Friday, January 6, 2017.
Over The Top At DiCristina’s. In The Rain.
DiCristina’s in Covington is ever identified with its family (but not business) connection with Rocky & Carlo’s in Chalmette. A lot of the food has counterparts at Rocky’s, but DiCristina’s has a wider range and a bit more delicacy–neither of which is sine qua non in Chalmette.
The dish that comes to mind when Rocky’s does is its famous macaroni and cheese, almost certainly the best the the entire area. My wife Mary Ann likes to parade out my feeling that mac ‘n’ cheese is not one of the great victories in culinary history. MA says this shows me for the food snob I am.
I reject this thesis, and offer as evidence these very words. On my way to DiCristina’s for lunch today–on a rainy and cold day, yet–I was thinking about what I might eat there. A fuzz-focus image formed of a dish with the creaminess of fettuccine alfredo, with perhaps a light application of tomato sauce, and little on the way of protein. No veal, chicken, seafood or even vegetables showed up in my imaginary recipe.
Mac ‘n’ cheese balls, with meatballs.
Barb is the waitress who always takes care of us at DiCristina’s. We like her because she’s always laughing, and because she tells us about offbeat dishes we might not have found on our own. (DiCristina’s has a big menu.) Today, she tells me about a new dish in which the famous mac ‘n’ cheese is rolled up into a ball and deep-fried. It is then covered with Alfredo sauce, a bit of red gravy, and two cheeses–mozzarella and cheddar. No meatballs, sausage, shrimp, or anything else along those lines.
Sound familiar? Even though the idea of a fried ball of macaroni would on any other day be laughable, this was indeed the very dish that floated around in what’s left in my brain on my way here. How could I not get it?
I couldn’t dope out what kept the three macaroni balls together. They weren’t browned anywhere, but they nevertheless did hold together. A bed of mac ‘n’ Alfredo was the next stratum moving down, and the red sauce was last. I could only eat one of the mac-o-balls before I felt stuffed. I must say it was worth eating, perhaps because it was so close to what I had in mind.
Fried ravioli.
At dinner, I still wasn’t hungry enough to return to the dish. But when I told MA about it–hoping for a gentle cheer to show her that I am open-minded enough to get such a thing. MA is a great admirer of mac ‘n’ cheese.
“Didn’t you know that fried macaroni balls is a hot new dish around the whole country?” she asked. No. No, I didn’t. So much for my registering a point on this scoreboard. I cannot impress my wife for anything.
Fortunately, I had other things on my mind. The temperature is forecast to drop as low as twenty degrees tonight at the Cool Water Ranch. All my pipes are wrapped, and we have gone below that temperature in the past with no problems. Still, I let the thin stream of water coming from a faucet at the far end of the house. The pipe from the water well is at the other end. That should take care of any problems. Never theless, four or five times during the night I walked around the house and let the water flow from every fauce for a half-minute or so. MA laughs at my paranoia. A small price to pay to avoid broken pipes. That’s what we old guys do to impress our womenfolk that we are necessary.
DiCristina’s. Covington: 810 N Columbia. 985-875-0160.
Saturday, January 7, 2017. 20s
C-c-c-CO-C-COLD!
The temperature outside bottoms out at 25 degrees at the Ranch. The little stream still runs from the far faucet, which tells me that everything else is all right. A brilliant high-pressure sun is out. But it’s hours before the thermometer rises past the 30 mark.
I run my Saturday errands without stopping for breakfast, a meal I would like to have had this morning. I get along on my standard slice of toast, glass of orange juice, and two cups of café au lait. That brings me to showtime on WWL, where I remain with a constant flow of callers throughout the ealy afternoon until three. I would like to have taken a hike through the woods, but it’s still way too cold.
Mary Leigh attempts to come across for a visit. But the northbound drawbridge on the Causeway has some sort of emergency problem that has a crew there working and a large backup of traffic moving at the speed of ice until four. I’m glad I don’t have to cross today.
MA and I have dinner at Impastato Cellars in Madisonville. We haven’t been there in awhile, and the restaurant is hosting an Eat Club dinner on the twenty-fifth. I use the need to go there to update my facts as a reason for going there tonight. We sit on the peculiar veranda that hangs off the back wall, and are kept very warm by a battalion of gas-fired, well-ventilated indoor heaters.
Baked Italian oysters.
Most of the dinner is straightforward. We begin with baked Italian oysters and fettuccine Alfredo. MA has a salad with a lot of shrimp scattered atop it. I have a house salad before moving to a new dish on the menu. It’s panned eggplant on the bottom layer, short tubes of pasta with a white sauce (although it’s lighter than the one on the fettuccine, with crabmeat between the layers. The only flaw anywhere in the flow is that I eat the baked oysters too soon and burn my mouth.
I am always amazed by how well the tissues inside the mouth recover from cut and burns like this. I though this would be a bad one, but by morning it’s as if nothing happened.
I get a wedge of Angelo Brocato’s spumone for dessert, and to cool the mouth burn. But I’m a little late for that to make a difference.
Or was I?
MA and I have been watching more movies at home lately. As she shopped for a film for tonight, I see “The Magnificent Ambersons” flash by. This is the film that Orson Welles wrote and directed in the aftermath of “Citizen Kane.” I’ve read the Booth Tarkington novel on which it’s based, but never had I seen the movie. MA was bored by it early on. I also thought it was a bit long–and that was after an hour had been edited out by the producers. Welles always needed some extra time for his sometimes pompous tricks. I stuck with it to the end. I remember the book as being depressing, and the movie is, too–even though RKO toned it down a bit.
Impastato Cellars. Madisonville: 240 Highway 22 E. 985-845-4445.
Creole Eggplant Gratin Delmonico
Here’s another extinct restaurant dish you can’t get anymore. It was the favorite side dish at the old Delmonico, before Chef Emeril took over. Especially right after it comes out of the oven, it’s delicious–even if you don’t like eggplant.
I had this dish for the last time at Delmonico two days before the old regime closed down. It was the night of the Babylon parade, which passed right on front on St. Charles Avenue. We had most of our dinner, went out to watch the parade, and came back in for dessert with Angie Brown and Rose Dietrich, the sisters who owned Delmonico. The combination of that Mardi Gras experience with one of the best meals I ever had there (the old place was good to the last) is forever engraved in my memory.
The old, pre-Emeril version of Delmonico’s famous eggplant casserole, made here in a portion for one or two.
2 eggplants, peeled and cut into large dice
2 Tbs. butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 cup small peeled shrimp
1/2 lb. claw crabmeat
1 chopped tomato
1/4 tsp. Tabasco
1/4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. marjoram
3 sprigs parsley leaves, chopped
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and drop the eggplant in for about two minutes. Remove and drain.
2. Heat the butter in a large skillet and sauté the onion, celery, and shrimp until the shrimp turn pink. Add all the other ingredients except bread crumbs and cook, stirring very lightly, until everything is heated through.
3. Load the mixture into a baking dish and top with the bread crumbs. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until the bread crumbs are toasty.
Serves four to eight.
Jacked-Up Shrimp @ Don’s Seafood Hut
I have never been a fan of Don’s, and I’ve wondered for years about its attraction to such large crowds. But even a just-okay restaurant can turn out something good now and then. “Jacked-up shrimp” comes to the table in a special skillet with seven pockets, sort of like the pans used for escargots. The contents of each pocket were bubbling: cheese, butter, jalapenos, bacon, and a big shrimp. I ate the first one too soon and burned my mouth. (My fault.) I got the other kind of burn (the kind that lasts quite a bit longer) from the hot-pepper content, just at my limit. But the taste and the aroma are alluring, qualifying this as an exciting, innovative dish. Worth going there for this alone.
They also make this with oysters, but for once I think I like the shrimp version better.
Don’s Seafood Hut. Metairie 3: Houma Blvd To Kenner Line: 4801 Veterans Blvd. 504-889-1550.
Covington: 126 Lake Dr. 985-327-7111.This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
January 10, 2016
Days Until
Mardi Gras–48
Valentine’s Day–20
Today’s Flavor
Today is National Bittersweet Chocolate Day. Bittersweet chocolate is really more for cooking than for eating, although some like it. It’s less sweet than semi-sweet. Great for making chocolate mousse, or for chocolate sauce to go over something that’s already very sweet.
Here in New Orleans, you are encouraged to celebrate Fancy Creole Chicken Day. A number of dishes, all developed about a century ago, are mainstay in local restaurant, particularly the older ones. All of them amount to a half chicken, baked or sometimes grilled, topped or surrounded with some kind of hash. The most popular are:
Chicken bonne femme. “Good woman’s chicken” is covered with cubed potatoes, garlic, parsley, and other savory bits. The famous version is cooked at Tujague’s, where it’s the best dish in the house.
Chicken Clemenceau. Named for the Premier of France during World War I, its garnish is mushrooms, peas, butter, onions, and a good deal of garlic. Galatoire’s makes the definitive version.
Chicken Pontalba. This is what I think is the best of all. The roasted chicken is topped with fried potato cubes, grilled ham, green onions, and bearnaise sauce. Chef Paul Blange, the first chef at Brennan’s, created it in the 1940s. The Palace Cafe makes the killer Pontalba.
All of these are wonderful Creole classics, and not all that hard to make at home. The most time-consuming part is cooking the chicken.
Kitchen Innovations
Today is the birthday (1949) of George Foreman, the former heavyweight boxing champ. After retiring from the ring, he began a new career after of devising and selling countertop grills. It’s a brilliant product: it seems like something you need, even though it’s probably going to be one appliance too many. Its primary merit is that it grills both sides of something at the same time. They need that capability in fast-food restaurants, but I can’t say I’ve ever wished I could do that. Still, lots of people like Foreman grills.
The Physiology Of Taste
Neils Stensen, born today in 1683 (and also known as Nicolaus Steno), discovered Stensen’s duct. That’s what moves saliva from the gland that makes it to the mouth. We don’t think of saliva too much (with good reason), but it plays a more important role in eating than most people know. Aside from making it easier to swallow food, it actually begins the digestion process. If you put a cracker in you mouth, chew it up, but don’t swallow it, you can taste the starches begin to turn to sugars, by the action of enzymes in saliva.
Edible Dictionary
macaroon, A macaroon is a cookie made originally with almonds and enough egg to make it very light in texture. Over the years, shredded coconut has become part of the recipe. The name comes from the same Italian root that gives macaroni, and is a reference to the stringy quality of the ingredients pre-baked ingredients. Lately macaroons have come nto vogue, especially when they’re so light that they almost float in air, and with perfect dimensions and flawless tops. Some macaroons have been made as savory garnishes on fancy plates. But most of them are, as they ever have been, sweet.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
If you’re going to go through the trouble of deboning a leg of lamb, you may as well stuff the place where the bone was it with something. Think lamb sausage, bread crumbs, and garlic.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cupcake Island is in the Pacific Ocean about a mile off the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, that long tail that issues eastward from the main part of the state. It’s in the Chiginigak Bay, and really does look like a cupcake as you approach it. It’s a a rocky outcropping that reaches 165 feet above sea level, and is usually covered with waterfowl in the summer. Otherwise it’s an uninhabited island, as is the mainland nearby. If you fetch up here, you’re an explorer of the wildest parts of the earth, and you’d better have food with you. And, at this time of year, a way to keep warm.
Deft Dining Rule #214:
In case you haven’t heard, the old rule requiring lamb to be served with mint jelly has been repealed. It never was a good idea.
Annals Of Tea
Today in 1839, tea from India arrived in markets in London and the rest of England. It was much less expensive than the tea from China–enough so that a critical mass of people were able to afford to drink tea routinely for the first time. It was the beginning of the mass popularity that tea still enjoys in Britain, where they like the stuff so much that they even drink it in hot weather. They say it cools them off.
Annals Of Inedible Mushrooms
Today is the birthday (1911) of Norman Heatley, who develop effective methods of extracting penicillin from bread mold. Its healing ability had already been discovered, but getting the active ingredient out of the mold was challenging until Heatley figured out how to grow it. He used kitchen equipment: cookie tins, pie pans, butter churns, and roasting pans. His work allowed enough penicillin to treat sick and wounded soldiers in World War II, especially on and after D-Day.
Food Namesakes
Wallace Berry, composer and author of books on music theory, was born today in 1928. . . Chandra Cheesborough, born today in 1959, was a gold-medal Olympic runner in 1984. . . British broadcaster Alistair Cooke began the job that would make him most famous today in 1971, as host of Masterpiece Theatre.
Words To Eat By
“Today the biggest decisions I make aren’t related to the heavyweight title. They are whether I visit McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, or Jack-in-the-Box.”–George Foreman, whose birthday it is today.
“Chicken may be eaten constantly without becoming nauseating.”–Andre Simon.
Words To Drink By
“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors, and miss.”–Robert Heinlein.
The Thought Processes Of The Best Chefs.
Fortunately, their sous chefs always removed the toxic ingredients.
Click here for the cartoon.