Best-ever Shrimp and Grits

I've heard that no two people make shrimp and grits exactly alike. Heck, I don't even make it the same way twice in a row, mostly because I don't tend to follow recipes. Funny, huh, since I write recipes? But those are mainly for the folks who don't prefer to wing it, as I do. At any rate, most of the time I throw stuff together with what ingredients I have on hand. In this particular case, I really only had the basics: shrimp, and grits. I also had some andouille sausage--albeit a mild but still flavorful rope of Johnsonville brand--and a batch of homemade Emeril's "Essence," aka Cajun seasoning. Alas, I didn't have any fresh bell pepper or celery, two-thirds of the holy trinity of Creole and Cajun cooking, but I did have an onion. A decent start, but not quite enough.

I scrounged in the cupboard, hoping I had a jar of roasted red peppers. What I found was one jar of sundried tomatoes and another of Trader Joe's Sweet Picante Peppers with Creamy Cheesy Filling. Hoping these wouldn't be too sweet, I cracked open the jar and popped one into my mouth. MMmmmm! Not as sweet as Peppadews, a bit softer in texture. These would work! I squeezed out the cheesy filling to use in the grits, and chopped up some smoked gouda--who doesn't like cheesy grits? There were some leftover mushrooms in the fridge as well. Why not? 

I wasn't really surprised that the finished dish was tasty. While the elements were thrown together somewhat haphazardly, none of them were particularly weird. There were lots of good textures: smooth grits, perfectly cooked shrimp, soft mushrooms and onions, the slight chew of sundried tomatoes. Since most of the ingredients were pre-seasoned, I really only needed a pinch of salt to draw out the moisture while cooking the onion and mushrooms. It all worked amazingly well, enough for Mr Minx to declare the dish "restaurant quality." 

Shrimp & Grits

This was so good, I'm recording the recipe so I could maybe make it again some day. Not that I'll ever have this same perfect storm of ingredients on hand. But maybe?

For the shrimp:

1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning

extra virgin olive oil 

1/2 large onion, sliced

4 ounces white mushrooms, sliced

pinch salt

1/2 13.5-ounce pack Johnsonville Andouille sausage, sliced about 1/3" thick

6-7 Trader Joes Sweet Picante Peppers with Creamy Cheesy Filling

3-4 sundried tomatoes in oil, roughly chopped

For the grits:

2 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup regular or old fashioned (not quick) grits

2-ish ounces chopped smoked gouda

the cheese from the picante peppers

garlic powder

Chopped parsley for garnish 

To make the shrimp:

Toss the shrimp in a bowl with the Cajun seasoning and a healthy drizzle of the olive oil. Cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Put the onion and mushrooms in a saute pan with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Cook over medium heat until the veg have given up their liquid and have softened and browned a bit. Scrape into a bowl and set aside. 

Add a touch more oil to the pan and brown the sausage pieces.

While the sausage is cooking, squeeze the cheese from the peppers. Chop the peppers roughly. Add the peppers and the sundried tomatoes to the onion and mushrooms. Add the browned sausage to the bowl. Deglaze the saute pan with a bit of water--half a cup or so--and add that water to the bowl, too.

Cook the shrimp in the same pan over medium-high heat, turning once, until all shrimp are opaque on both sides. A tip: don't walk away while you're cooking shrimp. They cook FAST. You just need 3-4 minutes. After that, they're on the fast track to rubber-town. Once the shrimp are opaque, pour in the veg and water, turn the heat up to high, and bring to a boil. Cook until everything is hot, just a couple minutes. Taste the liquid for seasoning and add more salt and Cajun seasoning if you think it needs it.

To make the grits:

Bring the water to a boil. Whisk in the grits, then turn the heat down to low. Cover the pot and cook until the grits have absorbed the water and become tender, stirring occasionally, 15-20 minutes. Add the cheeses and the garlic powder and stir until the cheese is completely melted.

Dollop the grits onto plates, spoon shrimp mixture on top. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Serves 3-4, depending on appetite.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Best/Most Memorable Meals I've Ever Had

On a recent episode of The Dave Chang Show podcast, Dave and co-host Chris Ying listed their best and/or most memorable meals of all time. As I listened, I realized that I have lots of memorable meals, but they're not necessarily the best. Some meals are memorable because of bad food or service. Creating a list, even a short one, of truly great restaurant meals, is a difficult task for me. Perhaps I am jaded. Though I haven't eaten in the world's greatest restaurants--excepting Le Bernardin--I have dined in as many notable places as a person who doesn't travel much and who isn't wealthy can dine. 

Here's a list of restaurant meals that were highly memorable, even if they weren't the best, in alphabetical order.

pasta tasting menu for August 2004

Babbo - We celebrated Mr Minx's 40th birthday here, back in the early aughts, before we knew that Mario Batali was a rapey douchebag who stole his staff's tips. Mr Minx was somewhat of a pastaholic back then, so we opted for the seven-course pasta tasting menu with wine pairings. This was in the year before we started Minxeats, so there's no official write-up of the meal, but we did save the menu. I do recall that the starter was a bit awkward to eat. Whole cannellini beans on crusty bread might be a traditional antipasto, but it was impossible to take a bite without beans rolling off the bread and onto the table and the floor. Why not smash the beans? Dunno. Seems logical. In any case, the rest of the meal was fantastic, the first course being the best. So simple. So much butter. So good. We also enjoyed the wine pairing with the cheese course, a sweet sparkling wine called Brachetto d'Acqui. Sometimes we buy that to drink on New Year's Eve instead of champagne.  

foie gras with raw tuna 

The Bar Room at the Modern - I was in NYC for a Sniffapalooza event. I had not yet met my current NYC dining companion, Daisy, so I usually dined alone. One afternoon, I blew a wad of cash on a rather extravagant meal at the bar room of MOMA's restaurant, the Modern. The restaurant was an oasis after my morning of mingling with a crowd of chatty individuals amid clouds of perfume. Service was excellent--eager but not obtrusive--and the food was interesting and quite good. The unusual foie gras and raw tuna dish was particularly memorable.

Charleston is an example of a meal that has stayed in my mind for the wrong reasons. I had enjoyed a meal at Cindy Wolf's Savannah at some point in the 90s and looked forward to having a similarly splendid meal at Charleston. Instead, I found an oppressive atmosphere created by the ever-looming waitstaff. A "wilted spinach salad" arrived as a unadorned mound of barely cooked spinach with all its harsh tannins present. Cindy was at the pass and let this dish go by even though it clearly was not a salad and not particularly edible. Finally, the sauces for our entrees had been so over-reduced that it literally glued our lips shut. Even after eating dessert, I had to work to open my mouth to speak. The rest of the meal was unmemorable.

We've never been back, though we have eaten at other of Foreman/Wolf's restaurants. They may be run by one team, but I find the quality of them overall to be inconsistent. Pazo and Bar Vasquez were the best of the bunch; both are now closed. Petit Louis is a distant third. We haven't tried Cindy Lou's Fish House yet, and we miss the original Milton Inn. 

Harry's Seafood Grill on the Wilmington, Delaware waterfront was the site of a fun birthday lunch hosted by my best friend Kate, who had recently moved to Wilmington. While checking out the local restaurant scene, she had befriended a chef couple, one of whom worked at Harry's. Chef Applebaum generously sent out a couple of dishes in addition to the three courses we had ordered for ourselves. There was too much food, and all of it was delicious and of high-quality. I especially enjoyed my first sticky toffee pudding and my first taste of soft shell crab.

Herb & Soul is the site of another memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons meal. We had eaten there in the past and mostly enjoyed our food. It wasn't perfect, but the biscuits and fried chicken were stellar. On this particular occasion, we partook of a multi-course meal arranged by a member of the local Chowhounds board. I'm not sure whose idea it was to serve a selection of New Orleans-inspired foods, but it was pretty clear that the chef wasn't particularly familiar with any of the dishes he cooked that night. The first course of crawfish and octopus with brussels sprouts comprised two fingernail-clipping-sized shreds of crawfish on my plate and a dried-out, chewy octopus so small it was probably a fetus. Another dish was billed as an etouffee (which means "smothered") yet barely had any sauce. The bits of alligator meat in it were so chewy, if I hadn't washed them down with water I'd still be chewing them 9 years later. The fourth course was better: a well-prepared half chicken served with not nearly enough of a very good fig pan jus and a soupcon of cauliflower puree. The best course was dessert, French beignets (made with choux paste rather than a yeasted dough), and I could have eaten several more of those. Thankfully the dinner was dirt cheap. 

barely cooked scallop in brown butter dashi

Le Bernardin -- Mr Minx's next milestone birthday was celebrated with a 6-course lunch at Le Bernardin, a 3-Michelin star restaurant in NY. The service was impeccable, and the food almost perfect. I know, who am I to criticize a dish served at one of the "World's 50 Best Restaurants?" I'll tell you: someone who doesn't think a dark red wine sauce works well with wild rockfish. Mr Minx agreed with me. So there. The scallop in brown butter dashi, however, was mindblowing. So simple, yet so delicious. My one regret about the meal: I didn't take a roll every time the bread guy came around. There were about eight kinds of bread on offer, and I was only able to taste three of them. Le sigh.

NOLA - Back in the days before Minxeats, even before Mr Minx became Mr Minx, we took a trip together to New Orleans with a group of rabid Emeril Lagasse fans whom I had met online. Someone or other from that group was up our butts every time we tried to turn around. One person in particular stuck to us like a tick. After a couple days of eating at only Tick-approved restaurants, my beloved and I snuck off to have lunch at NOLA, one of Lagasse's more casual establishments. We ordered starters of gumbo and turtle soup, and a couple of pizzas to share. My soup was very good, but Neal's seafood gumbo was insane. We stopped short of literally licking the bowl clean, but we were tempted! 

As fate would have it, the man who made that gumbo now owns Cajun Kate's, a restaurant in Wilmington. We make a pilgrimage every year to keep our freezer stocked with gumbo.

my favorite course at Volt, tuna tartare in a delicate rice gelee wrapper. Photo credit: Kevin Eats.

Volt - We discovered Volt during chef/owner Bryan Voltaggio's turn on Top Chef. After our first delicious meal there, I was obsessed with getting seats at Table 21: a 21-course meal served in Volt's kitchen. We made our reservation ten months in advance, and the wait was worth enduring. For a measly $121 per person, we had 21 courses of surprising and delicious food. Sadly, this was back in the foodie stone age (2010) and I didn't have a phone with a good camera. Rather than bothering with my crappy little Canon, I sat back and enjoyed the meal. (Check out the post linked in the caption above for excellent photos of a meal very similar to the one we ate.) 

While the food was incredible, the service was a tad annoying. Servers replaced the silverware with each course, whether we had used a particular utensil or not. Remove clean spoon, replace with another clean spoon. Having disembodied hands appear over my shoulder or beside my forearm (we were seated at a counter in front of the garde manger station and couldn't see the utensil movers behind us) was a little disconcerting. It was like being served by Thing. I'm not a fancy-service kind of gal. Just give me my food and if I need a clean fork, I'll let you know.

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I'm sure if I thought about it a little more, I could come up with a few more meals to add here. These were off the top of my head, clearly very memorable. I hope to have many more meals like these in the future. The good ones....

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - I'm Just Wild About Harry's!

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on November 3, 2006. It might have appeared again later, too. I like it, so here it is once more.

The chef at Harry's back then is one of the owners of Cajun Kate's in PA and DE, and the Kate I speak of is my late best friend, Kate Becker. She was surprised that I didn't like oysters and had never tried a soft shell crab before this particular occasion. Now, of course, I like both very much. Tastes can definitely change over the years.

---------------------------------------

Last week, I was hanging out in Delaware with my dear friend Kate when she suggested that she treat me to a birthday lunch since we probably wouldn't have opportunity to get together before that hallowed day (November 17). She suggested Harry's Seafood Grill and sent me to check out the sample menu on their Web site. Now, as a graphic designer, I am well aware of the importance that needs to be placed on such things as image and marketing, and was pleased to see that Harry's site was good-looking and well-designed. That means good things, in my mind, so I jumped at the chance to dine there.

The restaurant was as tastefully decorated as the site was well-designed, with interesting sea-themed artworks (including the wire starfish sculpture that took up most of the ceiling of the main dining room) and a large window overlooking the river. There are also tables outside under a broad awning for dining in more clement weather.

Kate was acquainted with one of the chefs at Harry's, and we had an opportunity to meet with her and chat a bit before ordering our food. She made some suggestions as to the best items on the rather large lunchtime menu (that included an impressive selection of raw items like sashimi and several varieties of ceviche). I had to agree with her that yes, the Cajun Short Ribs with Fried Shrimp and Grits in a Tasso Cream Sauce was not to be missed. Kate went for the Soft Crab Sandwich with Remoulade and Yukon Gold Potato Chips because she was in the mood for crab, and because I had never eaten a soft crab before - mainly because of the legs that dangle from the sandwich. I have no issues with hard crabs, but put one between two slices of bread and suddenly it becomes a fried spider. The chef had also recommended the Oktoberfest Moules Frites, so we ordered that as a shared appetizer.

The next thing we know, an order of New Orleans Barbeque Shrimp and Toasted Focaccia with Fresh Smoked Tomato Salad was coming to our table, compliments of the chef. Four large, plump shrimp bathed in a tangy sauce were nestled together next to a generous pile of greens topped with smoky tomatoes. Now, don't think N'awlins style barbeque sauce has anything to do with what one normally thinks of as 'cue (any region's style)...it's basically lots of butter, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, garlic, and spices, along with a dose of hot sauce. It was fan-tastic, much tastier than my preparation of one of Emeril's recipes some years ago (that was too heavy on the Worcestershire).

As soon as we were done with the shrimps, our lovely and perky waitress brought Kate's pre-appetizer of 3 different PEI oysters. I'll have to take her word for it that they were tasty, as I don't like raw oysters. :) Then came the mussels. A platter was placed before us containing a lidded serving vessel with 10 or 12 huge, beer-steamed specimens, a fancy wire swirly thing holding a cone of thinly cut frites, and a ramekin of black pepper mayo. Although the mussels were the usual black-shelled variety, some of the critters were so large I needed to cut them in half before popping them in my mouth. They were soft and succulent and even-textured, and didn't have the somewhat sickening "gack, is that a mussel spleen, or maybe a mussel colon I'm biting into now?" lumpy quality that I find in some larger mussels, particularly the green-lipped variety. The enormous serving of frites was crisp and delicious, and the mayo was a nice dip for both starch and shellfish.

I could have stopped right there with the eating, as I was already quite full, but we still had entrees coming. Whew! Mine was a dinner-sized portion - three meaty short ribs, three large shrimp that had been dipped in a savory batter and deep fried, and a good half-cup sized timbale of grits, all atop a lake of creamy sauce studded with bits of tasso ham. The meat was so tender, it fell off the bone at the mere threat of being struck with a knife, and the shrimp had that lovely iodine flavor that I like so much (I know some people probably don't like it, but to me, that's what makes a shrimp taste like a shrimp). But it was too much; I ate the shrimp and the grits and took the ribs home for a future lunchtime treat.

Kate's soft crab sandwich was also quite yummy. She shared a portion of the body so I wouldn't have to deal with the legs, and the crisp carapace was accented beautifully by the savory remoulade sauce. I didn't try her chips, but they were definitely of the home-made variety.

To add insult to injury, or rather, to avoid additional risk of stomach explosion, we opted to share a dessert. There were several interesting options on the menu, but I've always wanted to try a Sticky Toffee Pudding. Harry's was a hefty cylinder, served warm, with a large curved tuile acting as a dish for a scoop of house-made vanilla gelato, the plate further garnished with splotches of tart raspberry coulis and squiggles of homemade caramel on a pool of creme anglaise. Yowsa. It was delicious, and far too much to finish.

Two hours later, we waddled out of Harry's, very full and happy. This was one of the most consistantly delicious meals I've had in a long time (apart from the two dinners at Pazo this past summer), and I would be delighted to go back at any time. I highly recommend it.

Harry's Seafood Grill
101 S. Market St
Wilmington, DE 19801
P: 302-777-1500
F: 302-777-2406




* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Hot Stuff for Your Super Bowl Wings

According to a story in USA Today, Americans eat 1.35 BILLION chicken wings on Super Bowl weekend. And that insane number of hot chicken parts needs an insane amount of hot sauce to flavor them. If you're like me and prefer to make your wings at home rather than consume them at whatever purveyor of alcoholic beverages you plan to visit in order to watch the Big Game, you might be interested in a few of the hot sauces I've encountered recently. Unless of course you're a wimp and like your wings sans sauce. :)

First up is the Harissa Hot Sauce from Moore's Marinades & Sauces. While the sauce is hot and garlicky with a North African flair from harissa spices, it's not a radical change from a classic Buffalo wing flavor once you mix some up with a good dose of melted butter. In other words, celery sticks and bleu cheese dressing are still a perfect match for wings made with this sauce. But if you wanted to switch things up, you could make your dressing with feta cheese instead of bleu. And if you want to go a different direction entirely, swap out the chicken wings for lamb sliders and top them with a dose of Moore's Harissa hot sauce (and the feta cheese sauce, too). Yum.

Moore's also makes a Spicy Mustard hot sauce, and both Jalapeno and Habanero sauces, plus a whole line of ready-to-eat wing sauces and marinades. Find them at various supermarkets including Giant and Weis.

Then we have Marion's Kitchen Coconut Sriracha and Coconut Sweet Chili Sauces. The Coconut Sriracha is fiery, like regular sriracha, but with the added creaminess of coconut. Never fear, the coconut doesn't do anything to ease the heat--the sauce is still pretty damn spicy. The Coconut Sweet Chili is like the chili sauce dip that comes with spring rolls in a Thai restaurant, again with the addition of coconut. It's not nearly as hot as the sriracha, but it does have a kick. If you don't want to set your mouth on fire, you can blend the two. I want to say that the coconut gives it a sweet heat, but that's like saying a summer day in Arizona is more pleasant than a summer day in Baltimore. It may be a dry heat, but it's still HOT.

Marion's Kitchen also has a line of marinades, stir fry sauces, meal kits, and coconut milk, all starring Asian flavors like ginger, lemongrass, lime, and of course, chiles. I have the marinades at home, too, and will be experimenting with them in the future. I'll be sure to post the happy results here.

In Maryland, you can buy Marion's Kitchen products at Sprouts, Wegman's, and select Walmart stores. Check the store locator for details.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Blackened Cauliflower Steaks

People do all kinds of weird shit with cauliflower these days, like make "rice" out of it and pizza crusts. Folks are so damn afraid of carbs, it makes me laugh. And maybe fake rice and fake pizza crusts made with cruciferous veg are tasty, but I think cauliflower is pretty yummy in its natural state. One thing I've seen and liked the idea of is cauliflower "steaks." Of course they're not really steaks, nor are they meant to simulate meat. They're just cut from stem to top in large flat slices, making a wide, uneven plank-like piece of vegetable matter. "Steak" sounds more appetizing than "plank," doesn't it? I thought maybe I'd make some "steaks" and put blackening seasoning on them.

I had recently received a package from The Spice Lab, a woman-owned company that was showing their wares at the recent Winter Fancy Food Show. I wasn't able to attend, so they were nice enough to pack up a couple of different seasonings and send them my way. I got a huge shaker bottle of their blackening seasoning and some of their steak seasoning, too. After tasting both, I thought the blackening one would work better on the cauliflower.

The technique of "blackening" foods, particularly fish, was popularized by famed Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme in the 80s. While it's no longer trendy, one does see blackened things on restaurant menus even today. Since I associate that flavor profile with Cajun/Creole food, I thought I'd toss a few more of their cooking staples into the meal, namely trinity (celery, bell pepper, and onion) and remoulade. I also ended up putting an egg on top because the cauliflower I had was pretty small, and it didn't seem like enough food. Plus, who doesn't like a runny egg on their dinner?

Blackened Cauliflower Steaks with Cauliflower Hash, Remoulade, and a Fried Egg

For the cauliflower:
1 large cauliflower with a fat stem
Olive oil
The Spice Lab Blackening Seasoning

For the hash:
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
2 sticks celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

For the remoulade:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon horseradish
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon Tabasco
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons capers, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning
Salt

To serve:
Butter
Eggs

To make the cauliflower: Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Remove the green leaves from the cauliflower and trim the stem flat. Turn the cauli so the stem is facing upward. Carefully slice down through the center of the stem all the way to the opposite end of the head to make two halves. You should be able to slice each half again in the same way to form at least two fairly similar steaks. If the stem is particularly fat, you  might be able to squeeze another one out of each half, although they won't be as large overall.

Place the steaks on a foil-lined baking sheet. Brush both sides with olive oil. Sprinkle a heavy coating of the blackening seasoning on the top side. Roast for 20-25 minutes, until the point of a knife inserted into the stem goes in with relatively little effort. Don't over roast, however - you don't want mushy cauliflower.

To make the hash: Chop any remaining cauliflower into small pieces. Saute the bell pepper, celery, and onion in a bit of olive oil until tender. Add the chopped cauliflower. Cook until the cauliflower is tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To make the remoulade: Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Taste for seasoning and add salt, if needed.

To serve: Fry eggs in butter to your liking (we like over-easy). Place some of the hash in a bowl, top with a cauliflower steak and a fried egg. Serve remoulade on the side.

Serves 2-4.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Gumbo

Our friends Don and Kate Applebaum are opening another branch of their successful Cajun restaurant, Cajun Kate's sometime later this year. Stay tuned for more information. In the meantime, allow us to walk down memory lane....

--Kathy

This post was originally published on August 26, 2007.
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Gumbo

Then-fiancé-now-Mr.Minx and I had an opportunity to visit New Orleans with a group of Emeril Lagasse fans in the hot summer of 2000. We had reservations at Commander's Palace and the original Emeril's, and were going to wing the rest of our meals. The Mister and I, being fairly avid fans of the big E at the time, and recalling my very positive experience at his restaurant in Orlando, wanted to try another of his places, NOLA. Lynne, the brassy and bossy self-appointed leader of our motley group of travelers advised us that NOLA had gone downhill and it was not worth visiting. We decided to actively disobey her and made lunch reservations, abandoning the group one sultry afternoon for our own adventure.

It was a very very good idea. Not only was it the best meal of the trip, it was also the occasion of my trying the very best version of gumbo I have ever had the pleasure to eat. It was full of seafood, dark, rich, spicy, and as sultry as the air outside the front doors. I wanted to take home a suitcase-full of it.

I like to make gumbo, as does Mr. Minx. We've together and individually created many a good batch, but nothing like the now-legendary stuff from NOLA. And then I got very lucky.

My friend Kate moved to Delaware a year ago. Since living there, she discovered a little Cajun food stand in the Booth's Corner Farmer's Market in Boothwyn, PA, a short distance from Wilmington. Raving about the gumbo, she brought me a pint to try. It was dark, rich, authentic, and wonderfully delicious. Turns out, its creator, Don Applebaum worked for Emeril at NOLA for several years, one of those being the year 2000.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Don and eat at Cajun Kate's. I sampled more of the gumbo, his jambalaya, popcorn shrimp, a muffaletta, bananas foster bread pudding, beignets, and the completely outrageous deep fried macaroni and cheese made with crabmeat, tasso, four kinds of cheese, and topped with a tangy sweet tomato glaze. While stuffing my face with his fare, I told him about the seafood gumbo we experienced in New Orleans. He admitted, admirably un-modestly, that it was his.

I felt like I had discovered the Holy Grail.

Don doesn't make the seafood gumbo regularly, so if you're in the Booth's Corners Farmer's Market and happen to see it on the menu, do yourself a favor and grab yourself a bowl. It sells out fast, so go early. And hell, if that's not the flavor of the week, try the pork, or the brisket, or the smoked duck or the...deep fried mac and cheese!

Cajun Kate's
Booth's Corners Farmer's Market
Open Friday and Saturday only!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Muffuletta? Or Italian Cold Cut Sub?

A muffuletta is a sandwich named after the bread it is made on. A flattened loaf studded with sesame seeds, muffuletta bread is of Italian origin, but the sandwich itself comes from New Orleans. It's rather like an Italian cold cut sub or hoagie in that it's filled with various Italian-style meats and cheeses, but with one important difference--olive salad.

Olive salad is made with giardiniera (a selection of pickled veg including cauliflower, celery, and carrots) and olives, with spices and garlic. It's likely that some grocery store owner somewhere along the line had a few dribs and drabs of pickled vegetables and olives and tossed them together so they wouldn't go to waste. A fine idea. But I'm not a big fan of olive salad. I love olives, but am picky about giardiniera. Often I find it to be too harsh. In my Polish family, we'd call it ostry. Sometimes the veg are too hard, or the pickling liquid tastes of nothing but distilled vinegar. I kinda wish that olive salad was pretty much just olives. And it is, when I make it myself.

I did just that when I needed to come up with something to take to an Orioles game. The bread used in a muffuletta tends to make it more sturdy and leak-proof than an Italian cold cut sub, but of course it's not exactly easy to find an authentic muffuletta at the local grocery store. So I compromised. Giant sells cheese breads that come in a flattish square shape, with good crust, crisp without being hard, and a sturdy crumb. The cold cut portion of the program--prosciutto, salami, bologna (standing in for mortadella)--was easy to find, as was the cheese. And right next to the deli is an olive bar. I originally was just going to buy random olives, pit and chop them, but luckily they had a pre-mixed selection of pitted olives with chunks of hot pepper in a herbed olive oil. A swift chop and a drizzle of vinegar--voila! olive salad.

Since my bread wasn't authentic, nor my olive salad, I couldn't really call my concoction a muffuletta. What I could call it was delicious. It keeps nicely for several hours after making and is easy to eat on the go. Or sitting in the stands. Or even on your couch.

Big, Easy, Cold Cut Sandwich

1 low-profile round or square loaf of bread about 9" in diameter (ciabatta is good, I used Giant brand cheese bread)
1 cup Easy Olive Salad
1/8 lb provolone cheese, thinly sliced
1/8 lb prosciutto, thinly sliced
1/8 lb Genoa salami, thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
1/4 lb beef bologna (or mortadella), thinly sliced

Slice the bread in half horizontally. Pull out extra dough from the top part (if it's slightly domed, like my cheese bread was) and discard (or use to make bread crumbs for some other dish later in the week). If you're going to eat the sandwich within an hour or so, then start with the olive salad, spreading it over the bottom half of the bread so it covers from edge to edge. Then layer on the cheese, prosciutto, tomatoes, salami and bologna. Cover with the top of the loaf, press down, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap until ready to eat.

If you're NOT going to eat the sandwich relatively soon, layer the ingredients starting with the cheese, prosciutto, tomatoes, salami, olive salad, and finish with bologna. This way, the wet ingredients aren't touching the bread so the sandwich won't become soggy before you're ready to eat it. (Eventually, the bread will get soggy, but it will take many hours before this happens.)

Cut sandwich in half, then half again. Enjoy.

Serves 4.

Easy Olive Salad

1/4 pound mixed olives and peppers from the grocery store olive bar (the olives should already be pitted)
Splash balsamic
Splash agave
Pinch garlic powder

Chop the olives and peppers and place them in a bowl with the remaining ingredients. If it seems dry, add a tiny bit of olive oil, too, but there should already be enough of that in there. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Serves 4.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Ware House 518

The large townhouse at 518 North Charles Street was once Louie's Bookstore Café, a popular haunt for the artsy and literary set (and us). Then it became Ixia, then Creme, and now Ware House 518. It's still owned by Creme's Ezra Tilaye, who has given the space a bit of a renovation, and hired a new chef, Christopher Vocci, formerly of the late Oyster Bay Grille in Towson.

Ware House's fare is Southern-inspired, with lots of references to New Orleans cuisine. There's also a good dose of Maryland favorites like rockfish and crab cakes.

We were invited to a private media dinner (as in just the two of us) to sample both chef Vocci's food and Bar Manager Pat Raley's libations. I started with the Hulu Hideaway, a combo of honey rum, bitters, and champagne made aromatic with a generous curl of lime peel.

Mr Minx had the Pink Boots, a dry campari, vodka, and sparkling wine combo that was indeed pink.

For starters, he had the fried oysters: three mammoth molluscs, lightly breaded and fried until they were crisp on the outside yet still moist on the inside. They were served with a bit of slaw and house-made cocktail and remoulade sauces.

I went for the cider-braised pork belly, served with caramelized apples, a spicy "autumnal vegetable mash," apple cider jus, and crispy onions. The pork belly had all the right things going on: moist meat, a bit of luscious fat, and a crispy crust. Everything on the plate screamed "Fall," even if the weather outdoors felt more like full-on winter.

The mister chose the Dr Pepper-glazed Berkshire pork chop for his entree. The chop was fat and juicy, still a bit pink inside, and coated with a lightly sweet glaze. The accompanying mashed potatoes were lumpy and homey, and the braised greens were tender and tasty.

I went for the shrimp and grits. The shrimp and the tomato cream were swell, but the real star of the dish was the grits, which were fortified with goat cheese. They were addictively decadent and worth every calorie.

Ezra brought out a couple of desserts for us to try, a decent yellow cake that was topped with a sprinkle of coconut, and an inventive chocolate pretzel bread pudding served with salted caramel sauce and a dollop of Bailey's-infused whipped cream. Pretzel bread is a bit sturdier than challah or other breads typically used in bread pudding, so chef Vocci's version was firmer and less-custardy than what we were used to. Still, quite tasty, especially the whipped cream.

We were happy to have tried Ware House 518, a restaurant we might have otherwise overlooked as we find ourselves in Mount Vernon more and more seldom. We appreciate the quality ingredients, locally-sourced when possible, and the Southern flair. I'm curious to try the gumbo (one of my all-time favorite dishes), and the burger (topped with bacon jam and pimento cheese) sounds like it could be outrageously good. Oh, and the braised brisket with red-eye gravy. Pulled brisket sliders with crispy onions, slaw, and sriracha mayo, too....



* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



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Okra Etouffee

Who doesn't like okra? So delicious! I know, right?

Wait. You say you don't like okra? What? And neither do you, or you, or you?

Poor okra doesn't seem to have many friends. But I love it, and so does Mr Minx. Yeah yeah, I can hear you whining now, "it's slimy! ewwww!" Shut up. It's not slimy at all if you cook it correctly. And it tastes great, a little like green beans, I think.

So we had this huge bag of okra from the CSA, and it was going to go bad if we didn't use it up pronto. I decided we should make an okra etouffee, so consulted teh Innernets for a recipe. Just about every one I found involved dumping okra in a casserole, covering it with tomatoes, and then baking it. No, no, no...I wanted an etouffee recipe, like crawfish etouffee or shrimp etouffee. Stuff smothered in a roux-based sauce. Not just stuff smothered with other stuff. So I threw one together based on an old crawfish etouffee recipe I've used in the past. Roux + trinity + stock and seasonings. Add okra, simmer for a while et voila! Okra Etouffee.

Okra Etouffee

3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup diced onion
1 bell pepper, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning (we like Emeril's Essence)
2 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 lb okra, sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Steamed white rice for serving
Chopped scallions for garnish

Melt butter in a large pot. Add the flour and open the windows. Stir flour and butter together over medium-high heat until the mixture is medium-dark brown, a bit darker than peanut butter. It will smoke, but as long as you are stirring constantly and watching it like a hawk, it should not burn. Once the roux reaches a nice brown shade, dump in the onion, bell pepper, and celery. Inhale deeply, for the scent of trinity cooking in roux is one of the best cooking scents there is. Stir the vegetables and roux until veg are completely coated. Turn the heat down to medium, add a big pinch of salt, and cover the pot. Allow the vegetables to soften, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Add the garlic, Cajun seasoning, chicken stock, and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Stir in the okra. Cook over medium heat for 25-30 minutes, until okra is tender. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, more Cajun seasoning, a bit of hot sauce, whatever floats your boat.

Serve over white rice and garnish with chopped scallions.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sucre King Cake Giveaway

New Orleans' famed Sucre A Sweet Boutique asked me to give away a King Cake to one lucky Minxeats reader--how could I turn that down?

If you're not familiar with King Cakes, they are danish-like cream cheese-filled cinnamon-flavored pastries typically eaten between Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras. They're a huge tradition in New Orleans, where they decorate the cakes in the traditional purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras colors. Sucre uses luster dust, which gives their cakes a subtle sheen that's almost too pretty to eat. Within each cake is a small plastic baby. Tradition has it that if you get the piece with the baby, you’ll be crowned king for the day. Winning is not without a catch, however--the person who finds the baby has to buy the next cake!

Sucre will be selling their King Cakes from now until March 3, the day before Mardi Gras. If you'd like your very own but can't make to to the bakery's New Orleans location, you can order one here. Or, even better, you can win one from Minxeats! To be entered in the drawing, simply leave a comment on this post with a valid e-mail address so I can contact you if your name is chosen.

The Rules
Winners must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the 48 contiguous United States.
A valid e-mail address must be included.
Contest ends 12am, February 1, 2013.
Winner will be notified via e-mail.

Good Luck!



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Red Beans & Rice

Back in the early 90s, my friend Marshall and I decided to throw a grand Mardi Gras party. We actually expected our guests to wear black tie, because we were pretentious like that, plus we lived in Guilford (with our parents), where most people already own formalwear. But neither of us had any money, so we decided to be frugal with the eats. Red beans and rice is cheap poor people food, but it tastes great, and if we spent the bulk of our pennies on alcohol, who would notice that they were eating stewed beans and ham hocks?

So the two of us spent one early February afternoon cooking up a huge vat of red beans, enough to feed 20 people or more. We carefully packed the beans into Tupperware containers and put them in the fridge for the big day. All we'd need to do for the party is dump it all back in the pot and reheat it, plus make rice. Easy peasy.

But when the day of the party arrived, so did major ice storms. We had sleet for a day or two prior to the party, and on the day of, the neighborhood was glistening with ice. Everything sparkled. Truthfully, it was very pretty. Pretty annoying. Marshall's sidewalks and front steps were glazed with an inch or so of the stuff, and as soon as the buckets of hot water we poured on to melt the ice hit the ground, it froze, too. We didn't have any salt on hand, and didn't want to venture out into the mess to get some. Neither did we want our guests to risk their necks in high heels and evening slippers to attend our fete.

Sadly, we cancelled the party. Not postponed, cancelled. Some of our less-pretentious friends were annoyed that they had to return party clothes to the store, unworn. I had purchased a black, strapless, floor-length gown and was looking forward to showing off my newly-svelt bod. I had purchased it on a deep, deep discount (I think it cost me $36 bucks) so I kept it.

In addition to the the bottles of alcohol we had purchased for the occasion, we also had several gallons of red beans that weren't going to be eaten. Not by party guests, at least.

For months afterward, whenever I got a call to join Marshall and his family for dinner, I knew I'd be facing a feast of red beans and rice. Fortunately, the family had a chest freezer in the basement, and the beans went to live down there until we managed to finish them off. Eventually, it got to the point that I never wanted to see red beans and rice again. In fact, I didn't eat them for 19 years, until I decided to make them for dinner one Sunday evening.

Some recipes involve tomatoes, andouille sausage, and all sorts of extraneous ingredients, but I think it's best to keep it simple: just trinity, beans, and ham hocks.

Red Beans & Rice

2 onions, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound dried red kidney beans
3 smoked ham hocks
3 bay leaves
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Hot sauce
Steamed white rice
Chopped green onions

Place the onion, bell pepper, and celery in a large stock pot with the olive oil. Cook vegetables over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they are softened. At that point, add the beans, ham hocks, bay leaves, and enough water to cover beans by an inch or so. Bring mixture to a boil, then cover the pot and reduce the heat to low. Simmer the beans for 2-2.5 hours, stirring occasionally, adding additional water if necessary to keep beans covered.

When beans begin to fall apart and the cooking liquid has become creamy, the beans are done.

Remove ham hocks and bay leaves. Cut the meat from the bones and chop it into small pieces. Add meat back to pot.

Season beans with salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Serve with white rice and garnish with green onions.

Makes about 2 quarts.



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Top Chef New Orleans Recap

Dear Top Chef Viewers,

While I watched Top Chef along with all of you for ten seasons, you can count me out this time.

The first several seasons were enjoyable, particularly season 4, the first season I recapped here. There were a couple other fun seasons after that--season 5 with Stefan and Fabio, season 6 with the Voltaggios--but the more recent ones have left me cold. Season 9 was actually the one that broke this camel's back, with that ridiculous time-wasting two-part premiere, and the insanity of making chefs ride bicycles in the blazing heat, not to mention staying up all night to make barbecue. And then there was that stupid-ass finale involving target shooting and gondola cookery.

I watched season 10 with a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't as ridiculously stretched-out as season 9, but it came pretty close. And the finale, with its completely revamped format, didn't seem quite fair.

And so to avoid yet more of that nonsense, I am neither watching nor recapping Top Chef season 11. Probably not any season after that, either.

Sorry, people. You are on your own.

theminx



Posted on Minxeats.com

Another Sweet Giveaway!

I don't know about you, but I'm not all that convinced that life is like a box of chocolates, if I may be allowed to quote fictional characters. But life *with* a box of chocolates at hand always seems at least a little bit sweeter to me.

If you remember, I gave away a box of Summer Collection Macarons from Sucré A Sweet Boutique back in June. That giveaway proved to be so popular, I can't resist another one.

So we already know that Sucré makes yummy macarons. They also make king cake, traditionally served between January 6 and Mardi Gras, lovely specialty cakes, and chocolates! If you'd like to sweeten up your life a bit, Sucré is giving me a fifteen-piece box of their yummy chocolates to give away to one lucky winner!

The Indulge Chocolate Collection contains three pieces each of five flavors. Wedding Cake is white chocolate and toasted almond. Rhum is a bittersweet ganache flavored with spiced rum. PB&J is pretty self-explanatory, as is Malted Milk, and finally there's the Hazelnut Cream with hazelnut-spiked semi-sweet ganache.

Drooling? I am. If you want these yummy chocolates, just leave a comment at the end of this post. Please make sure you use a valid e-mail address or leave some way for us to contact you electronically if you are the winner.

The Fine Print:

Winners must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the 48 contiguous United States.
A valid e-mail address must be included.
Contest ends September 30, 2013.
Winner will be notified via e-mail.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Macaron Giveaway!

Who doesn't like macarons? You know, those pretty little sherbet-hued cakelets made from almond meringue and filled with jam and/or buttercream? Some might call them macaroons. I adore them and buy at least two every time I see them in a shop (one for me and one for Mr Minx, but sometimes two for me).

When the good people from Sucré, a Sweet Boutique in New Orleans asked us to give away a box of their Summer Macaron Collection, we couldn't resist - especially since they sent us a box to sample.

The Collection stars two flavors of macaron: lemon buttercream with blackberry jam infused with balsamic vinegar and cassis, and another with vanilla buttercream and peach marmalade. Both are quite lovely, but I have to say both of us here at Minxeats preferred the peach. (Perhaps because it's baseball season and they're orange, like the Orioles!) They were also packaged beautifully, with much care. Despite coming from humid New Orleans to humid Baltimore, not a cookie was broken, nor were they affected by the weather in any way. Each one was crisp and delicious.

So, if you would like to receive your own pretty box of fifteen macarons from Sucré, leave a comment on this post. Please make sure you use a valid e-mail address or leave some way for us to contact you electronically if you are the winner.

The Fine Print:

Winners must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the 48 contiguous United States.
A valid e-mail address must be included.
Contest ends July 1, 2013.
Winner will be notified via e-mail.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Seafood Etouffée

Back in the summer of 2000, my then-fiancé Mr Minx and I took a trip to New Orleans with a group of people whom I had "met" via an Internet chat group. Emeril Lagasse was still climbing the peak of his popularity, and our gang of avid fans planned an excursion to dine in the city that made him famous. Originally a large group of 20 or more, squabbling between the individuals who each believed they were in charge of the party led to splinter factions. We ended up traveling with a bombastic woman named Lynne who claimed to have lived in the Big Easy for a time, and knew Emeril and his chefs personally. We initially trusted her authoritative nature but soon found out that she was a bit of a dictator.

Show me a control freak, and I'll turn rebel right quick. After suffering through a slog around the French Quarter in the blistering heat and humidity, Mr Minx and I broke away and had lunch at NOLA, a restaurant that was not sanctioned by Dictator Lynne. We had possibly the best meal of our trip, parts of which we can still experience today if we're lucky enough to have a quart of Cajun Kate's gumbo in the freezer.

Apart from that meal, I subsisted largely on crawfish, which I had grown to love in the 90s. My closest friend back then had parents who hailed from Louisiana; there was always a stockpile of crawfish tails in their basement freezer. I love their funky, somewhat-lobstery flavor and texture and thrilled when we'd cook up a big pot of gumbo in the Walker's kitchen. On one occasion, the two of us prepared a rather ambitious multi-course meal to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of mutual friends; crawfish mousse served in a scallop shell and garnished with a whole mudbug served as the fish course. In New Orleans, I ate as many versions of crawfish etouffée as I could get my lips on, and a crawfish po' boy for good measure.

Like crawfish tails, but paler in color.

Back in Baltimore, I found that it's near impossible to find crawfish, so when I have a hankering for etouffée, I usually have to settle for shrimp. Trader Joe's sells frozen langoustine tails that are pretty similar to crawfish. Alone, or with the addition of other shellfish like shrimp or scallops, they make a terrific Shellfish Etouffée.

Shellfish Etouffée

1/4 cup flour
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/8 cup canola oil
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped celery
2 teaspoons Creole seasoning, or to taste (I used Emeril's Essence)
dash Tabasco sauce
1 lb raw shrimp (peeled), or scallops, langoustine tails, crawfish tails, or any combination
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 cup sliced scallions
hot steamed rice

Preheat oven to 450F. Line a small baking tray with aluminum foil and add the flour, distributed as evenly as possible. Toast flour in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes, checking and stirring every 5 minutes or so, until the flour is evenly browned and approximately the color of cocoa powder. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large saute pan, add butter and oil, heat on medium until butter is melted and has stopped foaming, 3-4 minutes. Slowly stir in toasted flour. The roux should turn a deep chocolate brown almost instantaneously. (Yes, I know it's cheating, but who has 45 minutes to stir roux?) Cook roux over medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 15 minutes.

Add vegetables to hot roux and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften, about 10 minutes.

For me, one of the greatest culinary fragrances in the world is the smell of
chopped "trinity" hitting smoking hot roux. Heaven!

Turn heat to low, add the seasonings and stock, and cook for about thirty minutes.

Add shellfish, butter, and scallions, and cook an additional 10 minutes or so, until shrimp are opaque and other shellfish are heated through.

Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary, adding salt, pepper, more hot sauce, and maybe a squeeze of lemon, if desired.

Serve over hot rice. Serves 2-4.

King Cake

I had only eaten King Cake once before, at a friend's party. After hearing that it was de rigeur for a Mardi Gras celebration, I had it built up in my head as some grand fancy pastry. It was a little disappointing to find that it's actually a ginormous Danish, either braided and plain or filled, in the style of the French galette de rois, with an almond paste, or even a cream cheese mixture. Now that I'm a bread-baking fool, I thought I'd try to make my own version by altering a sweet bread recipe from my current favorite cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

To the book's basic brioche recipe, which I halved, I added 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg. It's a very sticky dough, so rather than trying to roll it out, I decided to arrange a series of flattened dough blobs in an oval shape on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I then applied a thin layer of pistachio paste (cuz almond is just so done, plus - pistachio!) down the center of the oval, and covered that with the rest of the dough. A whole hazelnut was inserted at random, to stand in for the traditional plastic baby or bean.

After an hour and twenty minutes of rising time, the oval was baked at 350F for 35 minutes, then set on a rack to cool.

When cool, it was frosted with a mixture of powdered sugar, milk, and lemon juice in the form of True Lemon powder, and topped with the traditional purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras colors in the form of coarse sugar.

The verdict? It was good - like a glazed brioche. The pistachio paste was delicious, but it could have used a lot more. (I was afraid to add too much because it might leak out; during the rising, some of it did, but I pinched the dough back in place over the leaks.) A cream cheese filling would have been nice, too.

According to tradition, the one who finds the baby (or in this case, hazelnut) gets to throw the next Mardi Gras party or at least supply the cake. Since I found it in my second slice, I suppose that makes me "it." :)

Recipe Roundup - Mardi Gras Edition

Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, so how about some N'awlins-style recipes?

Crabmeat Cheesecake with Pecan Crust

Muffuletta with Olive Salad

Dirty Rice

Cajun Jambalaya

Spinach Salad with Andouille Dressing and Three Nut Crusted Goat Cheese (maybe not authentic, but I've eaten it and I've made it at home and it's amazing!)

Crawfish Etouffee

Creole Bread Pudding

Commander's Palace Bread Pudding Soufflé (deeee-lish!)

Bananas Foster

King Cake

N'awlins Style

With a little over three hours between the time I got off work and seeing Kathy Griffin at the Lyric last night, hubby and I chose to have dinner in Fells Point. We hadn't been to Louisiana in a while, not since a somewhat unexciting New Years Eve meal a few years back, so we gave it a go. And what's more suited to 102º 60% humidity weather than New Orleans style food?

I've never been particularly fond of their entrées, so I did my usual 3-appetizer meal: crab bisque, beet salad, shrimp and grits. Neal went for a roast chicken dish with crushed potatoes and crawfish sauce to follow his bisque.

The bisque, as always, was flawless: extremely crabby flavored cream with no flour to gum it up, and several nice lumps of real blue crab meat on top. There must be 1000 calories per serving, but it's so good, I want to lick the bowl. The beet salad was prepared a bit differently than I remember: diced beets, formed into a little tower by a ring mold, and topped with a generous schmear of goat cheese. It was garnished by a hat of baby arugula and drizzled with truffle vinaigrette. The flavors were all there, but I think the old version, with sliced beets, was more tender and easier to eat than all the little cubes that kept falling off the fork.

The shrimp and grits were also pretty close to perfect: three large shrimp, perfectly cooked and coated with a mild blackening seasoning, were arranged around a timbale of coarse grits studded with nuggets of corn. Surrounding this was a moat of cream imbued with the flavor of fresh corn. I like shrimp and grits a lot, and this refined preparation is my favorite of all the versions I've tried.

DH's chicken dish, which sounded pretty good, was slightly disappointing. The chicken breast was an airline cut (boneless, but with the first joint of the wing attached, to add the flavor of bone but not the awkwardness of rib), roasted until crisp. The skin was indeed crispy, yet it was rubbery and somewhat thick, and the meat was tough, but somehow not dried out. It was impossible to cut with a regular dinner knife, so we requested a steak knife. Saving the meal was the crushed potatoes that were like fancy hash browns, and the generous amount of crawfish tails in the very spicy sauce accompaniment. Our waiter, upon hearing that the chicken was giving N difficulties, said we would have dessert on the house.

For dessert, N had the apple beignets, triangular dough pockets filled with apples, a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. I chose the chocolate mousse. The beignets reminded us of carnival-style fried dough, fattening and yummy. The mousse was extremely rich and topped with whipped cream and a lovely tart raspberry sauce. I couldn't finish it. I was actually full before I got to the shrimp.

Louisiana does some things so wonderfully that it's such a let-down when things aren't perfect. I've only ordered an entree a few times, and every time I wished I hadn't. So now I don't. The food is so rich that a few appetizers makes for plenty of food. And our waiter said that some customers order a double portion of the shrimp and grits as an entree, and they add a veggie side dish. I might just try that next time.

Although the food is never 100% at Louisiana, it usually comes in at a solid 85%, and the service is never less than wonderful. Go, and make sure you have the bisque.

Louisiana
1708 Aliceanna St
Baltimore, MD 21231
www.louisianasrestaurant.com
(410) 327-2610