Coolinary @ Rue 127: Three Courses, $39.
The pleasant, intimate coolness of Rue 127 gets another facet of appeal this summer with a special menu. Three courses, consisting of an appetizer, an entree, and either a dessert or a glass of wine, some to your table for $39. It’s also special in that the dishes involved are mostly new ones. And here they are:
Green Gumbo
~or~
Arugula Salad
With balsamic vinaigrette, goat cheese, puffed quinoa and fresh berries
~or~
Meat Pie Dumpling
Hot mustard , house pickled salad
In the kitchen at Rue 127.
Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin
Spätzle, caramelized onion soubise
~or~
Pan Seared Quail
Sofrito, purple sticky rice
~or~
Banana Leaf Wrapped Gulf Fish
Mofongo, and raw vegetable salad
Dessert
Cheese, Honey, Crackers.. .Sorbet of the Day. . .
Dessert of the Day
Tuesday, August 9, 2016.
MeMe’s Goes To The Pelican Club.
Mary Ann and I have become friends with Rae-Ann and Chuck Williams, the people who own MeMe’s in Chalmette. We keep running into them in other restaurants. That may not seem strange, but two ongoing conditions make it unusual. First, most restaurant owners dine in restaurants only rarely. Second, two of these meetings have been at Tony Angello’s, a restaurant I hit once every five years or so. (It doesn’t change much.)
On those occasions, we talked about the restaurant scene, and vowed that we would get together to try some of each other’s favorites.
Tuna poke, kicking off the Coolinary menu at the Pelican Club.
So here we are at the Pelican Club, which as usual is offering the best summer menu in town. It starts early in the season and stays late, and has more variety than any other Coolinary menu. We begin with a passed-around amuse bouche of tuna poké–chopped fresh, raw tuna, mixed with avocado, mango, citrus, and spices. Very tasty.(Well, I thought so. No other takers on raw fish at this table.)
Pappardelle pasta with oyster mushrooms.
The ordered appetizers are appealing, too. Grilled oysters keep Mary Ann’s streak of eating them at every meal out. I don’t remember who had the pappardelli pasta with oyster mushrooms, kale and cream, but it looked good. So did the wedge salad. The appetizers are almost enough to fill us right there.
But we have entrees, too. The whole fried flounder was inevitable and a great a feast for Re-Ann. Mary Ann faces a panneed slab of slab of drumfish with enormous U-10 shrimp.
Duck three ways.
Chuck has the duck three ways, a special this night. It looks terrific and is so appealing that it gets scarfed down in a trice. And for me five thick slabs of nearly-rare tuna, accompanied by scallops with chimichurri sauce.
Tuna and scallops.
All of this is the kind of food I associate with the Pelican Club, but almost all of it is something new to the restaurant. (Except that flounder, which is getting to be Chef Richard’s Hughes’s signature dish.) And it’s an almost crazy value at $39 for the full dinner.
That could have been finished with a dessert, but I was the only taker: key lime pie made with Meyer lemons.
The wine picked for us by our server (who may be the sommelier; if she’s not, she ought to be) is a very dense Malbec. Bit in the fruit department, easy on the bitter ends of the tannins that come from such a dark wine. We all love it.
The Williamses have a refreshing and realistic idea about their establishment. The fully understand that their brilliant chef Lincoln Owens is what makes the place what it is.
Pelican Club. French Quarter: 615 Bienville. 504-523-1504.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016.
Turtle Soup Overload.
Lazone Randolph–longtime chef at Brennan’s on Royal Street, and the chef-elect of Ted Brennan’s Decatur Restaurant when it opens in the fall–sent a gallon of turtle soup to me. He said he would when I saw him at Ted Brennan’s Irish wake over the weekend. It isn’t my idea, but I like it. From the sample at the wake, I learned that it’s still the best turtle soup recipe in town.
I rushed right home with the cold container and ate a big bowl of the stuff. No sherry or hot sauce needed. This is the historic Brennan’s turtle soup recipe, all right. I separated the bounty into four food-storage bags and froze them so I can have it for awhile. This is the only serious eating I do all day, and it serves me well.
Thursday, August 11, 2016.
Keith Young’s Steakhouse, But No Steak.
If you survey Keith Young’s lunch menu, you won’t guess that it’s a steak specialist. You’d learn that truth, though, just by seeing the number of steaks that still come out to the dining room table.
But I didn’t fall for one of the excellent slabs o’ beef Keith routinely serves. It’s mostly seafood at lunch, and he does that just as well. Mary Ann continues her fried-oyster jag, with a half-dozen of those. Then she succumbs to another passion of hers: a cheeseburger. Keith grills a very mean burger, thick as your hand, loaded with cheese, and still too hot not to be careful about biting in.
The waiter pushes the fine soft-shell crabs, the crab cakes, and the shrimp on me. For some reason I am not all that hungry, and I make most of the meal out of a Caesar salad.
Actually, I know the reason, but I can’t report it here. A family crisis killed my appetite for today. Not the first time this happened to me. The 9/11 disaster was another–but Katrina, strangely, wasn’t. The broken ankle that made it impossible for me to walk for three months also made me turn away from my food desires. That event, in fact, is what probably contributed more to the sixty-plus weight loss I’ve had in the past two years than anything else I’m doing.
For readers who really stay on top of my family’s life: today’s issue is not the end of the world, and so peculiar that you’d never guess it. Maybe I’ll tell you in ten years or so. Sorry. I’ll be back tomorrow, but diminished a bit.
Keith Young’s Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA 21. 985-845-9940.
Pasta Jambalaya
This dish was invented at Mr. B’s, and it’s a wonder nobody thought of it before. It replaces the rice in a good sausage-and-chicken jambalaya with pasta. This version was created by the Taste Buds–the three chefs who own Zea–for their first big restaurant concept, Semolina. (Only one Semolina survives, , in the Clearview Mall.) The Buds added two interesting wrinkles: Creole sauce and smoked gouda cheese. The latter touch gives the smoky flavor we all want in a jambalaya.
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1/2 lb. andouille, sliced thinly
8 oz. chicken breast meat, bone and skin removed, cut into medium chunks
2 Tbs. tasso, chopped
1 small red onion, cut into strips
1 small bell pepper, cut into strips
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
4 tsp. minced garlic
1 stick butter
3 cups Creole sauce (see recipe below)
2 lbs. orecchiete, shell, or spiral pasta, cooked and drained
1 1/2 cups shredded provolone cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded smoked gouda
2 green onions, tender green parts only, thinly sliced
1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet. Sear the chicken, andouille, and tasso in corn oil until the chicken is nearly cooked. Drain excess fat.
2. Add onion, bell pepper, crushed red pepper, garlic, and butter. Continue cooking until the the garlic is fragrant. Add Creole sauce and bring to a boil. Stir well to incorporate butter into the sauce.
3. Put the pasta into a large bowl and pour the sauce over it. Toss the pasta with the sauce to incorporate. Divide the pasta jambalaya on six plates. Top with the cheeses. Garnish with sliced green onions.
Serves six.
Semolina’s Creole Sauce
This is a pretty good version of Creole sauce, made to complement Semolina’s excellent pasta jambalaya, one of the most popular dishes on their menu.
1 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. yellow onion, finely diced
1/4 cup bell pepper, finely diced
1/4 cup celery, finely diced
1 Tbs. parsley, chopped
1 tsp. garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp. basil
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1/8 tsp. white pepper
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp. sugar
1 Tbs. green onions, chopped
1 cup whole canned tomatoes with juice, diced
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 cup stock (shrimp or chicken)
1/2 tsp. Crystal hot sauce
1. Melt butter in a heavy saucepan. Add onion, bell pepper, celery, parsley, garlic, basil, cayenne pepper, white pepper, black pepper, salt, bay leaves, sugar and green onions. Cook until the bell pepper turns bright green and the onions begin to become transparent.
2. Stir in tomatoes, tomato puree, stock, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil, then cook at a simmer about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Makes about two cups.
Roasted Polenta Pie @ Midway Pizza
Pizza is the mainstay at Midway. It’s a thicker-than-average pie, but that aspect is balanced off by the right amounts of all the other ingredients. While heading in the direction of a Chicago-style pizza, it stops short of that. I mean that as a compliment. Meanwhile, they also make a pie out of polenta–the Italian answer to grits, with a different flavor. The porridge-like, thick stuff goes into a pizza pan, where it’s topped with cheese, bacon, green onions, and a few other things. It is much better than it sounds, or even seems possible.
Midway Pizza. Uptown: 4725 Freret St. 504-322-2815.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
August 15, 2016
Days Until. . .
Coolinary Summer Specials End 15
Annals Of Cooking School
Today in 1912 was is the birthday of Julia Child. Even after her death in 2004, she remains the all-time greatest television chef, as well as one of the most honored and accomplished authors of cookbooks. I have dinner with her once, at the extinct French Quarter restaurant Begue’s. I was surprised by how down-to-earth and unpretentious she was, and also that her unique voice and bearing were not just television affectations but entirely real. That night, she liked the oyster Rockefeller flan.
My favorite aspect of Julia’s shows were that if she made a mistake or something didn’t come out quite right, she’d admit it. You never see that on television now, even though we all know from eating in restaurants that all chefs make mistakes.
Today’s Flavor
Today is National Lemon Meringue Pie Day.
A good lemon meringue pie is wonderful, especially if you take that old recipe from your grandmother and cut the amount of sugar by at least a third (in both the lemon custard and meringue parts). We seem to have had a taste for much sweeter desserts forty or fifty years ago than we do now. Making a lighter pie crust is a worthy goal, too. Take liberties. I once had a pie that was creme brulee on the bottom and lemon meringue on the top. Fabulous.
Throw a meringue pie (leave out the lemon) one at someone you love someday soon. It’s great fun. On his birthday in 1981, the publisher of the newspaper where my restaurant review column has appeared for thirty years received a meringue pie in the face from my hand. He’s gone, but I’m still there. So just go ahead and do it. Note: a pie can only be thrown at a man. Most women fail to grasp the humor.
Essential Ingredients
Speaking of pie crusts: Crisco was released today in 1911 by Procter and Gamble, the soap people. (Soap and fat are largely the same product.) The advance that made Crisco popular was that it was pre-creamed and shelf-stable. That accomplishment was achieved through hydrogenation. In more recent times, it’s been found that hydrogenated fats–especially those with high trans-fatty acids–are rather bad for you to eat. So Crisco developed a new formula involving zero trans-fats. I like the stuff, and find it a good, clean product that’s hard to replace in certain baked goods, notably biscuits and pie dough. Although the trans-fat issue did move me to start using butter instead in many recipes. Isn’t that a turnabout! One of the reasons Crisco was created was to replace animal fats.
Edible Dictionary
beef daube, daube [DOBE], n.–Beef cooked slowly in its own juices and other liquids, including seasoning liquids like wine, Worcestershire, or vinegar, plus savory vegetables. After it’s tender, the beef is sliced or shredded. In classic French cookery (which the word first appeared, in the 1700s), daube was cooked in the oven in a terrine or a baking dish, until the liquids had mostly evaporated. Then it was sliced and eaten as it was. It could also be blended with seasoned gelatin, and served cold. The latter survives in New Orleans as daube glace, a popular appetizer in the Christmas season. It’s sort of a beef version of hogshead cheese, and eaten in much the same way. As is true of many French dishes, it’s made with much more pepper here. Another version of daube is made by slicing the beef and simmering it in an Italian red sauce, then serving it with spaghetti. Although it’s still made in many homes, it’s become a rarity on menus.
Annals Of Drinking
Elvin Jellinek was born today in 1890. He was the first scientist to study intensively the causes and effects of alcoholism. He suggested that the condition be treated as a disease, not as a sin. In his day, alcoholics were thought of as merely weak-willed people, an approach that did little to address or correct the problem.
Citrus At War
The Satsuma War began today in 1863, between British would-be colonizers and the Japanese. Satsuma is a province of Japan. It’s where the original satsuma fruit was grown, the ancestors of all those trees in Plaquemines Parish that will give us their succulent orbs in a month or so.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cucumber Lake is in the Hiawatha National Forest on the sparsely-populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It’s ten miles from the northern shore of Lake Michigan. It’s also just sixty miles from Fish Creek. Banana Lake gets its name from its shape. (So do the nearby Cranberry Lake and Square Lake.) It’s only about 200 feet wide, but a half-mile wide. It’s a good place for fishing muskies and trout, even in winter, when it freezes over. If you don’t hit anything and get hungry, drive your four-wheeler eight miles up the dirt Banana Lake Road to the much larger Indian Lake’s shore, for a scenic lunch at the Big Spring Inn.
Annals Of Military Cuisine
Napoleon Bonaparte was born today in 1769, on the island of Corsica. He left his mark on world history in such a pervasive way that he even crops up repeatedly in discussions of our own local special food interest. The Napoleon pastry, the Napoleon House, chicken Marengo, and Pascal’s Manale (on Napoleon Avenue) come to mind immediately, and it wouldn’t be hard to think of many more. In recent years, chefs have taken to calling any layered dish a Napoleon of this or that. Napoleon was a gourmet, and a personal chef was essential to him even in the field of battle.
The Saints
This is the day, in 1534, when St. Ignatius Loyola organized the Jesuits. I wouldn’t be who I am without their influence. Whatever else can be said about the Jesuits, I’ve always noticed that when you are in their company, you eat well. (Anyone who’s been to Manresa Retreat House on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge can vouch for that.)
Food And Drink Namesakes
Bert Berry, a pro football player, was born today in 1975. . . Elias M. Fries, a Swiss botanist whose specialty was mushrooms, was born today in 1794. . . Congresswoman Maxine Waters was elected to life today in 1938.
Words To Eat French Food By
“The French complain of everything, and always.”–Napoleon Bonaparte, born today in 1769.
“Life itself is the proper binge.”–Julia Child, born today in 1912.
Words To Drink By
“Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure.”–John Dryden.
Be Wary Of Restaurants Named For Somebody’s Mother.
Mothers have more on their minds than how delicious the food they cook will be.
Click here for the cartoon.