Two-For-One Shrimp At Remoulade.
Remoulade is the casual side of Arnaud’s. It looks rather touristy from the outside. Inside, its combination of tiled floors and mirrors make for a classic New Orleans dining environment. And the oysters on the half shell, all of Arnaud’s fantastic soups, and down to things like poor boys and burgers make it a better restaurant than it might seem.
During the summer, they’re running something that may bring in more than the usual number of locals. Since we’re in shrimp season, Remoulade is serving all its shrimp dishes on a two-for-one tariff. Topping the list is, of course, the namesake dish: shrimp Arnaud, the best and most distinctive version of remoulade anywhere in New Orleans.
Here are the other choices, only one of which I’d turn down (I’m no fan of shrimp Creole anywhere, but you might like it):
Fried Shrimp Basket
New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp
Boiled Shrimp
Shrimp Creole
This deal goes on through the entire summer, from 11:30 a.m. till 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Remoulade
French Quarter: 309 Bourbon. 504-523-0377. www.remoulade.com/home.html.
NOMenu invites restaurants or organizations with upcoming special events to tell us, so we might add the news to this free department. Send to news@nomenu.com.
Friday, June 27, 2014.
Crabmeat Remick, Pork Chop At Delmonico.
Antoine’s sends an invitation to a Christmas In July party for their regulars, industry connections and media weasels. I can’t go to the party–it coincides exactly with the radio show–but the note lodged two matters in my mind. The first was about Christmas music, an admittedly strange thought this time of year. But Mel Torme and Bob Wells wrote their famous Christmas Song (chestnuts roasting, etc.) on a hot day in July just to cool off virtually.
A certain number of radio guys are thinking about Christmas, too. I am one of them. Every year, WWL Radio plays continuous Christmas music from midday Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. The music is good, but it has that nobody’s-at-the-station sound that bugged me even when I was eight years old, but already thinking how cool it would be to be on the radio.
I want to talk the powers into letting me host that show. The music would be the same, but between the carols I would tell a story set in New Orleans at Yuletide. My wish is that it would be so charming and interesting that it would become a classic, played every year until radio ceases to exist. But even if that never happens, it would be fun to produce. All be recorded ahead of time, of course (how else to perform for thirty-six hours?), but it would sound live.
As if I don’t already have enough to do.
The other notion triggered by Antoine’s note was to go there for dinner tonight. Mary Ann has something else going on, and hasn’t told me where she thinks I ought to go. Antoine’s is always on my mind on Fridays, a remnant of a habit from my long-ago single years.
But it’s only a few weeks since my last time, and I couldn’t grant myself permission. Instead, I betake myself to another historic restaurant: Delmonico. Under Emeril’s ownership the place has been a mixture of classic French-Creole and trendy eats. The current chef Anthony Scania is the best Delmonico food guy since before Katrina, and I like his mix of classic and new food.
Crabmeat Remick.
I begin with the former: crabmeat Remick, a dish I love. It’s somewhere between crabmeat au gratin and crabmeat imperial, with a sauce made of mayonnaise, Creole mustard, and chili sauce with a scattering of bacon. When it roasts under the broiler, a little of the bacon fat (drops) percolates through the crabmeat and gives the dish its distinctive flavor. This version is light on the tomato and mustard components, but there’s no reason the chef has to follow the old recipe exactly. The finished product is terrific.
Guappo salad.
Next, Guappo salad. “Guappo” is the word from which comes the offensive term “wop,” which still can be found in reference to an Italian salad in a few restaurants around New Orleans. (All of them are owned by Italians, for what that’s worth. And no, it doesn’t mean “without papers.”) Delmonico’s version is light on the olives and heavy on the tomatoes, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. A sharp, enjoyable vinaigrette ties it together.
Pork chop with red beans at Delmonico.
The entree is a Berkshire (so what?) pork chop with a Latin American treatment. That starts with a rum-and-Coke glaze, and finishes with red beans and rice made congri-style (mixed up and thick). I like it about halfway through, but I can’t say it knocks me out. My experience with pedigreed pork is that the thickness of the chop is attenuated to make it fit into the food-cost scheme decreed by the back office. The best pork chops in town (Muriel’s, Rue 127, Baie Rouge) all carry no certificates of bloodline.)
The dessert is bread pudding made in muffin tins (bad idea, makes the pudding dry) topped with ice cream of an offbeat flavor (praline? ginger? I forget to write it down).
On the other hand, Ron Jones is at the piano, as he has been on weekends for some time at Delmonico. He is largely in a pop and R&B mood tonight, but his range also takes in the American songbook and jazz. He keeps the bar full all night. And the front dining room is well populated, too. Looks and sounds like out-of-town overflow from Emeril’s. Fair enough.
Service could use some polish. The waiters know what they’re talking about, but they sound as if they memorize the lines instead of carrying on a conversation. But that’s true of a lot of restaurants these days.
Delmonico. Garden District & Environs: 1300 St Charles Ave. 504-525-4937.
Saturday, June 28, 2014.
Boomers Are Getting Old. First Taste: Oak Oven.
The radio station cluster assembles an annual (this is the second year, so it qualifies) expo of products and services of interest to members of the Baby Boom generation. I am nearly in the exact center of that demo, which makes me at first wonder and then become aghast about what that means. Almost everything here is for people who are getting old. Those bathtubs with the doors that make it easier to get in and out, for example. My first reaction to things like this is to think about getting one. Then Mary Ann reminds me that I am not old yet, unless I see myself that way.
My bosses ask me not only to broadcast my Saturday WWL show from Boomers And Beyond, but also to do a cooking demonstration–the last in an all-day parade of chefs.
The Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, where all this takes place, doesn’t have a particularly good setup for cooking. No oven, for example. I worked around this by doing a cold dish, one whose recipe I am often I’m asked about: guacamole. And I thought of a gimmick. I would grab a bunch of hot sauce from among the 100-plus bottles in my pantry, and make the guacamole with twenty different hot sauces. This would get a response from the audience, I know. But then I’d point out how absurd this is, and how restaurant chefs are always conjuring up such ideas to make their food sound special.
But before I can get to any of that, I run into an unexpected problem. After going to four supermarkets, all the avocados I find are so underripe that I can throw them through a plate-glass window. After my last stop–the Winn-Dixie near the Pontchartrain Center–all I had were five usable alligator pears, plus two more that were iffy.
That proved to be enough, though, mainly because none of the ripe ones were over the hill. (I always assume that one in four avocados will be partly brown.)
To add tension to my cooking demos, I build in a few details I haven’t tried before. Today, it was the knife I used to chop the onions, tomatoes, and cilantro. It was the ulu knife I brought back from our last cruise to Alaska. An ulu is a crescent-shape blade whose handle is across the top instead of the end. You rock it back and forth to do the chopping. It worked better than expected.
I also learned today how long it takes to open twenty brand-new bottles of hot sauce. I should have removed the plastic capsules at home.
When it was done, I had enough guacamole, chips and printed recipes for all fifty of the people there. The biggest part of the crowd by now was in the adjacent auditorium, where was the live music. Quite a few people were interested in what I thought were antique cars, until one of my listeners told me, “Those aren’t antiques! Those are hot rods!” I never knew the distinction before.
The Marys cross to the South Shore, but not with me. We unite at the Oak Oven in Harahan, which Mary Ann is wild about. She isn’t the only one. Almost since the place opened about a year ago, all I hear about the place are touts.
Mary Ann talked at length with chef and co-owner Adam Superneau on one of her early visits to Oak Oven. (She doesn’t subscribe to my proscription against going to new restaurants.) He told her that he spent two months in Sicily, where he found a way of life that most Americans would think of as primitive. But he came back with a strong sense of what Sicilian cooking is all about. His two partners also have Sicilian heritage. And enough old photographs of their ancestors to cover most of the walls.
I know from my callers that Oak Oven is too small to handle the business it attracts, so as soon as I wrap up my duties at the Boomers Expo I head for Harahan. Even though I take the shortest route, I pass within a few blocks of five houses where I grew up, two schools I attended, and my first two places of employment.
Oak Oven was almost empty when I arrived, but they weren’t officially open yet. The place began quickly to fill up, and I ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio to establish that I wasn’t taking up a table for nothing.
Antipasto at Oak Oven.
They didn’t recognize me, but when MA arrived they knew her, and quickly figured out who I was. Out came a board of antipasto. Four cheeses, two of them made in house. The leanest slices of pork belly I’ve ever seen (upper left in the photo). Pickled okra, purple pepper and green beans, all grown in their own garden.
Pizza Salsiccia, right out of the oak-fired oven.
That treat filled the short time between our ordering a pizza Salsiccia and its arrival. The wood-burning oven is made like its counterparts in Naples, running at temperatures so high that it only takes a couple of minutes for the pizza to bake. It’s topped with Italian sausage, roasted peppers and onions, and cheese. Charred here and there, the crust is just the way I like it, and not overloaded with the toppings. The three of us polish off the whole pie quickly.
Italian chicken soup.
I have a bowl of the zuppa del giorno–a rustic Italian-style chicken soup with a clear but dark broth. The Marys get grilled chicken on top of a romaine salad and grilled drumfish with crabmeat over pesto pasta. On my plate is veal piccata in a form I haven’t encountered (except in Italy) in a long time. The four pieces start off thinly sliced across the grain–a trick most chefs seem to have forgotten. The medallions are further thinned by pounding. The sauce is of olive oil, lemon, and capers. The pasta is a very mild version of aglio olio, seemingly designed for kids who like buttered pasta. But kids are welcome, and there are many who come.
Veal piccata.
Drum with pesto pasta and crabmeat.
I finish with sorbetto. The girls and I part ways. Homeward bound, I pass yet a sixth house where I once lived, and a church where I sang in the choir for many years. Mary Ann and I went there once early in our marriage, and I learned that being on time for Mass is unimportant to her. Even when we hand Baby Jude back and forth to one another as we stand through the whole ceremony in the back of the church, as we did that day.
Oak Oven. Harahan: 6625 Jefferson Hwy. 504-305-4039.
Eating Sushi: Fingers Or Chopsticks?
Q.
In sushi bars, there are always some people who try to tell everybody else the “right” way to eat sushi and sashimi. But they seem to disagree with one another as to whether you should eat with your fingers or with chopsticks. Some of these guys also say you should always eat a piece of sushi in one bite, which seems absurd to me. What say you, O Master?
A. First of all, you have to stop letting other people tell you what to do. And you can cut out that O Master stuff, while you’re at it.
The consensus among deft American sushi eaters is that if you should use chopsticks up to the point beyond which you’re not good at it. (My own limit is hot soup with long noodles.) Eating sushi with chopsticks isn’t too hard. It eliminates having rice stick to your fingers, and the temptation to lick it off. Another advantage is that you will not be able to over-dunk the sushi into soy sauce and wasabi. Not only is that too much soy sauce, but it makes the nigiri sushi (the piece of fish lying on the pillow of rice, not rolled) fall apart.
However, the reason they bring you a hot towel at the commencement of the sushi experience is so you can use you fingers. That is never against the rules, no matter what you hear from the loudmouth three seats away. Using chopsticks is just a little more delicate. Like wearing a tuxedo to a “black tie optional” party.
As for the one-bite rule, that’s for real–if you’re in Japan. But there are many eating practices in Japan that we don’t follow. Japanese sushi eaters are accustomed to having uncomfortable mouthfuls. And the sushi pieces there are smaller. Or, more correctly, American portions of sushi (and everything else) are larger than they are almost anywhere else. If you think you need to take a bite out of a piece, go ahead. But two bites is about it.
You didn’t ask me this, but I’ll tell you anyway: although the nigiri sushi is presented fish side up, rice side down, the way to eat it is to rotate the fish to to bottom and dip it into the soy sauce, trying to avoid letting the rice get wet. It also goes into your mouth fish side down. That is much easier to do with fingers than with chopsticks.
Crabmeat-Stuffed Mushrooms
This is a popular old dish that’s made badly four times out of five. The pitfall is murkiness, born of the fact that mushrooms contain so much water that they can make everything they touch turn soggy. You avoid that by using very fresh mushrooms, and by making a stuffing that won’t block the escape of moisture as they bake. Finish it off with the miracle that is hollandaise sauce, in a version that uses a bit more lemon than most.
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup chopped green onions–bulbs and tops
1/4 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 cup dry sherry
1/4 tsp. salt
Dash Tabasco
1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
8 large mushroom caps
2/3 cup lemony, light hollandaise (recipe here)
1. Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat, and sauté the onions and bell peppers until they’re soft but not browned.
2. Add the sherry, salt, and Tabasco, and bring to a light boil. After a minute, add the crabmeat. Cook until heated through, agitating the pan to avoid breaking up the lumps.
3. Spoon the crabmeat mixture into the mushroom caps. Dust the tops with a sprinkling of bread crumbs, and heat in a preheated 400-degree oven until the mushrooms are soft and the bread crumbs toast a little.
4. Spoon about a tablespoon of hollandaise over each mushroom and serve.
Serves four entrees or eight appetizers.
Roast Chicken With Dry Mushroom Crust @ Bistro Daisy
Chicken and mushrooms go well together, but it took a fine insight for Tony Schulte to think of this variation. Like most chefs who use wild, exotic mushrooms in their cookery, he bought a lot of them dried. What would happen if he ground them up almost to a flour consistency? He tried it, et voila! A brilliant new variation on roast chicken. Which is a good dish to begin with. It’s a dish you can almost get at the handsome little restaurant on Magazine Street?
Bistro Daisy. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 5831 Magazine. 504-899-6987.
This dish is ranked # in NOMenu’s list of the 500 best dishes in New Orleans restaurants.
July 7, 2014
Days Until. . .
Tales Of The Cocktail 10
Satchmo Summer Fest 23
Food Calendar
This is National Crabmeat Louie Day. It’s an excellent cold lump crabmeat appetizer, the sauce made from mayonnaise, chili sauce, and a little mustard. It is not known who Louie (or Louis, as it’s sometimes spelled on menus) was. But we do know that the dish is about a century old and first appeared in San Francisco. In New Orleans, crabmeat ravigote (a.k.a. crabmeat maison) usually fills the space on the menu where crabmeat Louie would be seen elsewhere. But it turns up now and then, notably at Clancy’s. Sometimes crab Louie is made into a salad, with the saucy crabmeat served in the pit of half an avocados on a bed of greens and tomatoes. A deviled egg us usually in there somewhere, too.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Crab Lake and Crab Bayou are wetlands water features that empty into Matagordas Bay, about twenty miles from Palacios, Texas. All of that is on the Texas Gulf Coast, about halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi. This is precisely the kind of environment where rich crabbing will be found. Oysters, shrimp, and other seafood, too. If you fail to score any of that, run your boat on the bayou to the Intracoastal Waterway, then northeast five miles to Matagorda, where Spoonbills Restaurant will be ready to serve you.
Edible Dictionary
crab finger, n.–Unlike other foods with the word “finger” in their names, crab fingers are close to being exactly what they claim they are. The working part of the claw could be said to have a finger and a thumb. The thumb is pulled out after the “hand” (if you will) is broken. That leaves the fibrous but very tender, somewhat dark meat exposed. It’s held in place by a thin, translucent interior bit of shell. You clench your front teeth around this meat and pull gently. Before it got that point, however, the crab fingers have either been cooked with a warm sauce, or tossed with something like a vinaigrette and serves cold. They make for good party food because they don’t need any kind of utensil. You grab the shell end of the finger and go.
Deft Dining Rule #749
For a reality check, ask the waiter who offers to top a dish with crabmeat how much extra that will be. You will learn why this offer is so often made.
Food Inventions
Joseph-Marie Jacquard did not have beef in mind when, in 1805, he devised a system of programming weaving needles with punch cards. (That idea later found its way into early computers.) But his name has been applied to a method of tenderizing meats with arrays of flat, narrow pins. When shoved into a tough piece of meat, they break connective tissues. A very advanced version of this injects fat into the meat, imitating the natural fat found in the likes of prime beef. Jacquarded beef has a bad reputation among connoisseurs, but I’ve heard worse ideas.
Annals Of Bread
A more important culinary invention was rolled out today in 1928. The first loaf of pre-sliced bread was sold, the product of a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. The place was Chillicothe, Missouri, and the product was called Wonder Bread. It wasn’t long before pre-sliced bread loaves transformed the marketing of bread across America. Of course, this brings up a question: what was the best idea before sliced bread?
Food In World Politics
Today in 1976, President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty hosted a state dinner in Washington, D.C. in honor of England’s Queen Elizabeth. It was the first time such a dinner was televised. The Queen and Prince Philip were here to participate in the Bicentennial celebration.
Annals Of Food Writing
Simone “Simca” Beck was born today in Normandy in 1904. A cooking school instructor and cookbook author in France, she became famous as one of Julia Child’s collaborators on her landmark cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.
Food Namesakes
Organist and composer Robert Stevens Baker popped out of the oven today in 1916. . . Big-league shortstop Chuck Knoblauch emerged into the Big Infield today in 1968. He has an extremely rare bilingual double food name. His first name is the English word for a beef shoulder roast, and his last name is the German word for garlic. . . U.S. Air Force General Earle “Pat” Partridge flew into the world today in 1900.
Words To Eat By
“Good cooking is when things taste of what they are.”–Curnonsky, the “Prince of Gastronomy.”
Words To Drink By
“A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn’t care to drink with–even if he drank.”–H.L. Mencken.
Economics Of Gardening.
Although the guy can’t be faulted for his logic, he has a long way to go before he understands the whys and wherefores of the girl. And nothing was even brought up yet about the role that salads play in relationships.
Click here for the cartoon.