Shrimp Rémoulade with Two Sauces
Gnocchi with Crabmeat and Prosciutto
Mushrooms and Foie Gras Under Glass
Broiled Mushrooms with Italian Sausage
Shrimp Rémoulade with Two Sauces
Gnocchi with Crabmeat and Prosciutto
Mushrooms and Foie Gras Under Glass
Broiled Mushrooms with Italian Sausage
Small, delicious nibbles before the dinner really begins set the tone for the entire repast. This is why so many restaurants—especially at the upper levels—send out a pre-appetizer course. The French expression amuse-bouche—“entertain the mouth”—is well enough known now that it’s been shortened to just “the amuse.”
This new first course gives the opportunity to use very expensive ingredients. Almost by definition, an amuse-bouche is just a bite or two. So you don’t have to use very much of the precious foodstuff.
Not that pre-appetizers must be expensive. As you will see in the recipes that follow, the only requirement is that a bite fill the mouth with a good, savory flavor. My own preference is that pre-appetizers be a little salty and a little rich. Smoked, cured, and acidic flavors are also good.
I’m wary of using sweet or peppery flavors in an amuse-bouche. Those tastes are delicious, but they need to be kept subtle. The point is to sharpen your palate, not dull it.
One other food seems inappropriate for a small first course. Cheese is for the end of the meal, not the beginning. I love cheese, but it can be an appetite killer.
Many familiar New Orleans delicacies work well as pre-appetizers. Notable among them are shrimp, oysters (especially when baked on the half shell), crabmeat, and all our Cajun and Creole sausages. Add to that, international classics like smoked salmon, caviar, olives, pâtés, and charcuterie meats, plus refreshing fruits and crisp vegetables, and the variety of flavors stretches endlessly in all directions.
The best pre-appetizer course includes several small dishes, each offering a flavor and color contrast with the others. For example, a great trio would be smoked boudin slices, asparagus with aioli, and shrimp with Creole rémoulade.
All this could be served with cocktails or Champagne or a light white wine. We like to offer our pre-appetizers at the counter in the kitchen because everybody’s going to be in there anyway. Then it’s an easy matter to start pulling the oysters Bienville out of the oven and shouting, “Okay, here comes the first course! Everybody sit down!”
Shrimp Rémoulade with Two Sauces
There are two kinds of rémoulade sauce served around New Orleans, and everybody has a favorite. My preference is the orange-red kind that’s utterly unique to our area. White rémoulade sauce, made with mayonnaise, is actually closer to the classic French recipe. It’s so good that in recent years I’ve taken to making both sauces and letting people take their pick. What the sauces have in common is the main active ingredient: Creole mustard—a rough, brown, country-style mustard mixed with a bit of horseradish.
The shrimp for shrimp rémoulade should be medium size, about 25–30 count to the pound. If you’re making only the red style of rémoulade, a good trick is to underboil the shrimp slightly, then marinate them in the rather acidic sauce. The shrimp will finish cooking in the sauce in much the same way they do in a ceviche marinade.
The word “rémoulade,” by the way, is an old French dialect word that refers to a kind of radish that hasn’t been part of the recipe for centuries.
SHRIMP
Leafy tops from a bunch of celery
5 bay leaves
3 whole cloves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 large lemon, sliced
½ cup salt
3 lb. medium shrimp (25–30 count)
RED REMOULADE SAUCE
½ cup chili sauce (bottled) or ketchup, plus more to taste
½ cup Creole mustard, plus more to taste
1 Tbsp. paprika
½ tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
¼ tsp. Tabasco
½ tsp. minced garlic
1 cup olive oil
3 green onions, green part only, finely chopped
WHITE REMOULADE SAUCE
1 cup mayonnaise
½ cup Creole mustard
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. Tabasco Garlic Pepper Sauce
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. salt
3 green onions, green part only, finely chopped
1. Bring about a gallon of water to a boil in a large pot and add all of the shrimp ingredients except the shrimp. Boil the water for 15 minutes, then add the shrimp. Remove the pot from the heat immediately and allow the shrimp to steep for 4 minutes, or until the shell separates easily from the meat.
2. Drain the shrimp in a colander and set aside until cool enough to handle. Peel and devein the shrimp.
3. To make the red rémoulade sauce: Combine all the ingredients except the olive oil and green onions in a bowl. Add the oil a little at a time, stirring constantly, until all oil is absorbed. Taste the sauce and add more chili sauce or Creole mustard if needed. Stir in the green onions.
4. To make the white rémoulade sauce: Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to blend.
5. Place the shrimp on a leaf of lettuce, sliced avocados, sliced tomatoes, or Belgian endive leaves. Drizzle half the shrimp with one sauce, half with the other. The sauces can also be served in pools for dipping. MAKES EIGHT APPETIZER PORTIONS OR SIX ENTREE SALADS.
Crab fingers—the claw with the bottom jaw removed and the shell peeled from the meat—are the most economical form of blue crab meat. They make a wonderful appetizer that can be prepared in a number of ways. This is probably the version that packs the greatest number of calories, but so what? Eat a few as an appetizer and then move on to the tofu if you think the crab will kill you.
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) butter
1 small head garlic, cloves separated, peeled and chopped
1 lb. blue crab fingers
1 tsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
¼ tsp. salt
¼ cup dry white wine
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 green onions, finely chopped
Toasted French bread crescents, for dipping
1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant.
2. Add the crab fingers and sprinkle with the Creole seasoning and salt. Shake the skillet to cook the crab fingers evenly.
3. After 2 minutes, mix the wine and lemon juice together, and pour into the skillet. Add the green onions. Shake the skillet to combine the ingredients and simmer for 2 minutes more. The sauce should have a somewhat creamy appearance.
4. Transfer the crab claws and all the sauce to a bowl and serve with toasted French bread crescents for dipping. SERVES FOUR.
Gnocchi with Crabmeat and Prosciutto
This rather rich dish brings crabmeat and dry-cured ham together in a cream sauce with gnocchi, the little potato-and-flour pasta dumplings. You can make your own gnocchi if you like (quite an undertaking), but you can buy relatively decent fresh gnocchi in the refrigerator case at the store.
Salt, to taste
8 oz. potato gnocchi
1 Tbsp. butter
1½ Tbsp. chopped fresh shallots
4 oz. prosciutto, sliced into thin slivers
8 oz. whipping cream
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
8 oz. lump crabmeat
Cayenne, to taste
1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the gnocchi until they’re set but not mushy—about 4 minutes. Drain.
2. In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the butter till it bubbles, then add the shallots. Sauté until they just begin to brown, then add the prosciutto and cook another minute.
3. Add the cream and bring to a low boil. Lower the heat and reduce the cream for about 5 minutes. Add pepper to taste.
4. Add the crabmeat to the cream and agitate the pan to blend. Cook until the cream starts bubbling again. Add cayenne and salt to taste.
5. Add the gnocchi to the pan and toss with the sauce to distribute the ingredients. Serve hot on small plates as an appetizer or amuse-bouche. SERVES FOUR.
This is the oyster version of Buffalo chicken wings—a tremendous improvement on the latter. The idea first hatched at Mr. B’s, Ralph and Cindy Brennan’s terrific French Quarter bistro. When Ralph opened the casual Red Fish Grill a block away, he took this with him and turned it into that restaurant’s signature dish.
Use a less-hot hot sauce (in other words, not Tabasco) to make the sauce. When reducing it, make sure the ventilation is good because steaming hot sauce can burn your eyes.
SAUCE
2 oz. Louisiana hot sauce, such as Crystal Hot Sauce
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. dry white wine
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) butter, softened
OYSTERS
Vegetable oil, for frying
1½ cups flour
2 Tbsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
2 Tbsp. salt
36 fresh, shucked oysters
TOAST AND GARNISH
Thirty-six ½-inch-thick slices French bread, toasted and buttered
Crumbled crisp bacon, for garnish
½ cup blue cheese dressing, for dipping (see recipe, this page)
1. To make the sauce: Bring the liquid ingredients to a light boil in a small saucepan. Reduce by about a third.
2. Remove the pan from the heat. Whisk in the butter, a tablespoon or so at a time, until you have a creamy-looking orange sauce. Keep warm, but don’t keep the pan on a continuous burner or the sauce may separate.
3. To make the oysters: Pour the oil into a Dutch oven to a depth of 2 inches. Heat over medium-high heat until the oil reaches 375 degrees F.
4. Combine the flour, Creole seasoning, and salt in a bowl, and mix with a fork. Toss the oysters in the mixture to coat, and shake off the excess flour.
5. Fry the oysters, in batches, until plump and light brown. Drain on paper towels.
6. Put an oyster on each piece of toast, drizzle on the sauce, and garnish with the bacon. Serve the dressing on the side for dipping. MAKES THIRTY-SIX PIECES.
In classic French cookery, a beignet is the same thing as a fritter. The starting point for this is choux pastry—the same soft dough used to make cream puffs or profiteroles, but without sugar.
½ cup milk
½ cup water
5 Tbsp. salted butter
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 cup boiled crawfish tails, chopped coarsely
1 green onion, tender green parts only, very finely sliced
½ cup fresh corn kernels
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
White rémoulade sauce (see Shrimp Rémoulade with Two Sauces, this page)
1. In a saucepan over medium-low heat, blend the milk with the water. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the water. When the water comes to a boil, remove it from the heat.
2. Add the flour and stir it into the liquid with a wooden spoon until well blended. Return to low heat and continue to stir until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and add 2 of the eggs, stirring quickly to blend into the batter. Stir in the other eggs, one at a time, and keep stirring until smooth and completely blended. Turn the batter out into a metal bowl to cool.
4. Heat the oil in a deep saucepan to 350 degrees F.
5. Combine the crawfish tail pieces, green onion, and corn in a bowl. Add pinches of salt and pepper and toss to distribute the ingredients equally.
6. When the batter is cool enough to handle, scoop up a heaping tablespoon and form it into a ball. Push your finger into its center to form a well. Put a scant teaspoon of the crawfish mixture into the well and close the ball up, working it with your fingers a little until some of the contents start poking out a little.
7. When you have 8 or 10 beignets made, start frying them. If they’re close to round, you won’t need to turn them. They take 6 to 8 minutes to fry to a medium brown. Serve as an appetizer with the white rémoulade sauce. SERVES EIGHT.
The most challenging dinners I cook all year are the ones I serve in the homes of people who buy my services at charity auctions. I’m never quite sure that what I cook will be worth what the people paid for it. For years, until Beluga caviar became endangered, I started these dinners with an appetizer of that rare roe served over a traditional New Orleans lost bread, but any good caviar will do. Lost bread, or pain perdu, is New Orleans–style French toast (see recipe, this page). This version is made without the sweet elements (sugar and vanilla) and with a little onion in the custard.
2 eggs
1 cup milk
Pinch of nutmeg
¼ tsp. salt
Pinch of ground white pepper
2 Tbsp. pureed white onion
Small French baguette, cut into ¾-inch-thick slices
Vegetable oil, for frying
¼ cup sour cream
2 Tbsp. finely chopped chives
4 oz. caviar
1. Blend the eggs, milk, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and pureed onion in a wide bowl. Soak the bread rounds until they’re wet with the custard mixture all the way through but not falling apart.
2. In a large skillet, heat about ¼ inch of the oil until it shimmers at the surface. Fry the bread, in batches, until they are well browned on both sides, turning once. Drain on paper towels and keep warm.
3. Spread a little sour cream on each bread round. Sprinkle with chives and top with a generous spoonful of caviar. SERVES EIGHT.
Mushrooms and Foie Gras Under Glass
This is an old and wonderful appetizer from Antoine’s, which has, unfortunately, fallen from the menu. The reason for its demise was that the glass bells under which it was served were expensive and seemed to last through only one or two servings. My version of this incredibly rich and aromatic dish moves it from the era of Antoine’s to our own, with its much better and more varied selection of mushrooms and fresh foie gras.
4 oz. fresh foie gras, sliced into eight ¼-inch-thick pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1½ sticks (12 Tbsp.) butter
2 cups mushrooms, the more exotic the better, sliced about ¼ inch thick
2½ cups whole milk
¼ cup flour
⅓ cup dry sherry
Eight ½-inch-thick slices French bread, toasted
1. Sprinkle the foie gras slices with a little salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and sear the foie gras until lightly browned on both sides. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.
2. Return the skillet to medium-high heat, add 1 stick (8 Tbsp.) of the butter, and bring to a bubble. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.
3. Meanwhile, make a thin béchamel. Heat the milk until warm but not steaming. In a saucepan, melt the remaining ½ stick (4 Tbsp.) of butter. Sprinkle in the flour and stir the mixture until it turns into a roux, about 2 minutes. Don’t let it brown. Lower the heat and gradually whisk in the warm milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.
4. Add the sherry to the mushrooms and bring to a boil until the alcohol has evaporated, about 2 minutes. Lower the heat to a simmer and stir in the béchamel. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook over very low heat, stirring lightly, until the sauce penetrates the mushrooms.
5. Place 2 slices of toast on each of 4 salad plates. Top each toast with a foie gras slice and pour about ½ cup of the mushroom mixture over each serving. SERVES FOUR.
The Bitoun brothers—Jacques, Maurice, André, and Simon—ran a number of restaurants in the New Orleans area for many years, separately and together. Their best remembered dish was a complimentary appetizer: a simple basket of fried parsley. Maurice called it French popcorn. It’s much better than you can imagine, and it intrigues everyone who eats it.
There are two tricks to this recipe. First, it works better when the oil has been used previously, especially for fried chicken. Second, use curly-leaf parsley, because it holds the batter much better than the flat-leaf variety.
Vegetable oil, for frying (preferably used before, but clean)
2 bunches of curly-leaf parsley
1½ cups flour
2 Tbsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
1 Tbsp. salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1. Pour the oil into a Dutch oven to a depth of 2 inches. Heat over medium-high heat until the temperature reaches 350 degrees F.
2. Wash the parsley well and shake dry. Trim off the bottom parts of the stems.
3. Combine the flour, Creole seasoning, and salt in a bowl, blending it with a fork. Whisk the egg and the milk together in a second, much larger bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk to make a thin batter. Add a little water, if necessary, to make the batter runny.
4. Toss the parsley in the batter to coat evenly. Shake off any excess batter.
5. Working in batches, carefully drop the parsley into the hot oil and fry until it just begins to brown, about a minute. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately. SERVES EIGHT.
My son, Jude, developed an intense love for Chinese pot stickers at a time in his life when his list of acceptable foods was so short that he was hard to feed. At Trey Yuen, one of our favorite Chinese places, he typically ate three full orders of the things. His record is 32 pot stickers.
This passion is easy to understand. Good pot stickers are very good indeed. They’re Chinese ravioli, balls of meat with seasonings and vegetables wrapped in a noodle disk. First you steam them (after which they’re already pretty good) and then you fry them in a hot pan with a little oil. They’re easy to make, though time-consuming; we usually sit around the kitchen counter as a family and make several dozen at a time. Once they’re wrapped, you can freeze them to steam and fry later. We give our pot stickers a local wrinkle by using spicy Italian sausage in place of the usual ground pork. Just be sure the sausage is on the lean side.
DUMPLINGS
1 lb. spicy Italian sausage, removed from casings, or ground pork
3 green onions, finely chopped
1 small can of water chestnuts, drained and chopped
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. Asian fish sauce
2 Tbsp. Chinese rice wine or dry white wine
1 cup fresh spinach, washed, cooked, and coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with 1 Tbsp. water.
2 eggs, beaten
1 package of round won-ton wrappers (about 40)
Vegetable oil, for frying
SAUCE
¼ cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Chinese red pepper oil
2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 green onion, finely chopped
1. In a skillet, combine all the dumpling ingredients up to and including the wine. Sauté over medium heat, breaking up the sausage or ground pork as it cooks to prevent clumping. Cook until no longer pink. Pour off any excess fat.
2. Stir in the spinach, then the cornstarch-water mixture, and then, gradually, about two-thirds of the beaten egg. Remove the skillet from the heat, transfer the mixture to a bowl, and set aside to let the filling cool.
3. Separate a few won-ton wrappers and place them on a cutting board. Brush the remaining egg along the top margin of each wrapper. Spoon a scant teaspoon of the filling into the center, carefully fold the wrappers over the filling to create a half-circle, and then press the edges together to seal. Place the finished dumplings on a platter and cover them with a damp cloth to keep them from drying out while you assemble the rest.
4. You can boil the dumplings in about an inch of simmering water, but steaming them over a simmering pot works better. In either case, cook only until the wrappers become translucent, about 2–3 minutes. At that point, the dumplings are ready to be eaten, but you can add further excitement with the “pot-sticking” trick.
5. Heat 1½ tablespoons of vegetable oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Space out as many dumplings as the pan will hold and cook until they’re crispy brown on one side. (This is when they’d start to stick to a regular pot.) Turn them to crisp the other side, then remove and keep warm. Add a little more oil between each batch and continue cooking until all are done.
6. Mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl. Serve the sauce on the side. MAKES FORTY DUMPLINGS.
Broiled Mushrooms with Italian Sausage
This was a clean-out-the-refrigerator dish we threw together one night when friends suddenly came over. Like us, they’d recently been to Italy, so this naturally came to mind. It’s delicious and simple to prepare on short notice.
4 links hot or sweet Italian sausage
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper
½ tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. salt
10 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped
⅔ cup bread crumbs
1 lb. medium whole white mushrooms, stemmed
⅓ cup shredded Fontina or mozzarella cheese
1. Preheat the broiler. Remove the sausage from the casings. Place the sausage meat in a large skillet over medium heat and cook, breaking up the sausage with a kitchen fork until it begins to brown. Pour off any excess fat.
2. Add the crushed red pepper, oregano, salt, and ½ cup of water, and continue to cook until the sausage meat is no longer pink. Add the parsley and bread crumbs, and mix in well. Add a little more water, if needed, to keep the mixture from being very dry. (It should not be very wet, either.) Remove from the heat.
3. Slice off a sliver the size of a dime from the top of the mushroom cap to make a flat area. Stuff a heaping teaspoon of the sausage mixture into the cavity of each mushroom. Place the mushrooms, stuffing side up, on a baking pan. Place a generous pinch of the shredded cheese (as much as you can get to stay put) on top of the stuffing. Broil until the cheese melts and begins to brown. SERVES EIGHT TO TWELVE.
White boudin is a rice-and-pork sausage found everywhere food is sold in Cajun country, from gas stations to fancy restaurants. Spicy with red pepper and enriched with a little bit of pork liver, this is the more familiar form of boudin (as opposed to the hard-to-find boudin noir, a blood sausage).
This is not a hard recipe to make, but some of the ingredients and equipment you’ll need may not be easy to come by. Finding sausage casing can be a challenge unless you want a mile of it. I beg a supermarket that makes its own sausages (as most of the big ones do) to give me 10 or 20 feet of it. Then there’s the pork liver, which is a special-order item in most markets. You’ll need a meat grinder, although a food processor will do a passable job. Finally, if you want to stuff the sausage in the casings, you need the gizmo for doing that. An easier alternative is to forgo the casings and make boudin balls instead.
My contribution to this traditional recipe is the concentrated chicken-and-pork stock that makes the rice part of the filling taste especially good. Use short-grain rice, which has the slightly sticky texture you need.
3–4 yards of medium sausage casing
STOCK
4 chicken-leg quarters
1 small pork shoulder (Boston butt), about 3–4 lb.
1 large onion, cut into eighths
2 bay leaves
2 ribs celery, chopped Stems from
1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley
½ tsp. thyme
½ tsp. marjoram
1 tsp. black peppercorns
FILLING
4 slices bacon
1 lb. pork liver, cut into ½-inch-thick slices
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
½ bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 rib celery, coarsely chopped
1½ tsp. cayenne, plus more to taste
4½ tsp. salt, plus more to taste
3 cups uncooked short-grain rice (not parboiled or converted)
1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
2 bunches of green onions, green parts only, finely chopped
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1. Unroll the sausage casing and soak it in cold water for an hour or so. Pull it open and run water through the casing for a few seconds. Keep moist.
2. Put all the stock ingredients into a large pot and add enough water to cover—at least a gallon (16 cups) of water. Bring to a light boil and cook, uncovered, for 2 hours. Skim the fat and foam off the surface as the stock cooks.
3. To make the filling: Fry the bacon in a large skillet until crisp. Remove the bacon and reserve for another use. Add the pork liver and all the other filling ingredients up to (but not including) the rice to the drippings, and sauté over medium heat until the liver is tender. Add ½ cup of the simmering stock and cook 10 minutes more. Transfer to a bowl, let cool, and then refrigerate.
4. Remove the chicken and pork from the stockpot and set aside. Strain the stock and discard the solids. Return the stock to a light boil and reduce to 2 quarts.
5. Reserve two of the chicken-leg quarters for another purpose. Skin and bone the other two and dice the meat. Dice the pork shoulder, cutting across the grain of the meat. Refrigerate all this when finished.
6. When the stock is reduced, pour 5 cups into a large saucepan. Add the rice, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, about 25 minutes, or until the rice is very tender and borderline gummy. Fluff and set aside.
7. If you have a meat grinder, fit it with the coarse blade or ¼-inch die. Combine the diced chicken, pork, and liver, and run the mixture through the grinder once. If you don’t have a grinder, use a food processor, but stop short of mincing the ingredients.
8. Combine the ground meat mixture with the rice, chopped parsley, green onions, and black pepper. Add 1–2 cups of the stock, a little at a time, and mix well. You’ve added enough stock when you can easily form the mixture into a ball that doesn’t stick to your fingers. Add more cayenne and salt to taste.
9. At this point, you can either stuff the boudin into the casing, or you can make boudin balls without casing. Either way, microwave until quite warm inside before serving. MAKES ABOUT TWENTY-FOUR 4-INCH LINKS.
New Orleans Shrimp Spring Rolls
It may seem strange, but rémoulade sauce and pasta (and shrimp, of course) go well together. This is especially true of the rice noodles used in Southeast Asian cooking.
SHRIMP
Leafy tops from a bunch of celery
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp. Tabasco
½ lemon, sliced 2 Tbsp. salt
1 lb. medium shrimp (25–30 count)
ROLLS
8 oz. rice stick noodles, soaked in cold water for about 45 minutes
12 round rice-paper wrappers
½ cup red rémoulade sauce (see Shrimp Rémoulade with Two Sauces, this page)
GARNISH
Asian-style chili-garlic sauce
2 green onions, finely chopped
1. To prepare the shrimp: Bring ½ gallon (8 cups) of water to a boil in a pot. Add all the ingredients up to (but not including) the shrimp. Boil the water for 5 minutes, then add the shrimp. Remove the pot from the heat immediately and allow the shrimp to steep for 4 minutes, or until the shell separates from the meat easily.
2. Drain shrimp in a colander and set aside until cool enough to handle. Peel and devein the shrimp.
3. Bring a small pot of water to a boil. After the noodles have soaked for about 45 mintues, drain them, then plunge them in the boiling water for about a minute. Drain again and let cool.
4. Brush the rice-paper wrappers with water and let them soften. When the rice paper is stretchy, lay about 3 tablespoons of the noodles in a line about two-thirds of the way down the rice paper. Drizzle about a tablespoon of the rémoulade sauce across the noodles. Place 4–6 shrimp on top of the noodles, then roll up the rice paper. When the noodles and shrimp are covered, tuck in the loose ends of the rice paper and finish rolling.
5. Garnish rolls with squirts of the chili-garlic sauce and chopped green onions. MAKES TWELVE ROLLS.
This started as another way to serve caviar at my big charity dinners (see Caviar on Savory Lost Bread, this page). I’d make a little waffle with just one big depression in the center, and that was where the sour cream and caviar would go. Then I started snacking on the extra waffles and realized that they could be served with all sorts of other dishes, from seafood to eggs. They’re not bad all by themselves, either, as an alternative to bread. Where this recipe deviates from the standard waffle is in substituting savory flavors for sweet.
1 cup self-rising flour
½ tsp. granulated onion
¼ tsp. dry dill
½ tsp. salt 3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil or melted butter
1 egg, beaten
1 cup half-and-half
2. In a small bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
3. In a larger bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk slowly until all the flour is wet. Don’t eliminate all the lumps.
5. Pour about 3 tablespoons of the batter into the center of each half of the waffle iron, covering only one square completely and allowing the batter to flow into the surrounding squares. Close the cover and cook according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The top of the waffle need not brown entirely.
6. Flip the waffle over, browned side up, and fill the center square with sour cream, soft-scrambled eggs, crabmeat with hollandaise, or whatever else you might think of. MAKES ABOUT A DOZEN WAFFLES.