Saveur Classic New Orleans Dinner Menu

Several times a week I receive an email from Saveur featuring an exotic or special menu, and they range in themes including ethnic, holiday, and social occasions among others. Today I received the Saveur Menu: A Classic New Orleans Dinner.

The selected “Classic” menu includes the following items:

• Commander’s Palace Sazerac
• Oysters Rockefeller
• Shrimp and Tasso Henican
• Pompano en Papillote
• Sautéed Collard Greens
• New Orleans French Bread
• Bananas Foster

Here is my take on the Saveur Classic New Orleans Dinner menu.

Start your dinner experience right with a classic New Orleans cocktail! Indeed, and I have to agree with the Sazerac since it is one of the most popular New Orleans libations right up there with the Hurricane at Pat O’s and the Pimm’s Cup at The Napoleon House.

Oysters Rockefeller

Oysters Rockefeller, another great selection in the “classic” menu, were created at Antoine’s Restaurant  in 1899 by Jules Alciatore, son of the restaurant’s founder. Always a great first choice appetizer with any classic New Orleans menu, it can still be found in many restaurants in and around New Orleans, and in eateries across America for that matter, as the popularity of this famous dish has gained traction in recent years. I am wondering if the Katrina Migration has any influence on the growing popularity of Louisiana Cajun and Creole dishes outside of state lines?  I had unique opportunities to prepare this dish when I worked at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, the Columns Hotel, and several others.

Shrimp and Tasso Henican Recipe

Shrimp and Tasso Henican is a recipe that Jamie Shannon created during his tenure at Commander’s Palace and continues to be a popular appetizer sized plate, and while I have never had the opportunity to make or enjoy this dish, it is certainly up there as a contemporary classic.

Pompano en Papillote is another menu item that I had the pleasure of preparing when I was the saute cook and sous chef at the Columns Hotel in the mid to late 1980’s.  Another classic from Antoine’s Restaurant, it was created for a banquet honoring the Brazilian balloonist Alberto Santos-Dumont. Any classic New Orleans menu would be remiss if it did not include this inventive steam in the parchment paper creation.

New Orleans French Bread is a one of a kind unique bread experience. I still have yet to find any place outside of New Orleans that creates the same outer and thin hard shell crispy crust with the signature light and airy fluffy texture inside that makes the perfect Po’ boy sandwich. Many attempt to duplicate “French Bread” but I find most are knock offs that never come close, many due to the outside crust having no crunch at all, and the inside being a doughy dense mess of tightly bound tiny air pockets. The signature that differentiates true French Bread from all the others is the thin crispy crust and the light and airy fluffy inside, anything other that that is not true French Bread. The procedure for Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: French Bread  by Pinch my Salt is the closest recipe to a true French Bread I have found.

Bananas Foster Sauce

Bananas Foster must have been a close contender with Bread Pudding, but there is no mistake here as Bananas Foster is a certain classic New Orleans dessert that will continue to please as long as there are bananas and ice cream. Of course variations on a theme, the sauce stays the same, but who said the only thing you could put Bananas Foster Sauce on was ice cream? The invention of my Chocolate Mocha Bavarian Crème filled Crêpes with Bananas Foster Sauce   is testament to the fact that you are only limited by your available ingredients and your creativity.

Bon appetite!
CCR
=:~)

Tujague’s Restaurant

Once the news of Steven Ladder’s passing hit the streets of New Orleans, in particular the French Quarter,  the future and fate of Tujague’s Restaurant (pronounced TOO-jacks) starting flying around like sparks out of a Mississippi Levee bonfire on Christmas Eve. Except for the fact that Ladder, the then owner of the restaurant passed away in his sleep on February 18, 2013, and this is not the giving season! So what would become of the coveted gem of a restaurant that has stood for over 150 years as a beacon of culinary refuge holding up some of the best old school New Orleans traditional recipes and menus on the corner at 823 Decatur Street in the French Quarter?

Turns out John Besh is making an effort to claim a stake in buying the property from Steven’s brother Stanford who currently owns the property that the restaurant resides. The rumor mill has expectations of Stanford selling the location to a local T-shirt shop merchant Mike Motwani who runs several of the apparel shops in the French Quarter. As if the area needs another T-Shirt shop!!! The other fly in the ointment is other brother Mark Latter owns the restaurant business, while Stanford owns the building.

Reservations and inquiry at the restaurant are at an all time high since news of it’s possible closure, many New Orleanians are making possibly their last efforts to get plates of Shrimp Remoulade,  Beef Brisket with Creole Sauce, or the ubiquitous Sazerac Cocktail from the bar.

One thing is certain, should Tujague’s shutter and not survive into the next generation of the family business,  it will be a sad day for New Orleans and a sadder day for those who cherish one of the places that has made New Orleans what it is today.

Get the recipe for Tujague’s Famous Boiled Beef Brisket.

It’s that time of year again when we start harvesting our peppers, and did we have a load of them this year. With our buckets in hand Monique and I took several hours on Sunday afternoon and harvested all the peppers from twenty-four plants within the far west side raised bed.

The pepper plants included:

• 4 Sweet Bell Peppers
• 6 Jalapeno
• 4 Ancho Chili
• 4 Hungarian Wax
• 2 Cayenne
• 2 Anaheim

The harvested peppers filled up 17 gallons full from three 5-gallon buckets and a little over half of a 3-gallon bucket. Once the peppers were washed we started the sorting process, as you can see many of them in the three large stainless steel bowls on our kitchen prep table.

Picked peppers Sorted on the prep table

These peppers all started out from seeds in March and then transplanted the seedlings to the raised bed plot back around June.

Pepper plot spring 2012

You might ask, what are we going to do with all these peppers? Good question!

I’ve already made a batch of Chipotle peppers with the red jalapeno peppers, and will soon post a recipe on that process!

I am in the process of making a Chili Ristra with all the red chili peppers, another post on that as soon as the Ristra is completed.

Bon appetite!

=:-)

CCR

Tuna Sashimi Plated

We enjoy viewing food television shows and have ardently kept up with the Master Chef (US Season 3) series this past season which completed the finale on September 10, 2012 with Christine Ha The Blind Cook winning with her unbridled passion for cooking.

On episode 17 which aired on Tuesday, August 21, 2012, the Elimination Challenge 8 dish was selected by contestant Josh who won the advantage from the previous Mystery Box Challenge on the same segment, Josh chose Obama’s Sashimi, one of Chef Graham Elliot’s famous dishes. This dish looked wonderful on television, and both Monique and I got excited to try out this exquisitely plated dish.

I found the “Obama’s Sashimi” recipe on the Master Chef web site, the full recipe was available at the time I searched several weeks ago, but now I find they are only offering the first ingredient and first preparation step, trying to get you to purchase their book, “Master Chef: The Ultimate Cookbook”. This is Fox’s polite marketing ploy to get you to spend more of your money for all the recipes from the show. Amazon has a better price for the print or Kindle edition.

A little research…

For those who wish to recreate the dish, I have found several variations on the Internet, some with a passion fruit sorbet, some with cilantro sprouts, and some that call the avocado preparation a puree, whip, or mousse as in the original recipe from the Fox recipe web site.

Here are a few of the search results that intrigued my interest:

RECIPES: Graham Elliot’s Chef Bowles – Escolar with Whipped Avocado, Crispy Plantain and Passion Fruit Sorbet – You will note that this recipe is listed as “Escolar”, and lists sashimi grade Escolar as its main ingredient. Upon further research there seems to be a mislabeling dilemma and controversy with many restaurants and fish purveyors as Medellitin – A food blog dedicated to modernist cuisine (molecular gastronomy), sous vide, and the food industry. Less cooking and more thinking, has explained in this post White Tuna Explained (Escolar vs. Albacore).

WATCH: Blind MasterChef-testant Perfectly Replicates A Graham Elliot Dish – The Braiser provides a review of the segment along with an embedded video of Christine presenting her recreation of Chef Graham Elliot’s dish. Gordon Ramsey to Christine, “Am I being punked?”

Christine’s plate as shown on the show:

I’ve embedded the same video here:

Ingredient: Passion Fruit

Passion Fruit

Passion Fruit Cut

Serves 4

Tuna Sashimi

Tuna Sashimi Plated

Bon appétit!

CCR

=:~)

©2012 CCR