Purloo Goes Full-Time At SoFab.
Chef Ryan Hughes owns Purloo, a restaurant that is allied with the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, which just opened in its new Center City home. Purloo (named for a Southern chicken stew) has been a pop-up restaurant for the past couple of years, but now it is in full operation for dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays.
The opening menu give a good idea of what Ryan is thinking about. Dishes from all parts of the South are here, illustration just how different New Orleans food is from that of the rest of the South. And there’s lots of New Orleans ingredients and flavors here, too. Here’s the menu:
Starters
Southern Board
Charleston pimento cheese, smoked Pickett Farms lamb, green tomato chutney, deviled eggs “Meunière”, fried pickles, boiled peanuts $13
Low Country Style She-crab Soup
Madeira wine $9
Fried Catfish
Cucumber salad, yogurt, red sorrel $11
Delta Corn Tamale
Crawfish red gravy, feta, olives $7
Cape Hatteras-Style Clams
Pearl onions, bacon, pea tendrils, clear broth, crispy potatoes $13
Green Leaf Lettuce
Pickled Vidalias, hushpuppies, green goddess dressing, cotija cheese $9
Roasted Beets
Cauliflower giardiniera, celery leaves, escarole, buttermilk cheese straws $11
Entrees
Grilled Hanger Steak
Shiitake mushroom and cheddar spoonbread, buttermilk fried onions, red wine reduction $26
Pecan Crusted Barbequed Beef Short Rib
House-cured tasso macaroni, Swiss chard, grilled satsuma glaze $25
Pan Seared Drum, Cardamom Grits
Artichoke barigoule, fried pickles $24
Low Country Boil
Shrimp, clams, blue crab, baby potatoes, lemon and cayenne broth, Conecuh sausage $25
Burgoo of Pickett Farms Lamb
Crowder peas and okra, red mustard, buttermilk cornbread, sorghum butter $24
Curried Goat
Lemongrass, coriander & local sweet potatoes, sprouts, Bánh mì bread $23
Pannéed Rabbit
Slow cooked field peas and fennel, spicy garlic baby choy, red eye gravy $25
Purloo
Warehouse District & Center City: 1504 Oretha C. Haley Blvd.. 504-324-6020. www.nolapurloo.com/.
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Wednesday, January 14, 2015.
First Try At MoPho.
In the hallway during the radio show, I bump into the Big Boss. He gives me a very strong indication that my on-air schedule may shortly move back to its best possible time, from three until noon. But he has other matters on his mind, and I don’t want to press this. My fingers are crossed, and while they are I wish that Spud gets a good new gig, too.
The Marys are in town. Mary Ann suggests that we go to MoPho for dinner. That’s a surprise. Even though the owner/chef of MoPho is Michael Gullata (formerly chef de cuisine of John Besh’s Restaurant August), I have never known her to show even a glimmer of interest in Vietnamese food.
Mary Leigh is an easier sell. The Boy and I have her hooked on Thai cooking. So we converge MoPho, in the L-shaped strip mall across the street from the Bud’s Broiler on City Park Avenue.
The main word received about MoPho is that it’s always packed, and that chefs from other restaurants are among its most avid customers. It is busy this evening, but we get a table immediately. Three servers–none of them Asian–begin working on our high-top.
Tuna crudo, first dish in the tasting menu at MoPho.
The menu includes a chef’s tasting menu: a starter of tuna crudo, hanger steak as a main, and a citrus cheesecake for dessert. This is not exactly a “tasting” menu–that steak is big enough to split between two people. But this prix-fixe $38 dinner is clearly the best dining strategy for me tonight. It lacks only one element: soup. It is a cold night, and Vietnamese dining relies heavily on broth. I ask for a cup of beef broth with noodles; I get a generous bowl. I eat what I can and the girls try it, too.
The first course of the tasting is rare tuna, seared at the edges, lined up along a stripe of thick, peppery Thai-style yellow curry. Complex, fresh delicious.
Cabbage stir-fry.
Fried oysters with easter-egg radishes.
The Marys appetize themselves with fried spring rolls and a pile of cabbage strips in many colors, stir-fried into something that tastes much better than it sounds. While they worked on that, my secret identity is unveiled, and the first of a few amuses-bouche appear. This one is a quartet of big, plump fried oysters on a pool of what looks like a thick, light-brown New Orleans meuniere sauce, but tastes much spicier. MA is not strong on oysters, but she loves this almost as much as I do.
MoPho’s hanger steak, part of the chef’s tasting menu.
Now comes that steak, which has the combination of chewiness and flavor for which hanger steak is celebrated. The chef is well enough trained to slice it across the grain, and it goes down deliciously, abetted by a bunch of winter vegetables and a medium-potent orange sauce. I eat a little more than half and am stuffed.
Pork belly and shoulder with kale and the like.
Meanwhile, the Marys work on a noodle dish with lots of greens, pork shoulder, and pork belly, mixed with what I think is kale and a number of other slightly bitter vegetables. This is MA’s kind of eating, and she goes nuts over it.
Satsuma Cheesecake.
The dessert part of my “tasting” is camouflaged by a number of other desserts that the kitchen decides we need. The only one they don’t bring–because I ask them not to–is the chocolate. It is made with sesame oil, something Mary Ann cannot abide. But she chews me out for making the decision. So the score stands at Chocolate 1, Sesame Oil 0. I think.
Apple beignets.
The citrus cheesecake is good, but the best of the desserts is a pile of little apple beignets.
Really, this is a great dinner. The premises are rough–it feels like a bar more than a restaurant. There are advantages to this, says chef. They have a big roll-up door in the back of the place, where is a large pit where they are roasting whole pigs and whole lambs on weekends. No way I would want that to shut down for atmospheric considerations.
Mopho. City Park Area: 514 City Park Ave. 504-482-6845.
Lasagna With Six Cheeses
I’ve always had a preference for meatless lasagna, ever since having it that way at a tiny, long-gone French Quarter Italian cafe called Eva’s Spot in the 1970s. They were so proud of it that they charged twice as much for lasagna as they did for anything else on the menu. The trick with this is picking out the right cheeses, the kind that will melt nicely without turning the whole thing greasy. That means no Cheddar or Swiss. The pasta should be cooked only long enough to take the stiffness out. And the sauce is cooked very briefly–you don’t want the eight-hour sauce in here.
Sauce:
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 tsp. chopped garlic
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
2 28-oz. cans Italian plum tomatoes, whole
1/4 tsp. salt
Other ingredients:
8 oz. lasagna noodles (or, better, 12 oz. fresh pasta sheets)
10 oz. bag fresh spinach, picked and well washed
8 oz. Fontina cheese
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, grated
8 oz. ricotta cheese
4 oz. Provolone cheese (shredded)
3/4 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1. Make the sauce first. Drain the tomatoes (reserve the juice) and put them into a food processor; chop to a rough puree. (You can also do this with your fingers in a bowl.)
2. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat till the oil shimmers. Saute the garlic and crushed red pepper for about a minute–until you can smell the garlic.
3. Add the tomatoes, 1/2 cup of the reserved juice, basil, oregano, and salt. Bring to a boil, and lower the heat to medium-low. Simmer for about twenty minutes, uncovered. Then keep on the lowest possible heat while you continue with the rest of the recipe.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil with 1 Tbs. salt and 1 Tbs. olive oil. Add the lasagna noodles and boil for about two minutes, or until the noodles are no longer stiff. Remove to a bowl of cold water for a moment, then remove and drain. (Leave this step out if using fresh pasta sheets.)
5. Cook the spinach in the same water you used to cook the pasta, just for a minute. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain, and spread out.
6. Coat the inside of a glass or ceramic baking dish (about 9″ x 13″ x 4″) with olive oil. Pour about 1/4 cup of the sauce on the bottom. Make the following layers, alternating the direction of the pasta with each layer:
Pasta.
1/3 cup sauce.
Fontina cheese.
1/4 cup Romano.
Pasta.
1/3 cup sauce.
Spinach.
Ricotta.
1/4 cup Romano.
Pasta.
1/3 cup sauce.
Provolone.
Spinach.
1/4 cup Romano.
Pasta.
1/3 cup sauce.
Mozzarella.
Pasta.
Remaining sauce.
Parmesan.
7. Cover the casserole with aluminum foil and bake in the center of the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and return to the oven until a light crust has formed on the top.
8. After removing from the oven, let the lasagna rest for at least 15 minutes before attempting to slice. Serve with a wide metal spatula to keep it together (almost impossible to do with the first slice).
Serves about eight.
Fresh Potato Chips @ K Gee’s Oyster Bar
Fries cut from fresh potatoes are rare enough in restaurants, because they’re so much more trouble to make consistently well than the frozen kind are. Fresh potato chips are even more of a bother, because of the unpredictability of the results. (Potato variation is the problem.) But this first-class little seafood restaurant goes through the bother to make fantastic fresh chips, there to be served with their spinach-artichoke dip. I like them better by themselves or with the wild-caught catfish here.
K Gee’s Oyster Bar. Mandeville: 2534 Florida. 985-626-0530.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
January 21, 2014
Days Until. . .
Mardi Gras–27
Valentine’s Day–24
Restaurant Anniversaries
Andrea’s opened today in 1985. It was the first successful top-end Italian restaurant in the New Orleans area, and the timing was perfect. Ambitious, sophisticated restaurants were opening all around town. Chef Andrea Apuzzo, then the chef of the Royal Orleans Hotel, partnered with his cousins Roberto and Costantino De Angelis to buy the former Etienne’s in Metairie. All three were from Capri, where their family operated first-class hotels. Their father Agnello secured the location. Etienne de Felice wasn’t interested in selling, even though he was very interested in retiring. Agnello and Etienne had a meeting, and the deal was done.
Andrea was magnificent in its first years. Roberto was a master of service and style, and the dining room was a nexus of pleasure and continental service. The cooking hewed closely to the flavors of Capri and the Amalfi Coast. But few ethnic restaurants in New Orleans stay entirely true to their homelands for long, and Creole flavor began creeping into Andrea’s food.
Andrea’s cousins left the business in the early 1990s, leaving Chef Andrea as the sole owner and tastemaker. And the localization process accelerated. Andrea’s rises at times to its former heights. And lately Christiano Rossit–native of Venice–has become chef de cuisine. You can’t talk about Italian dining here without bringing up Andrea’s.
Food Around The World
Today in 1813 is reputed to be the day that the first pineapple arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. The fruit originated in central South America, and spread throughout the tropics worldwide. But nowhere did the big, prickly fruit take hold as fast as it did in Hawaii, to the point that the fruit and the place are synonymous. Pineapples are a symbol of welcome and good luck. They certainly have been for Hawaii, especially its Dole family.
Today’s Flavor
It’s Clam Chowder Day, and more specifically New England Clam Chowder Day. Here in New Orleans, we don’t eat much clam chowder. Only a few restaurants and stores bring in live clams. (One of those is the aforementioned Andrea’s.) When the bivalves turn up at all, they’re usually in an Italian or Spanish restaurant for the making of cioppino, bouillabaisse, or the like.
The two major isotopes of clam chowder are New England and Manhattan. The former is by far the better. A good New England clam chowder starts with bacon, onions, and celery, to which is added clam or oyster liquor or fish stock. The potatoes go in as soft cubes and break up as the soup simmers. The touch of milk or cream at the end adds a bit of richness; butter is sometimes also used to make a blonde roux, but it’s not usually necessary to make the soup any thicker. The big problem is the clams, which are chewy to start with and become more so after they’re cooked for more than a minute or two. As for Manhattan clam chowder–made with tomato–the less said about it, the better.
Deft Dining Rule #548:
Before ordering chowder in any restaurant, demand to know everything in it, and what color it is. And ask this: “Not canned, right?” Watch the server’s eyes when you ask this.
Edible Dictionary
pastis, (French), n.–A drink made by mixing a sweetened anise-flavored liqueur with ice water. Although both are clear, the mixture is cloudy and a pale greenish yellow. Classically, it is served without ice, but in New Orleans it’s not uncommon to see it made with ice in the glass. Ricard, one of the leading brands of such liqueurs, is credited with having invented the drink, and in fact uses the word “Pastis” on the label of the liqueur. Pastis became popular after absinthe was banned in the early 1900s. It is especially popular in the South of France, notably in Provence.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cakes Creek flows into the North River, a tidal inlet on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay. Cakes Creek is tidal itself, draining and occasionally filling a marsh on Whites Neck, one of the many peninsulas extending into the bay. The land is half farm fields, half wooded. Numerous docks extend into creek, where is is very likely that crabs and oysters grow in harvestable numbers. (Or did at one time; the Chesapeake area is having environmental problems.) Quite a few restaurants can be found five miles away in Mathews. Among them is Cap’n Ralph’s.
The Saints
This is the feast day of St. Agnes of Rome, virgin and martyr. She lived in the third century, and is still much revered in Rome and elsewhere. She has a church named for her on Jefferson Highway near Causeway Boulevard in Old Jefferson; for many years I sang in the choir there. St. Agnes is the patron saint of the Girl Scouts. Who, incidentally, began their annual cookie sale a couple of weeks ago. . . Today is also the feast day of St. Meinrad, who lived in the ninth century. Because he took in two ruffians who would up beating him to death, he is the patron saint of hospitality.
Food Namesakes
Randy Bass signed with the Honshin Tigers to play baseball for three years in Japan for $3.2 million today in 1986. . . In 2006, Jennifer Berry was named Miss America in Las Vegas, but for the first time in decades the pageant wasn’t broadcast on a major network. . . Emma Lee Bunton, one of the Spice Girls (Baby Spice) was born today in 1976. . . Major league catcher and manager Johnny Oates hit the Big Diamond today in 1946.
Words To Eat By
“But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazelnuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! The whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. We dispatched it with great expedition.”–Ishmael, in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
“Clam chowder is one of those subjects, like politics or religion, that can never be discussed lightly. Bring it up even incidentally, and all the innumerable factions of the clam bake regions raise their heads and begin to yammer.”–Louis P. De Gouy, chef and author of The Soup Book.
Words To Drink By
“If the material world is merely illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu and seaweed slime.”–Edward Abbey.
Menu Changes, And So Does The Language.
And the prices go up, inevitably. Next step: “The Kitchen” is renamed “La Cuisine.”
Click here for the cartoon.