Month: November 2018

I had the whole fried catfish for lunch today at Parrain’s on Perkins. Can’t tell you how many of these I’ve dropped in the grease myself over the years. I learned to fry at Mike Anderson’s original restaurant on Highland Road. Tim Hood and Mike Ryan, future owners of The Chimes and Parrain’s, were already there when Kevin Smith and I wandered in looking for work and Glenn Juban hired us, telling us how much we would appreciate the “artistry and camaraderie” of Mike Anderson’s Seafood Restaurant. We didn’t have a whole lot of choice in jobs at the time. My VW bug had bitten the dust before we could even start the BREC jobs we had lined up (we were roommates at the time) so we had to be in walking distance of Ivanhoe St. I was in and out of LSU and the Reagan administration had capped the limit on student loans at the same time the university deregulated tuition. The restaurant industry ended up with a whole lot of over educated cooks and bartenders and servers right around that time. Kevin was done with school and Mike’s is where we ended up. My last semester of undergrad I carried twelve hours of coursework and fried fifty hours a week at Mike’s. I had a seven am French class that I drug myself to with a huge cup of coffee and white flour dingleberries from the night before still clinging to my forearms. I would hide behind my wraparound shades and snooze through most of class. Barely got by with a D even though I was very close friends with the instructor. An hour before closing the bar staff would start bringing rounds of Bud and Miller in 9 oz plastic cups to the kitchen so we could start winding down and getting ready to clean up. Most of the time we would end the night at the Bayou “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” and depending on who was closing we might stay on after the doors were shut for a few more brews and games of pool. Graduation day Mom and Pops took me out to lunch at Pinetta’s after the trek across the stage, but as soon as we were done I had to go back to Mike’s to get ready for the dinner rush. I remember filleting a thirty pound case of collarbone catfish in just under nine minutes when I got there that afternoon before setting up a hundred seafood platters. One frogleg, one Metompkin softshell crab, two catfish fillets, three shrimp, and five crabfingers wrapped in foil so we could pull them out of the cooler and add a stuffed shrimp and four oysters, two hushpuppies, fries, and onion rings. We served icy fishbowls of beer back then as well, and the ribeyes were 16 oz but two or three inches thick because the cattle weren’t hormone inflated. And the lump crabmeat cocktail was 4 oz of real jumbo lump. You’d have to charge better than twenty dollars to put that on the table today. The whole catfish at Parrain’s was delicious. I’m convinced that when you cook fish on the bone the marrow seeps out into the fish and gives it that clean sharp taste that you just don’t get from fillets alone. 

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So tacos are a lot like ramen noodles in that you can stay very minimalist or add as many bells and whistles as you want as long as you get the basics right. I have a couple of points to make about cooking Mexican. First, all you really need for seasoning is salt, chili powder, and cumin because all the rest of the flavors come from fresh vegetables and herbs. Second, just like Italian cuisine, Mexican cuisine gets attacked by Wisconsin as soon as it crosses the border and is smothered in cheese. Authentic Mexican and Italian dishes aren’t nearly as cheese heavy as their americanized versions. That said, tacos are super easy weeknight meals now that every grocery offers all the ingredients you need. Choose your tortillas, choose your protein, pick up some store prepped pico de gallo and some sour cream and you are good to go. The store made pico has gotten better and better. Look for containers with the least liquid in the bottom for the freshest product. And now you can buy flavored sour creams at most stores as well. So for me the size of the shrimp and the weather determines how I will cook my tacos. Larger shrimp and nice weather moves everything to the grill. Skewer and season the shrimp, toss on the grill, toast the tortillas on the grill as well and maybe add some fresh corn. Now you can cheat with packaged taco seasonings if you have one you really like, or dial it in yourself with the salt, chili powder and cumin I mentioned earlier. For the corn I put down some foil and a couple of pats of butter for each ear then season the corn pretty heavily before wrapping it and throwing it on the grill or in the oven. Leave yourself about fifteen minutes either way to get a little char going. Some char releases even more of the corn’s sweetness. Some folks like to smear the corn with sour cream after it comes off the grill or out of the oven and then dust it with cotija cheese and call it street corn. Whatever floats your boat. Smaller shrimp and nasty weather have me moving inside to the stove top to saute the shrimp in a little butter or garlic olive oil and seasonings before putting the tacos together. The one thing the store bought pico is always light on is cilantro, so if you want to dress the tacos up a bit, that’s the place to start. Fresh jalapenos, serranos, and poblanos are available almost everywhere as well. Now you can go beer or margaritas with your tacos if you want, but I prefer to hunt down a bottle or two of Mexican Coca-Cola made with real sugar. Far superior to what we make here in the states. 

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I know, I know. Jerry Lee’s is all about the boudin. And the headcheese. And cracklins. And a very fine jerky. But it is impossible for me to think of Jerry Lee’s and not also think about boiling crawfish for a living with Carlton LeGrange. We were based out of his parents’ place in Watson. That’s where the propane tank was and the boiling rigs were kept and repaired and the crawfish and beer coolers were located. And when we would load up early in the morning to go do a job somewhere our first stop was always Jerry Lee’s on Greenwell Springs Road. Breakfast of champions. A cup of black coffee or a Schlitz tallboy and a couple of links of hot boudin to start a long, long day. Lot of guys milling around waiting to order or just shooting the shit. Boots and jeans and the mingled smoke of wood fire and cigarettes and everyone knew there was work to do. Red was still alive then and he’d yell his greetings as he was pushing the boudin into links. Jerry Lee was there a lot, shaking hands, smiling, putting orders together. We worked a balloon fest one time out at the fairgrounds and that was where the boudin omelet was born. We had to get out there and set up for the dawn firing and lift off and although we sold poboys later in the day, we had to come up with a breakfast offering and boudin omelets filled that spot. You can get one anytime now at The Chimes on Highland Road and it’s evolved. Topped with white sausage gravy and stuffed with boudin and pepperjack cheese. Jerry Lee’s still has a hot deli box with boudin poboys inside. He uses that hot dog bun style poboy bread with boudin and pepperjack or American cheese. They are so good. So the photo on the left is the real secret to boiling crawfish. That is when you cut the fire off and let them soak on their own for 30 or forty minutes. No ice, no pulling them out and throwing them in an ice chest with butter and Old Bay, just let them cool slowly and sink as the tail meat shrinks away from the shell and the seasoned water gets inside and works its magic with the fat in the head and the bugs fill with flavor while you down another beer. No point in rushing the crawfish with ice. You are diluting the water and inhibiting the interaction of hot water and crawfish fat. When you get three quarters foam across the pot, cut them off and wait.

So I was down in New Orleans a few weeks back to attend a good friend’s 50th been-here-another-year gathering, a nice surprise get together organized by his wife at the Bulldog Uptown on Canal, and on the advice of another friend I stopped off for an early dinner at Shaya before the party. It was superb. The servers were bright and knowledgeable, the food was perfectly executed, but by far the star of the evening was the fresh pressed mint tea. I opted for the hummus and haloumi, both of which were outstanding.

Also stunning was the puffy pita they served with the hummus. It was my first time encountering the not so unleavened version of this flat bread and it was very good. The ambiance was very nice as well.

All in all  I would definitely recommend a visit, then an after lunch or dinner stroll down Magazine St. On this particular evening, I stumbled across the new location of Ms Mae’s bar and grabbed a pint of Gnarley Barley’s Jucifer and went down that old rabbit hole of memory lane, New Orleans style and stumbling out of the old Ms Mae’s at eleven am very much the worse for wear and tear. I was also struck again at how foolish it is for the Baton Rouge city council to believe they can turn Government St into Magazine St. Worth a shot, but not going to happen. Magazine is an organic occurrence that took 200 years to grow into that kind of  funky neighborhood. I just don’t think you can purpose build something like that. It has to come together on it’s own. I may be wrong, I hope I’m wrong, but while there are a couple of stretches on Government that come close (most notably the Bedford/Ogden area that houses Elsie’s Plate and Pie, Radio Bar, Simple Joe’s and Time Warp, and the Jefferson/Goverment sector with Brew Ha-Ha, Mid City Craft Wine and Brew, Serop’s, Reginelli’s, coming soon Ned’s, Superior Grill, Anthony’s Deli and the magnificent Fleur di Lis pizza) there are still too many pawn shops and un-gentrified strip mall sections to produce that overall feel of Hey, we’re here, and it’s time to throw down that is central to Magazine. So do check out Shaya if you get a chance. An excellent excuse to cruise Magazine St. 

I find breakfast to be a good way to incorporate leftovers into the meal plan, and nothing is easier than instant ramen. Today it was leftover roast duck and pork ribs. I pulled the duck and rib meat and tossed them in a pot with 2 cups of beef broth and brought it to a boil. You can use plain water and rely on the extract in the packaged ramen, but why bypass a chance to add flavor and intensity? And that is the beauty of ramen, you can just add the meats and follow the instructions on the packet, or you can continue to upgrade as you go.  Since it is breakfast, I like to add some eggs, scrambled and rolled tamogoyaki style, basically an omelet, just folding it over and over in the pan. I’m also big on adding seaweed snacks, roasted nori, that is so much easier to keep around than the big flat packs of nori.

Every now and then I will juice it up with a little extra sesame oil or wasabi, and I always finish with green onions. Makes for a very hearty breakfast when you have a little time to put into it, and it is especially rewarding when it is cold outside.

Slow cookers are perfect for beans. Like Ron Popeil used to tell us in his Ronco ads “Set it and forget it.” It’s a little easier to do that with red beans than white beans as you can start the red beans at breakfast and they will be ready when you get home from work, but white beans are more of a five or six hour haul and will overcook. I like to keep it really, really simple since the onion and beef broth and smoked ham hocks bring all the flavor you need to the beans. If you can find a good lean sausage to cook with the red beans that will stand up to eight hours cook time, go ahead and throw that in the pot as well. I get mine from the Cutrer booth at the Red Stick Farmers Market at Fifth and Main on Saturdays. Otherwise, cook the sausage separately on grill or stovetop when the beans are done. Richard’s Pork and Beef is a good one, but I’m sure you are already sold on a favorite. Here’s the plan for red beans:

½ lb Camelia red beans

1 quart Swanson’s Beef Broth

1 baseball sized yellow onion diced

1 baseball sized smoked ham hock

1 lb smoked sausage sliced

That’s it (I know you can handle the rice and corn bread and green onions advice free)

Almost the exact same plan for white beans and ham:

½ lb Camelia Great Northern beans

1 quart Swanson’s Chicken Broth

1 baseball sized yellow onion diced

1 baseball sized smoked ham hock

1 lb package of diced smoked or cooking ham

The white beans will be ready a couple of slow cooker hours ahead of the red beans. Now I’ve heard a lot about Insta-pot pressure cookers,but it’s a toy I’ve not played with or feel much of a need to. Like the “airfryer” convection ovens for broasting, I really don’t see the advantages myself. I could be wrong, I often am, but being in a hurry for beans just seems like poor planning to me. And if you want fried food without oil—Shake’N Bake.

So let’s start with these. Country style pork ribs, bone in or boneless, whatever you can get your hands on at a good price, thick cut bacon, and a sweet apple. I’m really fond of honeycrisp, but granny smiths or even red delicious will do. The real trick to these sticks is to prep the apple and pop it in the nuke for a minute just to take the edge off so it doesn’t snap when you go to skewer it. That works for onion and bellpepper as well if you decide to dress these up a bit. I like the simple, straightforward style of bacon apple pig, but I confess, I am also somewhat taken by the name. I like to use the seven inch bamboo skewers pictured because one makes a good app, and two or more can serve as a main.

Once you have them on the stick, I apply my basic meat seasoning. Roasted garlic olive oil, Lea & Perrins, Tony’s, black pepper. Toss them on the grill. If you can generate a little pecan smoke, all the better. I do a grill finish with Tiger sauce, and by that I mean before I flip the stick, I hit it with the sauce so it has a chance to cook into the meat. You can try a plate finish if you want (wait until it is off the fire to paint it), or even play around with both, hit it on and off the grill. Once you fire it up, it is your baby to do with as you please. These are just ideas that have worked really well for me.

Now I always think of these as a party food. Easy to prep ahead and bring with you—seasoned sticks in a zip lock in a cooler with a few bottles of Tiger sauce—if you are going to a friend’s house. A good start on a mixed grill at your house. Maybe some shrimp and steak and veggie sticks to go with. As straight barbecue they do pair well with potato salad, baked beans, green salad or coleslaw and garlic bread, Lots and lots of garlic bread. But you can always take it upscale or sideways with the addition of rice. Jambo, rice pilaf, dirty rice and grilled or steamed or stewed veggies. The uber-popular brussel sprout would not be a bad call, and the stick is light and lean enough that you could dress the sprouts with a creamy tasso gouda sauce without really over doing it. Food for thought

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