Red Beans, Rice, Vegetables, and Pasta
Mary Ann’s Hash Brown Potatoes
Creole Eggplant Gratin Delmonico
Red Beans, Rice, Vegetables, and Pasta
Mary Ann’s Hash Brown Potatoes
Creole Eggplant Gratin Delmonico
It’s lucky that we have the tradition of eating red beans every Monday in New Orleans. Loaded with soluble fiber, red beans are thought to counter the effects of the fats we have a habit of overusing in our local diet. (The sausage that traditionally comes with the beans, for example.) Beans of all colors are a big deal in New Orleans, especially at lunch, and they are the center of the meal, not just a side dish.
Rice is important, too. New Orleanians eat more rice than any other Americans except those of Asian descent. Most of us prefer it to potatoes. Even dishes like beef stew are served over rice here, and every family has two or three unique side dishes made with rice.
When I began writing about restaurants, side dishes were the weakest part of menus everywhere in New Orleans. Even in the best restaurants, vegetables were an afterthought. That changed in the 1980s. A generation of young chefs demanded and got better-quality vegetables from the markets. Still, a love for the old long-cooked dishes lives on. Here’s a bit of all of that, both old and new.
Red beans and rice is the official Monday dish in New Orleans, on special menus in all kinds of restaurants all over town. Although most people agree on the recipe, the trend in recent years—especially in restaurants—has been to make the sauce matrix much thicker than what I remember from my youth. This version is the old (and, I think, better) style, with a looser sauce. The way my mother made it for us every Monday throughout my childhood.
I have, however, added two wrinkles. One came from a radio listener, who advised that beans improve greatly when you add much more celery than the standard recipe calls for. The other is adding the herb summer savory. Both provide pleasant flavor complements.
Red beans are classically served with smoked sausage, but they’re also great with Fried Chicken (see recipe, this page), Oysters en Brochette (see recipe, this page), or grilled ham. But the ultimate is chaurice—Creole hot sausage—grilled to order and placed, along with all the dripping fat, atop the beans.
1 lb. dried red beans
½ lb. bacon or fat from a fresh or smoked ham, salt pork, or pork belly
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried summer savory
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. Tabasco, plus more to taste
Salt
6 cups cooked long-grain rice
1 Tbsp. chopped green onion tops, for garnish
2 Tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
1. Sort through the beans and pick out any bad or misshapen ones. Soak the beans in cold water overnight. When ready to cook, pour off the soaking water.
2. Fry the bacon or ham fat in a large, heavy pot or Dutch oven until crisp. Remove the bacon or ham fat and set aside for garnish (or a snack while you cook).
3. In the hot fat, sauté the garlic, celery, bell pepper, and onion until the vegetables just begin to brown. Add the beans and 1 gallon (16 cups) of water. Bring to a light boil, then lower to a simmer. Add the bay leaf, savory, black pepper, and Tabasco.
4. Simmer the beans for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. After about 1½ hours, fish out about ½ cup of beans and mash them. Return the mashed beans to the pot. Smash more of them if you like your beans extra creamy. Add a little water if the sauce gets too thick. Add salt and more Tabasco to taste. Serve the beans over rice cooked firm. Garnish with chopped green onion and parsley. SERVES SIX TO EIGHT.
THE ULTIMATE: Fry skinless hot sausage and deposit it, along with as much of the fat as you can permit yourself, atop the beans. Red beans seem to have a limitless tolerance for added fat.
HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE: Leave the pork and ham out of the recipe completely and begin by sautéing all of the vegetables other than the beans in ¼ cup olive oil. At the table, pour extra-virgin olive oil over the beans. This may sound and look a bit odd, but the taste is terrific and everything on the plate—beans, rice, and olive oil—is a proven cholesterol-lowerer.
When the wonderful old West Bank café Berdou’s was still around, one of its lunch specials was field peas and rice. Mr. Berdou told me he didn’t sell many orders of it. “But I like them, so we cook them almost every week,” he said. I’d never given field peas a second thought before, but they were so good that I added them to my regular bean rotation at home.
Field peas are a lot like crowder peas but smaller. They’re a light brown, bigger than lentils, but shaped like red beans. They have a unique savory flavor that I find makes a great side dish. This version steers away from the bacon-fat, salt-pork kind of thing we do for red beans. If anything, it’s inspired by the way they cook beans in Italy. So I suggest serving them with orzo pasta instead of rice.
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 medium bulb fennel, chopped
1 lb. field peas, sorted, rinsed, and soaked for a few hours or overnight
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried summer savory
¼ tsp. dried thyme
Pinch of nutmeg
4½ tsp. salt, plus more to taste
1 Tbsp. Louisana-style hot sauce, such as Crystal
8 oz. orzo pasta, cooked and drained
6 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped, for garnish
1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the onion and fennel, and cook until soft.
2. Drain the field peas and add them to the pot. Add 6 cups of fresh cold water, the bay leaf, savory, thyme, nutmeg, salt, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cover and cook for 1 hour. Check after an hour to see that the peas have not absorbed all the water. If they have, add more. The peas should still have a soupy texture.
3. Continue to cook until the peas are completely soft but not falling apart, another 30–45 minutes. Remove the bay leaf. Taste for seasoning and adjust. There should still be enough liquid that the beans have a stewlike texture.
4. Add the orzo to the pot and gently stir into the beans. Serve garnished with chopped parsley. SERVES ABOUT SIX.
This is an old, nearly extinct local dish that intrigues me, especially after Arnaud’s revived it for a while. After failing a couple of times to get it right, I came up with this, which I now serve at Thanksgiving in place of plain old peas.
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) butter
½ cup flour
½ cup sliced mushrooms
1 green onion, sliced
1½ cups chicken stock (see recipe, this page)
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. Tabasco Garlic Pepper Sauce
3 cups large peas, frozen
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Make a blond roux by melting the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture just barely begins to brown. Lower the heat to almost nothing. Add the mushrooms and green onion, and stir lightly to blend into the roux. The heat of the roux will cook the mushrooms and onion, and the vegetables will bring down the heat of the roux so it won’t brown any further.
2. Add the stock, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco, and whisk to blend into a smooth sauce. Add the peas and raise the heat a little. Cook until the peas are heated through, stirring while they’re still frozen to blend them into the sauce. The sauce should have the texture of gumbo. If it’s too thick, add a little more stock or water. Season to taste with salt and pepper. SERVES EIGHT TO TWELVE.
Black-eyed peas have a much more assertive taste than most beans. For this reason, I really think that you have to cook them differently from the way you cook red beans. This method heads off in the direction of barbecue beans, without the sauce. It helps to boil the beans the night before, then bake them all morning long. This is actually my wife’s recipe, and we serve it at most of our casual barbecues.
1 lb. dried black-eyed peas
¼ lb. lean bacon, cut into squares
½ cup chopped yellow onion
⅔ cup Steen’s cane syrup
½ cup dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp. Pickapeppa or Tabasco New Orleans Steak Sauce
2 Tbsp. Creole mustard
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. dried summer savory
1. Sort through the beans to remove bad ones and dirt, then rinse well. Put them into a pot with 3 quarts of water and bring to a light boil. Boil for 1 hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Meanwhile, drain the parboiled beans well and transfer to a baking dish. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix well.
3. Top the beans with just enough boiling water to just barely cover them. Bake for 5 hours. Check it every hour, stirring the pot and adding a little more water if the beans seem to be getting dry. MAKES EIGHT TO TWELVE SIDE PORTIONS.
Dirty rice is jambalaya’s less complex brother, yet in its way, it’s every bit as delicious. Unlike jambalaya, which can be served as a main course, dirty rice is a side dish. It’s also a way to use all the stuff you pull out of the cavity of a whole chicken. While you can use the heart, I usually leave it out because it’s tough, even chopped up. If the liver component of the giblets is about 50 percent, that’s perfect.
½ lb. chicken giblets (heart removed)
1 large yellow onion, quartered
1 green bell pepper, stemmed and seeded
1 rib celery, halved
½ lb. ground pork (or better yet, substitute ⅓ of this with pork liver)
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. crushed red pepper
½ tsp. marjoram
2½ cups chicken stock (see recipe, this page)
1½ cups Uncle Ben’s or other parboiled rice
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Working in 2–3 batches, finely chop the giblets, onion, bell pepper, and celery in a food processor. Set aside. Sauté the ground pork in a skillet until all the pink is gone. Drain the excess fat and set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a large, heavy saucepan. Add the giblet-vegetable mixture and sauté until the onion is clear. Add the Creole seasoning, the 2 teaspoons of salt, Worcestershire sauce, crushed red pepper, and marjoram, and stir to combine. Cover the pot, lower the heat, and let simmer while you prepare the rice.
3. Put the stock, rice, and salt to taste into another saucepan. Bring the stock to a boil, lower to a simmer, cover, and cook 25 minutes, or until all the liquid has been absorbed.
4. When the rice is cooked, fluff it with a kitchen fork and add it to the pan with the chicken-vegetable mixture. Add the ground pork and stir to distribute all the ingredients. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Place the rice loosely in a casserole dish and bake for 5 minutes, or longer if the rice is very damp. It should be a little dry but not hard. MAKES EIGHT SIDE PORTIONS.
The classic potato side dish in New Orleans–style steak houses, this is a simple combination of potatoes and onions.
3 lb. white potatoes, peeled
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) butter
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 green onion, finely chopped Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Boil the potatoes for about 10 minutes, or until a kitchen fork jabbed into the biggest potato slips out when you lift the potato out of the water. Rinse the potatoes in cool water to stop further cooking. Slice the potatoes first from end to end, then into half-disks about ½ inch thick.
2. Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it bubbles. Add the yellow onion and sauté until it just begins to brown at the edges. Add the potatoes, green onion, and the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter to the pan and cook, without stirring, until the potatoes have browned on the bottom. Turn the potatoes over and brown the other side. Season to taste with salt and pepper. SERVES SIX.
This is potatoes au gratin with class. I am no fan of the melted-Cheddar-topped potato gratins that steak houses serve, popular though they may be. This French classic gets all the same things accomplished with much better flavor.
4 large white potatoes (about 3 lb.), peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick
3 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and ground white pepper
8 oz. Gruyère cheese, shredded
1¾ cups grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 egg yolks, beaten
½ cup bread crumbs
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook for 5 minutes. Drain and cool.
2. Rub the inside of a 12 x 8-inch glass baking dish with the garlic. Discard what’s left of the garlic. Layer the potato slices all the way across the bottom of the dish, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper and a sprinkling of Gruyère and Parmesan. (Reserve ¼ cup of the Parmesan for the topping.)
3. Whisk the cream and egg yolks together and pour over the potatoes. It should come up about two-thirds of the way to the top. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for an hour.
4. Remove the foil. Combine the bread crumbs and the reserved ¼ cup of Parmesan cheese, and sprinkle in a thin layer over the top of the potatoes. Return, uncovered, to the oven and continue baking until the crust browns. (If you have a convection oven, set it to convect.)
5. Remove from the oven and allow to rest and cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. MAKES ABOUT TWELVE SIDE PORTIONS.
My daughter, Mary Leigh, loves my mashed potatoes and won’t allow my wife to make them. I’m pleased to have such a hold on her affection. I, too, like creamy, lumpy, buttery, peppery mashed potatoes, without the other flavorings that have become the vogue in recent times.
The variety of potato matters. When the red creamers look good, I get those. Yukon Golds are excellent, too. But white russet potatoes with no trace of green in the skin also come out nice. I boil the potatoes with the skins on and peel them later. That does burn the fingers a little, but if you do it in the sink under a thin stream of cold water, it’s not too bad and you get a better flavor.
4 lb. potatoes
1½ sticks (12 Tbsp.) butter, cut into pats
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1. Boil the potatoes until a kitchen fork jabbed into the biggest one slips out when you lift the potato out of the water. Drain and peel the potatoes as soon as they’re barely cool enough to handle. (I usually do this under a little running water.)
2. Put the potatoes in a large non-metallic bowl. (Metal promotes cooling, and you want the potatoes to stay hot.) Add the butter, and using a large, heavy wire whisk or a potato masher, mash the potatoes into pieces about the size of your little finger.
3. Heat the milk in the microwave until steaming. Add it and the salt to the potatoes and continue mashing. They will seem very wet at first, but as you continue to mash, they will become creamy. Add a little more milk, if necessary, to achieve a lighter texture.
4. Add the pepper and mix well. Ignore the small lumps that will inevitably be in there. They lend authenticity. These obviously did not come from a box! SERVES FOUR TO EIGHT.
Mary Ann’s Hash Brown Potatoes
My wife, Mary Ann, has a unique style of cooking. She recognizes only two settings on a stove burner: Off and High. Her default cooking gambit is to put the pan of food on a burner on High, leave the room to do something else, and check back when she smells something burning.
That approach (which I do not recommend) happens to be the perfect technique for cooking hash brown potatoes. Hers are the best hash browns I have tasted, and she wows everybody else with them, too. I can’t duplicate them myself, because my instincts will not allow me to do so. But here’s how it goes.
It’s best to bake the potatoes a day or more in advance (perhaps while you’re baking something else) and refrigerate them. They shred better that way.
5 lb. medium white potatoes
1 stick butter
3 green onions, tender green tops only, finely sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Bake the potatoes, skins on, in the center of the oven for 40 minutes. This will be a bit less than the time needed for edible baked potatoes. Cool the potatoes, then refrigerate.
3. When you’re ready to cook, remove the potatoes from the refrigerator and cut in half, but leave the skins on.
4. In a skillet over the highest heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter until it sizzles. Using the big holes on a hand grater, grate the potatoes right into the pan, sprinkling some green onions as you go, until the pan is nearly full. Cook without turning until the bottom appears to be on the verge of burning. Turn (either the whole thing or as much as you can at a time) and cook the same way on the other side.
5. Dump the pan of hash browns into a serving dish and keep it warm in the oven while you repeat the process for the rest of the potatoes. Or you can stop right there if that’s enough for the meal involved. The rest of the potatoes can be made into hash browns on another occasion. SERVES EIGHT TO TWELVE.
In most restaurants, these are nothing more than cube-shaped french fries. But there is much more to the dish than that. Brabant potatoes can be a surprisingly delicious side dish if you use this two-step preparation.
2 large white potatoes, very starchy (no green)
2–3 cups vegetable oil (preferably canola or peanut oil)
½ stick (4 Tbsp.) butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley, minced
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Scrub the outsides of the potatoes under cold running water, or peel if you don’t like potato skins. Cut into ½-inch dice, wash again to remove excess starch, and drain well. Allow 5-10 minutes for the potatoes to dry.
2. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan or deep skillet, heat the vegetable oil to 375 degrees F. Put the potatoes in and fry until they are very lightly browned. Remove them from the oil with a skimmer and drain on paper towels. Once drained, arrange the potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet or dish and set aside.
3. Heat the butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and parsley and cook just until the garlic is fragrant. Spoon some of the garlic-parsley mixture over the potatoes and bake until their edges become crisp and medium-dark brown, 7–10 minutes. Serve with a little extra garlic butter if you have any left. SERVES FOUR.
Almost all french fries in restaurants are terrible, made with frozen potatoes and rarely to order. We put up with that because fries made with fresh potatoes at home are such a pain in the neck to prepare. Our kids love them so much, however, that we’re constantly finding ourselves going through the ordeal—and then enjoying the results very much.
Start with large, starchy potatoes (such as russets). Blanch them briefly in boiling water. Then fry them twice. The second frying is not essential, as the people who crowd in grabbing fries after the first frying will prove. But it adds a magical crunch to the fries.
If you want to go to the outer limits of excellence in french fries, use rendered beef fat to fry them in. But few of us have the heart to do that.
5 lb. starchy potatoes
Canola oil for frying
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil while you’re peeling the potatoes (if you want them peeled). After peeling, slice the potatoes as thick as you like in whatever shape you like, but put them into a bowl of cold water while they’re waiting for the next step.
2. Boil the sliced potatoes for about a minute. This will not only begin their cooking but will also prevent the sugars from oxidizing and turning the raw potatoes brown. Drain and collect them in a colander.
3. Bring at least 2 quarts (8 cups) of oil to a temperature of 375 degrees F in another large pot. Use a fat thermometer to monitor this. The oil should not fill more than half the pot.
4. It’s safest to use a fry basket. Put a handful of the cut, blanched fries into the basket and lower it into the hot oil. Be prepared to lift the basket should the oil foam up to near the top. Fry the potatoes until they’re just light brown. Remove and drain. Let the temperature of the oil return to 375 degrees F before lowering the next batch.
5. If you can keep from eating them at this point, let the french fries cool a bit. When ready to serve, heat the oil back up to about 400 degrees F. I warn you that we are in grease-fire territory here—be very careful and have a dry-chemical fire extinguisher handy. Place a handful of the once-fried fries back into the basket and lower it into the hot oil. Fry for about 15 seconds; they will brown very quickly and may even puff up. Drain, season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately. For a distinctly New Orleans way of eating fries (the Belgians also like this), serve with a dish of Spicy Garlic Mayonnaise (see recipe, this page). SERVES EIGHT.
Creole Eggplant Gratin Delmonico
Here’s another extinct restaurant dish. It was the favorite side dish at the old Delmonico, before chef Emeril bought and modernized it. Especially right after it comes out of the oven, it’s delicious—even if you don’t like eggplant.
I had this dish for the last time at Delmonico two days before the old regime closed down. It was the night of the Babylon parade, which passed right in front of the restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. We had most of our dinner, went out to watch the parade, and came back in for dessert with Angie Brown and Rose Dietrich, the sisters who owned Delmonico. The combination of that Mardi Gras experience with one of the best meals I ever had there (the old place was good to the last) is forever engraved in my memory.
2 eggplants, peeled and cut into large dice
2 Tbsp. butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 cup small shrimp (25–30 count), peeled
½ lb. claw crabmeat
1 fresh ripe tomato, chopped
¼ tsp. Tabasco
¼ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp. dried marjoram
3 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped
½ tsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup bread crumbs
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and drop the eggplant in for about 2 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the onion, celery, and shrimp, and cook until the shrimp turn pink. Add all of the remaining ingredients except the bread crumbs and cook, stirring very lightly, until everything is heated through.
3. Load the mixture into a baking dish and top with the bread crumbs. Bake until the bread crumbs are toasty, about 15 minutes. SERVES FOUR TO EIGHT.
Savory Bread Pudding with Mushrooms
In New Orleans, bread pudding is usually a dessert. But not this one. Out come the sweet ingredients, replaced by mushrooms, onions, and cheese. It’s my wife Mary Ann’s idea, and we often use it as side dish, especially for Thanksgiving. The dish is at its best with meaty, wild-tasting mushrooms: portobellos, criminis, shiitakes, chanterelles, porcinis, etc. The best cheeses are the ones that melt well and have an interesting tang: Gruyère, fontina, Swiss, provolone, mozzarella. (If you use the last two, add a little Parmesan, as well.)
3 cups half-and-half
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp. Tabasco
¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. butter
18 inches of a loaf of stale poor boy bread or French bread, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
1½ cups shredded Gruyère, fontina, or other easy-melting white cheese
1½ cups sliced meaty mushrooms, such as portobellos, shiitakes, criminis
¾ cup finely chopped green onion
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Whisk the half-and-half, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
2. Grease a 9 x 5 x 4-inch baking dish or casserole with the butter. Place a layer of bread along the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle a third each of the cheese, mushrooms, and green onion over the bread. Pour about a quarter of the milk-egg mixture over this, enough to soak it well. Push down gently until the bread is soaked. Repeat the layers in the same order as above, topping each tier with a dousing of liquid. Finish with a layer of bread and the last of the liquid.
3. Set the baking dish into a second larger baking pan and pour in enough hot water to come halfway up the side of the baking dish. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Let it cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. The bread pudding can be sliced, but it’s perfectly fine to spoon it right out of the dish at the table. SERVES EIGHT.
This is my favorite recipe for asparagus as a side dish. It takes a few minutes longer than just boiling them, but the result is superb.
2 lb. fresh medium asparagus
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat the broiler. Place water in a wide skillet and bring to a rolling boil. Meanwhile, trim the tough bottom inch or so off the asparagus spears. Blanch the asparagus for 2 minutes (or steam them for 90 seconds), then remove. Rinse with cold water until they’re no longer hot.
2. Arrange the asparagus on a baking sheet, parallel to one another and almost touching. Pour a ribbon of olive oil back and forth across the asparagus, but not so much that it collects on the baking sheet. Sprinkle lightly with the crushed red pepper and lemon juice. Then top with enough of the Parmesan cheese to form a lacy layer.
3. Put the pan under the broiler, about 4 inches from the heat, cooking until the cheese melts and just begins to brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool enough for the cheese to set. Then, using a metal spatula, transfer 4–6 asparagus spears per portion, still held together by the cheese, to individual plates. SERVES SIX TO EIGHT.
In my bachelor days, I was a regular guest at the large Thanksgiving gatherings hosted by my good friends Kit and Billy Wohl. (Kit is the author of Arnaud’s Cookbook.) We’d divide the kitchen down the middle: cooks and burners on one side, talkers and wine drinkers on the other. I was usually recruited to wash and chop spinach (on the talker side—we usually had actual chefs in attendance) for an ever evolving creamed spinach recipe that was always part of the dinner, although it never tasted the same twice. Here’s a recipe based on a particularly good batch.
Four 10-oz. bags of fresh spinach, picked of stems and washed well
½ cup half-and-half, heavy whipping cream, or milk
½ cup grated Cheddar cheese
½ stick (4 Tbsp.) butter or margarine, melted
One 5.2-oz. package Boursin Garlic & Fine Herbs Gournay Cheese
One 8-oz. package cream cheese
2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch of nutmeg
½ cup sour cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Place the spinach in a large saucepan over low heat with just the water that clings to it after washing and cook until completely wilted. Squeeze out any excess water.
2. Put the spinach in a food processor and process for 10 seconds. Add all of the remaining ingredients, except the sour cream, salt, and pepper, and puree. Add a little more half-and-half (or cream or milk) if a looser texture is desired.
3. Transfer the spinach mixture to a butter-coated saucepan and cook over mediumlow heat until just heated through. Remove from the heat and fold in the sour cream until it is evenly blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If you want to be fancy and have the oven space, reheat the dish in the oven with a grated Cheddar cheese topping. MAKES ABOUT TWELVE SIDE PORTIONS.
This dish is a variation on the French classic Gratin Dauphinois (see recipe, this page). I originally served it at one of my Thanksgiving dinners, in another effort to use the meat of the jack-o’-lantern–style pumpkins that are so plentiful and cheap that time of year. I’ve made it often since.
1 medium jack-o’-lantern–type pumpkin, 4–6 lb.
5 cloves garlic, 2 of them chopped
2 lb. carrots, peeled and cut on the bias into ¼-inch-thick coins
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese
Ground white pepper to taste
2 cups half-and-half
2 egg yolks
Pinch of nutmeg
1 cup bread crumbs
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. If you have a convection oven, set it on convect.
2. Cut open the pumpkin from top to bottom. Scrape out all the seeds and fibers. Cut the pumpkin into eighths. Carve the meat out in pieces as large as you can, leaving ½-inch-thick shells. Cut the meat into ⅛-inch-thick slices.
3. Crush the 3 whole garlic cloves and use them to wipe the inside of a 12 x 8-inch glass baking dish. Discard what’s left of the crushed cloves. Shingle half of the pumpkin and half of the carrots along the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle on half of the chopped garlic, one-third of each of the cheeses, and white pepper to taste. Repeat the process with the remaining ingredients, finishing with a generous layer of the cheeses.
4. Beat the half-and-half, egg yolks, and nutmeg together, then pour over the casserole. Wrap a relatively tight seal of aluminum foil over the top of the dish. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
5. Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees F. Remove the foil, sprinkle bread crumbs in a thin layer over the top, and return to the oven. Continue baking, uncovered, until the crust browns.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to rest and cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. MAKES ABOUT TWELVE SIDE PORTIONS.
This dish was in my very first cookbook, a little tome published in 1982, now out of print. One day not long ago, someone called me on the radio and said she’d made it and loved it. I cooked it again and found out why.
ONIONS
6 medium yellow onions, peeled
6 slices bacon
Two 10-oz. bags of fresh spinach, cooked and chopped
2 crimini mushrooms, chopped
½ cup chicken stock (see recipe, this page)
1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. brown sugar
¼ tsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. Herbsaint or Pernod (optional)
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
TOPPING
¼ cup bread crumbs
2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. If you have a convection oven, set it on convect. Cut off the root ends of each onion, about one-fourth the way down. Scoop out the centers of the onions, leaving ¼-inch-thick onion shells. Chop the onion centers.
2. Cook the bacon in a skillet until crisp. Remove and crumble the bacon and set aside. Pour off the fat, but don’t wipe the pan. Cook the chopped onion in the remaining fat until tender.
3. Lower the heat to medium-low and stir in all of the remaining ingredients, along with the bacon. Cook until all of the moisture has been absorbed and the mixture begins to dry out.
4. Fill the onion shells loosely with the spinach mixture. Blend the topping ingredients together and sprinkle generously on top of the onions. Arrange the stuffed onions in a shallow baking dish, cover with foil, and bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake until the topping browns. SERVES SIX.
Stuffed artichokes, Italian style, are an old New Orleans favorite. They’re at their best in springtime, when the new crop of artichokes appears. The stuffing is mostly bread crumbs and garlic. Not everybody likes (or understands) stuffed artichokes. My wife does; I don’t. This recipe came from the old Toney’s on Bourbon Street, which sold them by the hundreds.
4 fresh medium artichokes
2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste
¼ cup olive oil
3 Tbsp. chopped garlic
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
2 cups bread crumbs
¼ cup grated Romano cheese
3 Tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tsp. dried oregano
⅛ tsp. sugar
⅛ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 large lemon
1. Thoroughly wash the artichokes. Carefully trim the top inch or so off each. Trim the stem so that the artichokes will sit straight up. With scissors, trim off points of leaves. Soak artichokes 30 minutes in ½ gallon (8 cups) of water with 2 teaspoons of salt dissolved.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add all of the remaining ingredients except the lemon and continue cooking, stirring frequently, over low heat until everything is well blended.
3. To stuff the artichokes, spread the outer leaves and spoon in the stuffing, starting from the top and going around to the bottom. Form foil cups around the bottom half of each artichoke.
4. Arrange the stuffed artichokes in a large kettle or Dutch oven with an inch of water in the bottom. Squeeze lemon juice liberally over all. Cook, covered, over medium heat for 30–40 minutes. Do not boil dry. Artichokes are done when the inner leaves can be pulled out easily. If you can lift the artichoke by its inner leaves, it’s not done.
5. Allow the artichokes to cool until you can touch them, then dig in. Also good cold as a late-night snack—in moderation, and only if your mate eats them with you. SERVES FOUR.
The Italians call this pasta aglio olio. In New Orleans, it’s pasta bordelaise, even though there’s not a drop of red Bordeaux in it. We eat it as a side dish to all sorts of things, from Deviled Crab (see recipe, this page) to Veal Pannée (see recipe, this page).
1 Tbsp. salt
1 lb. angel hair pasta
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4–8 cloves garlic, chopped
6 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper
¼ tsp. dried oregano
Parmesan cheese
1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil with a tablespoon of salt dissolved in it. Cook the pasta for about 4 minutes, leaving it al dente—firm to the tooth. Drain the pasta, but save about ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water.
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil until it shimmers. Add all of the remaining ingredients except the pasta and cook until the garlic smells good. Add 3 tablespoons of the reserved pasta cooking water and whisk to blend.
3. Turn the heat off and add the pasta, tossing it with a fork to coat with the sauce. Divide among the plates and serve with grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese. SERVES FOUR AS A MAIN COURSE OR EIGHT AS A SIDE DISH.
Here is a different approach to oyster dressing for the holidays. This recipe should be made a day ahead of time so that the flavors of the ingredients will merge together. (If you do, refrigerate it and take it out of the refrigerator an hour before baking it.) Although you might want to stuff this into a bird, it’s probably better baked separately.
¼ cup dry vermouth
24 fresh, shucked oysters, with their liquor
3 cups stale French bread, cut into cubes
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Pinch of dried thyme
Pinch of cayenne
1 bay leaf
½ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup bread crumbs
1. Warm the vermouth in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the oysters and gently poach until the oysters curl at the edges, about 8 minutes. Turn off the heat. Chop the oysters coarsely and set aside. Add the bread cubes to the poaching liquid and mash them a bit with a wire whisk. Set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the yellow and green onions, garlic, thyme, cayenne, and bay leaf, and sauté until the onions turn translucent. Add the poached oysters, oyster liquor, and parsley, and simmer for 3–5 minutes. Remove from heat and discard the bay leaf. Stir pan contents into bread mixture.
3. Add the chopped pecans. Toss to evenly distribute them in the mixture, which should be fairly loose and wet. Stir in the bread crumbs to stiffen the mixture and transfer it to a baking dish. Refrigerate, covered, overnight if you like. Take the baking dish out of the refrigerator about an hour before baking.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the stuffing, covered, until warmed all the way through. Then bake another few minutes, uncovered, to get a bit of a crust on top. SERVES SIX TO EIGHT.
Hush puppies are essential to Fried Catfish (see recipe, this page), and they’re good with any other seafood platter, too. You make them especially good by keeping the texture light and including flavors other than that of the cornmeal. Fry them in the same oil that you used to fry fish or (even better) chicken.
Although the original idea for hush puppies is to use the same stuff you used to coat the fish, better results come from making a batter specifically for hush puppies. I like white self-rising cornmeal.
Vegetable oil, for frying, preferably oil previously used for frying fish or chicken
1½ cups white self-rising cornmeal
1½ cups self-rising flour
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
½ tsp. sugar
1 cup canned corn, drained
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 small jalapeño pepper, seeded and membrane removed, chopped
2 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1¾ cups milk
1 egg, beaten
1. Pour the oil into a heavy saucepan to a depth of 1 inch. Heat over medium-high heat until the temperature reaches 350 degrees F.
2. Whisk the cornmeal, flour, salt, Creole seasoning, and sugar together in a small bowl. Add the corn, green onions, jalapeño, and parsley, and stir to blend well.
3. In a second, larger bowl, beat the milk, egg, and ¼ cup of water together. Add the cornmeal–green onion mixture to the wet ingredients and mix with a whisk until no dry flour is visible. (Add a little more milk to the mixture if necessary. The mixture should be sticky but not runny or grainy.)
4. With a tablespoon, make balls of batter. Fry 4–6 at a time until they’re medium brown; they should float on the oil when they’re ready. Remove and drain, and allow the oil temperature to recover before adding more hush puppies.
5. Serve as an appetizer with a mixture of equal parts mayonnaise, horseradish, and sour cream, or tartar sauce. Or alongside fried seafood or chicken. MAKES ABOUT EIGHTEEN HUSH PUPPIES.
Even people who like grits didn’t get excited about them until chefs starting playing around with them. One of the best versions of grits I ever had is the corn-studded yellow grits they serve as a side dish at Zea. That’s a small chain of specialty restaurants run by New Orleans chefs Gary Darling, Greg Reggio, and Hans Limberg. Their grits are so good that they outsell French fries at Zea—probably the only non-breakfast restaurant in the world where this is true. Use the best quality grits you can find, preferably stone-ground.
2 ears fresh corn
1 Tbsp. butter
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup yellow grits
½ tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Shuck off the husks and butter the ears of corn. Grill over an open fire (preferably charcoal) until the kernels are dark brown here and there.
2. Let the corn cool. Slice the kernels off the cob, holding the stem end down on a cutting board and slicing downward.
3. Bring the chicken broth to a light boil. Add the cream and return to a boil.
4. Slowly whisk in the grits and the corn. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook 5 to 6 minutes.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste. SERVES EIGHT.
“Macquechoux” is the Cajun French rendition of a word used by the Native Americans who lived in what is now Louisiana. It meant “cooked corn,” so “corn macquechoux” is redundant. But never mind. It’s a delicious and common side dish in Cajun country, good enough that it’s made its way into New Orleans Creole cooking. The corn is cooked down with all the ingredients of a Creole sauce and a lot of butter. It becomes soft and almost a stew, but the kernels don’t disintegrate. In some families, enough sugar is added to the concoction to make it unambiguously sweet.
Macquechoux can be turned into an entrée by adding crawfish tails, small shrimp, or diced andouille sausage to the mix. Those variations are typically made with more pepper than for a side dish.
5 ears fresh yellow corn
1 stick butter
½ cup chopped onion
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 small, ripe but firm tomatoes, seeds and pulp removed, chopped
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp. cayenne
Half-and-half (if necessary)
Tabasco jalapeno sauce to taste
FOR AN ENTRÉE
2 lb. fresh Louisiana crawfish tails or medium shrimp or andouille sausage (the latter diced)
1. Shuck the corn and rinse with cold water. Hold the corn upright with the tip of the ear on a shallow plate. With a sharp knife, cut the kernels off the ear. When finished, use the knife to scrape the ears to extract as much of the corn “milk” as possible. Do this for all the ears.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat the butter until it bubbles, and add the onion, bell pepper, and celery. Cook until softened.
3. Lower the heat. Add the corn and the corn milk and all the other ingredients up to and including the cayenne. Cover and cook, stirring every few minutes, for 20–25 minutes. If the mixture becomes so dry that it’s hard to stir, add a little halfand-half to loosen it up.
4. Adjust the seasonings with salt and Tabasco jalapeno sauce. Serve as a side dish with almost anything.
If using crawfish tails, add them to the corn when it has about 10 minutes left to cook. Use extra Tabasco.
If using shrimp, add them to the butter in step 1 before the vegetables, and cook until they turn pink. Remove and reserve. Add the shrimp back to the pot, with all their juices, when the corn has about 5 more minutes to cook.
If using andouille sausage, cook the diced sausage in a pan to extract some of the fat. (This can also be done by wrapping the andouille in a paper towel and microwaving it for 2 minutes or so.) Add the andouille to the corn when it has about 10 minutes left to cook. MAKES EIGHT SIDE DISHES OR FOUR ENTRÉES.
Ragout of Mushrooms with Grits
This is a spectacular side dish for almost any meat, but it’s especially fine with beef. The ragout of mushrooms is much more intensely flavored than the same mushrooms sautéed in butter would be. And now that we can find coarse-ground grits that stand up to cooking, we’re getting used to using it as a side dish at dinner. This comes out fine with standard white mushrooms, but it’s better to mix in some exotic or even wild species if you can find them. Serve it with steak, roast beef, roast pork, or lamb leg.
GRITS
2 cups half-and-half
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup grits, preferably Anson Mills stone-ground white grits
2 Tbsp. butter
RAGOUT
1 stick butter
6 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. chopped onion
½ square (½ oz.) Baker’s dark chocolate
¾ cup half-and-half
½ cup warm, strong beef stock or broth
½ cup port, Madeira, or Marsala wine
16 oz. assorted mushrooms, cleaned and sliced into pieces the size of the tip of your little finger
¼ tsp. marjoram
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. salt
3 dashes Tabasco chipotle pepper sauce
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Make the grits first by bringing the half-and-half and the salt to a light boil. Stir in the grits and lower the heat to the lowest temperature. Cook, stirring now and then, until a furrow you make with a spoon drawn across the top surface remains for a few seconds. Remove from the heat. Let the butter melt on top of the hot grits, and tilt the pan around to coat the top surface with butter (don’t stir it in). Keep the grits warm, covered, in an oven at the lowest heat setting.
2. For the ragout, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, then add the flour. Make a light brown roux, stirring constantly. When the mixture reaches the color of a brown paper bag, add the onion and the chocolate, and remove from the heat. Continue to stir until the chocolate disappears.
3. Whisk in the half-and-half until the mixture takes on the texture of mashed potatoes. Whisk in the beef stock and the wine until well blended. Add the remaining ingredients and lower the heat to the lowest temperature. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring every now and then, until the mixture is very thick and the mushrooms are very soft. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Stir the grits and spoon onto plates. Surround or top the grits (at your discretion) with the mushroom ragout. SERVES SIX TO EIGHT.
