  Heat over medium high heat in small skillet.  Do not stir until sugar is all melted less you want grainy caramel.  Once melted stir and continue to heat to medium caramel color.  Dip bottom of pan in water to stop cooking.  Pour out on silpat. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Break into shards when cool.

Croquembouche

 

I was going to the neighbors for '09 Easter supper, and one can not show up empty handed.  I decided to make Croquembouche.  

Apparently the French will use them as wedding cakes. The name translates to "Crunch in the Mouth", or at least that is what the internet tells me, as my French in nonexistent.

Profiteroles

Julia Child's Choux Paste;

1 c Water

3 oz Butter

1 tsp Salt

3/4 c AP Flour

4 Eggs

Boil water, butter and salt. Beat in flour. Cook and stir until bottom of pan is dry. Remove from heat, beat in eggs, may not need all 4.

Pipe to 1 inch diameter.  Brush with egg wash. Bake 425 *F for 20 mins.

Fill with Creme Patissiere

1 c Sugar

5 Yolks, reserve whites

1/2 c Flour

2 c Milk scalded with vanilla bean.

1 tb Butter.

Beat, sugar and eggs to ribbon stage. Add flour, beat to well combined. Stream in very hot milk slowly, beating constantly.  Place over medium heat, bring to boil stirring constantly. Reduce to low and cook 3 mins. Remove from heat, add butter. Force through fine mesh sieve. Place plasic wrap on surface of creme and chill overnight. Beat whites and fold into cream to lighten.

Assembly

Fill all the puffs with cream, and chill while making caramel 'glue'. 1 c sugar with 1/2 c water,  cooked to medium brown. Have a big bowl of ice water standing by lest your fingers come in contact with the Napalm, I mean caramel.

Draw a circle about 8 in diameter on cake round. Dip puff in hot caramel and stick to ring. Repeat with second layer on top and slightly smaller diameter to taper into a cone.

Spread some hot caramel on a silpat and let cool to make garnish.  Sugar can be 'spun' into fine threads by letting cool slightly in pan so it makes long slow runs off a spoon. Then set sheet pan on floor and slowly pour caramel from spoon. It cools as it falls making threads, and a mess.