The New Skills Part Two (and full disclosure about timing)

The New Skills, part 2, Oysters Katheryn

Hello, and welcome to the second installment of the series in which I learn a new dish every week for a year. For this week's installment, in celebration of Mardi Gras, I am showcasing a New Orleans dish I have always enjoyed, Oysters Katheryn.

But wait, you say, it isn't Mardi Gras at all! True, you got me on that one. When I started this project, it was the end of February. I spent two months learning and photographing dishes without blogging them, to create a back-log of material. That way, the project's oppressive schedule can't become too much of a burden if I need to take a week off or something. Most of them I can just sneak in, as needed, but this one was at our annual Mardi Gras dinner, so its time-stamped.

So anyway, Oysters Kathryn. It is one of New Orleans' signature oyster dishes. NO is definitely an oyster town. From plates of shitty raw Gulf Selects at the Acme to buttery heaps of fake-garlicky awesomeness at Drago's, to cyclopean po'boys at Crabby Jack's, oysters are one of the first southern city's absolute favorite things.

One of the most popular styles of oyster dish in Creole cuisine is what I'm calling the 'pop, top, and broil' style. The oysters are popped open raw, topped with a filling, and then broiled (or baked) until the topping is browned and bubbly.

The grandaddy of them all is Oysters Rockefeller. Originating at Antoine's, these oysters are topped with a mixture of watercress, Herbsaint, garlic, breadcrumbs, and butter (or something like that, the actual recipe is a closely guarded secred). This is the dish that has been imitated, copied, and spun off in a thousand different ways. (I have seen Fried Oysters 'Rockefeller Style,' and have actually eaten Oysters Rockefeller Soup. Side note: in NO back-of-house restaurant parlance, the dish is charmingly referred to as O-Roc.)

Down the street from Antoine's is Arnaud's, another of the New Orleans Dinosaurs (along with Broussards, Tujague's, and Galatoire's). Not to be outdone, their signature pop-top-and-broil is the Oyster Bienville, named for the street Arnaud's is on. This one is topped with a sherry cream sauce studded with mushrooms and shrimp, and I thought it was my favorite. Then, at Arnaud's one evening, I ordered a sampler, which had many different oysters to try, and my clear, new favorite was Oysters Kathryn.

Named for one of the restaurant's owners kids (the blond and kinda hot Katy Casbarian) in 1979, this oyster is popped and topped with a mixture of artichokes, butter, breadcrumbs, and tomato. (Or so I thought, more on that later.) It was absolutely fantastic! I asked the waiter, and this one (unlike the Rockefeller and Bienville, which had been imitated all over town) was an Arnaud's exclusive. I liked it so much I bought the cookbook a year later, just to get at the recipe.

This was where I ran into trouble. The recipe in the book doesn't match what I remembered having. It contained parmesan cheese, which I try to keep away from my mollusks as a matter of course (I belong to the Nate Whiting school of thought on this topic, that is, no cheese with fish unless that fish happens to be an anchovy). Also, there was no tomato component to be found. I distinctly remembered tomato. Lastly, the cookbook used canned artichokes, which I disapprove of, but was not surprised by. Fresh artichokes are hellaciously labor-intensive.

SIDEBAR- Artichokes and me, an obsession: Artichokes are one of my favorite vegetables. They are expensive, so I don't use them a whole lot. A case of two dozen can run almost a hundred bucks! When I clean them, I use the method outlined in the French Laundry cookbook. This is the standard method in high-end kitchens. When you are done, all that's left is the heart, smooth and round and spotless, and whatever section of the stem is tender enough to eat. It is a difficult job, but when I was at Woodlands I set out to be the fastest artichoke cleaner in the world. (This was a natural response to having to clean a case of the bastards daily, may as well have some fun with it.) In the beginning, a case of 24 would take me like 40 minutes. After a little work, I got beneath the 1-minute-per-choke mark, and after a month I could do it in 17 minutes. My record for a case was 14 minutes. After that one, the chef, Tarver 'SuperKing' King, took a look, and looked at me very solemnly and said:

“Jesse, I am impressed. You are now, confirmed, the fastest artichoke cleaner in the world. You did a case in under fifteen minutes, and that is a hell of an accomplishment. Next time, do you mind taking twenty, and maybe doing a little bit better of a job?”

So anyway, I had this book, and I had this vision of what the dish was in my head, and they didn't match. I could explain away the cheese. Despite my philosophical objection, there was cheese in several of my favorite oyster dishes (most notably the amazing chargrilled oysters at Drago's), and I like them just the same. I could handle the canned artichokes. I mean, everyone uses them. But the lack of a tomato component, that was such an important part of the chord that I remembered, and it wasn't there! I even checked Arnaud's website, reasoning that they may have added some later, after the book was published, but nothing doing.

Mardi Gras was approaching fast, and I had to make a decision. Did I make Oysters Kathryn from the book, or did I try to truly express the dish as I thought appropriate? I decided to do both. I would faithfully recreate the recipe from the book, and I would also make my own spin on the dish, and call it Oysters Kathy Peterson, after a friend of mine (who happens to be a super-villain).

The Raw Materials: For oysters, I spent $54 on a bushel of Seaside Salts, from Virginia. (The appropriate oyster for this dish would really be Louisiana Gulf Selects, but they are not locally available in South Carolina, and also kind of shitty.) They were briny, plump, extremely fresh, and exquisite. I can't understand why they were so cheap, except that maybe they were sized really inconsistently, but for a broiler, that's really no big deal. They were definitely good enough to serve raw, which is a good barometer for oyster quality.

The Kathryn Topping (15 minutes): From the Arnaud's Cookbook (which I honestly can't recommend, its a little lightweight), the filling is made by mixing minced canned artichoke hearts, breadcrumbs, egg, heavy cream, fresh basil, parmesan, and lemon juice. Its really easy, no cooking necessary. Its easy to work with, and it browns up nicely.

The Kathy Peterson Topping (45 minutes): I cleaned artichokes by hand, and cooked them in salted water with lemon. I then diced them up and mixed them with an equal quantity of room temperature whole butter. I sprinkled in some chiffonade basil. For a tomato component, I mixed 50/50 canned crushed tomatoes and Heinz Chilli Sauce (a condiment I don't completely understand and am kind of intrigued by) and put it into a Clairol tint bottle, which is the squeeze bottle preferred by the real pros (you can buy them at Sally Beauty Supply). Every oyster got a spoon full of the artichoke butter, a drizzle of the tomato spoo, and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs.

All these went onto a tray of rock salt and into a 450F oven until they were starting to brown. My oven isn't very badass, so this took a while.

The verdict: Well, I liked my spin better. Obviously. It was a split decision. One partygoer said he marginally preferred mine, and qualified that with the statement that he would have said that, even if I hadn't recently threatened him with physical violence if he expressed a preference for the canned, cheesey version. But other people liked the restaurant ones better, and I had to admit, they were pretty good. I think mine came out on top. People were too drunk to just be being polite, and I only threatened that one guy.

Professional Application: Limited. These are amazing, and they would sell, but they are also the signature dish of another restaurant, and copying a signature dish, even in a different market, can be a sticky wicket. On the other hand, now that I have brilliantly and effectively introduced tomato into the mix, perhaps I can sell it at will...

Beverage Pairing: Jesus, it was Mardi Gras. We were drinking EVERYTHING. But I think a nice glass of very, very dry champagne (to combat the odd taste-warping effects of the oxalic acid in the artichokes) would have been just the ting.

Final Thought: Well, memory can be a funny thing. I was SURE there was a tomato component on the Kathryns. And I was wrong. My other takeaway is that parmesan cheese, while gauche, is not NECESSARILY disgusting on shellfish. Don't tell Nate Whiting.

How Not to Suck at Cooking

How can cooking go wrong?

There aren’t many cardinal sins. Not seasoning, using rotten ingredients, not tasting as you go, not giving a shit about the outcome, these are the big ones. Instead, I offer a list of rules I try not to break, to make sure my work is as good as I can make it.

1. Avoid the gratuitous overuse of cheese. This is a huge issue in the USA. Cheese on everything, all the time. This is an incomplete list of things that do not need cheese: tacos, hamburgers, french fries, steak, seafood, chicken sandwiches, green salad, and most importantly, SCRAMBLED EGGS! If you need cheese to enjoy scrambled eggs, you are scrambling your eggs wrong.
2. No letting fried things get soggy before they get to the customer. If you can’t fry right, find another method.
3. Avoid pre-mixed seasoning packets. This was a problem when I worked in New Orleans. They love their creole seasoning. And it has its place, but they put it in EVERYTHING, so everything tastes kinda the same. And real Indian cooks don’t use curry powder. They will make their own masalas out of whole spices, and use different ones for different purposes.
4. Avoid dry herbs. No exceptions. You haven’t smelled a bay leaf until you’ve smelled a fresh one. Get a big bag and keep them in your freezer.
5. Never skip brining meat that needs brining. Certain meats run dry. Chicken and lean pork are the biggest offenders. Once you grill a brined pork chop, you will never go back.
6. This is for all my chefs out there: never include an ingredient just because it adds color. Every component must contribute flavor, aroma, or texture. Micro-greens can be awesome. Micro-greens for their own sake are lame.
7. No mirepoix in stocks. If a sauce needs onion, celery, and carrot, add them. If a sauce needs shallot, star anise, and pink peppercorn, add that. The flavors of vegetables and herbs take minutes to infuse, so why not keep your base stocks neutral? If your stock tastes like Dinty Moore beef stew, so will your demiglace. (Hat tip to Paul Bertolli, who destroyed conventional wisdom on this one.)
8. No salads with dressing on side. All salads must be tossed. The light touch of dressing on lettuce is what makes a salad. Also, with the dressing on the side, the salt won’t stick. Salad, literally translated, means salted. If its not dressed, its not a salad.
9. No fake balsamic vinegar. If it cost less than 30 bucks, it isn’t balsamic vinegar, its regular vinegar with sugar and caramel color added. Real balsamic vinegar is trebbiano grape must, allowed to reduce and oxidize for hours and hours over a very low flame, and then aged in a series of progressively smaller barrels to pick up sap from the wood. Its an expensive process. Cheap knock-offs do not belong in fine cuisine, any more than American cheese does.
10. Do not overdress plates! Exhibit restraint! Often, chefs will get high on their own farts and want to put 25 components on a plate. For certain chefs (Achatz, Gagnaire), that is a component of their style, and it works, and they have the stars to prove it. But for most, it makes for a confusing mess and your line cooks will hate you. Remember what Coco Chanel said. Before you go to a party, look in the mirror and take one thing off! Every element on a dish should positively need to be there.

Okay, I'm getting off my soap box.

The New Skills

The New Skills- Breakfast Noodles

Okay, so I had an idea. My job is boring. I mean, like, the most interesting thing I've done at work for the last couple of weeks is tighten up employee evaluation policy. I'm not complaining, its good work, and it needs doing, but my creative muscles are atrophying. My solution? Embark on an insane project. My insane project is that in the next calendar year, I will learn one new dish a week, and write it up here. 

These dishes are going to come from everywhere. I read lots of food periodicals, and constantly skim cookbooks. I have friends that cook, and there are a certain number of dishes I have always wanted to try, and just never had a reason.

This is the first installment.

The Dish: Yunnan Breakfast Noodles (Chinese: mi xian, or mi gan, “depending on the type of noodles used,” more on why that means nothing to me later)

The Source: Saveur #187 (2017)

Cultural Overview: This dish is a normal breakfast item in Yunnan provence, Southwestern China, a mountainous region bordering on Laos and Burma. It was presented in the context of being a dish that tea-gatherers snacked on before sallying out into the hills to harvest poo-erh, which is some trendy aged tea. Don't care about tea.

Technical Overview: This dish is all about assembly. The base dish is simply rice noodles, simmered and served in a rich but mild porky broth. It is white on white, and is bland and neutral by design. The fun comes in when you add all the condiments, of which there are many. The article had quite a list of condiments, which I faithfully recreated, and it was a totally rewarding experience. I am not normally a fan of the aesthetic of “build-your-own,” but this was just calling my name.

Step 1: Procurement

I got every single component for this dish at the incredible H&L Supermarket on Rivers Ave, which is the greater Charleston region's finest Asian market. In fact, it is the best specialty grocery in the region. I spent $66, which is hard to do, but my pantry is swollen with weird, spicy goodies. The only snag I hit was the noodles. The recipe called for fresh rice noodles, which are unattainable. I just grabbed a bag of rice noodles that looked like it was going to be close enough, and then when I opened it, I saw that the noodles weren't the translucent white pappardelle I was expecting. Instead, they were ragged, all different shapes and sizes. The only English words on the package were “Rice Slice,” slice of what, I couldn't say. They looked weird, but they cooked up just fine.

Step 2: Broth (3 hours duration/5 minutes work time)

The dish calls for white pork stock. It called for 5# pork bones, covered with 18 cups of water, and cooked down to 8 cups. I used 2.5# pork feet, three quarters of a pound of ground pork, and about half a pound of cracklings I had in my freezer. Add cold water to cover, simmer three hours. It yielded a nicely gelatinous broth. At first, I was a bit concerned, because the cracklings I was using quickly bled off a very deep-fried kind of aroma, and it was all the broth tasted of. However, over time, that blew off and what was left was really intense porky goodness. The broth was seasoned only with a pinch of salt.

Note: A problem with recipes. As said before, the recipe called for 18 cups of stock cooked down to 8. The recipe reads “Simmer until broth is flavorful and reduced, about three hours. Strain through a fine meshed strainer and discard the solids. You should have 8 cups broth.” Nothing at all on what to do if you don't have 8 cups broth, but the yield is important. My broth cooked down to a quart. I let it out with water. A home cook may not realize how easily fixed that problem is. Shitty copy-editing. Then again, this is why when I write a recipe, its goddamn three pages long. So maybe I'm wrong.

Step 3: The Meats (20 minutes)

The recipe called for 2 kinds of meat, ground pork and pork loin. It had you simmer the meats in water, which then had the noodles cooked in it. This has the effect of giving the noodles some porky flavor, but simmering is a needlessly messy and time-consuming way of cooking ground pork. I wish I had just sauteed it. Instead of pork loin, I used belly, which I simmered for 3 minutes and then dressed in doubanjiang, which is a fermented chile-bean paste used in Sichuan cooking. (I had some on hand, as part of my emergency ma-po tofu kit.)

Step 4: The Garni (20 minutes)

Building the garnish tray was fun. The challenge for most cooks will be finding enough ramekins to attractively present the spread, but my mom compulsively shops at Crate and Barrel, so every Christmas I get more ceramic knick-knacks. I never want for ramekins. The garni were:

Black Vinegar (Chinese rice vinegar, aged, kind of like cheap, ghetto balsamic)

Chile Oil (another Asian market product, just a bright red, mildly spicy oil)

Sambal (not exactly Chinese, but I'm sure they have an analogue)

Mint (lots of it)

Garlic Chives (Asian market)

Pickled Mustard Greens (Asian market, surprisingly mild, provided a great textural note)

Pickled Red Chiles (I found a brand at the Asian market that look like bird chiles, but are not nearly so hot)

Scallions

Sesame Seeds

Kosher Salt

MSG

Step 5: The finish: Rewarm the meats and set them next to the garnish tray. Simmer the noodles in the pork broth (or in the pork cooking liquid, if you followed the convoluted and unnecessary step of simmering the pork in separate liquid), and ladel them into bowls, along with a healthy slosh of the broth. Take a look at your creation, and marvel at its bland, blank, whiteness. Then, hit the condiment tray and go crazy! The broth ends up seasoned almost like hot and sour soup, the mustard greens provided a great texture and sauerkraut-like flavor, and the mint was the difference maker. Just terrific. I love this dish, and am making it again tomorrow with all the leftover prep I still have.

                                                         before.

                                                                       AFTER!!!

Beverage Pairing: Goose Island Pre-Season Lager, cause why not, and also cause Go Cubs.

Why I Love This Dish: This is what I wanted pho to be. I love pho, don't get me wrong, but I am stressed out by the garnish tray. I mean, first off, who needs the cup and a half of bean sprouts they always give you. Also, the broth is so good on its own, why do I need hoisin and Sriracha? Also, isn't Sriracha Thai anyway? What am I supposed to do?

I'm always torn. I like the broth basically unadorned, with its subtle, meaty, spice character taking the lead (although I will sneak in a slice of jalapeno). But if I'm given condiments, I want to use them, and so I'm tempted to load in the lime, basil, hot sauce, and sprouts. But then the pho no longer tastes like meat and anise, it tastes like lime, basil, hot sauce, and sprouts. (My proclivities were vindicated by an article on pho that I read in the Lucky Peach pho issue. Apparently, pho was a Hanoi dish, and then, when Hanoi fell on hard times, the cooks fled south to Saigon. Once there, they didn't have access to the meat that was necessary to make a great broth, so they started covering up with chiles and herbs and shit. Prosperity returned, but the garnish tray never went away.)

But this dish makes it easy. The only ingredients in the base noodles are pork bones, water, rice, and salt. Its a no-brainer that it needs to be dressed up. There is no stress, and no guilt, about going for the gusto.

Professional application: This would be hard. You could dress the noodles up for them, but the fun of the dish is in the customization. Yet there are so many garni, that to do this a la carte would be too expensive, and time- and space-consuming. I suppose you could do it if it was your main dish. You could have a garnish bar set up like a salad bar. Or, it could be something you sold to a whole table. It would be a tough sell, though.

Final thought: The main thing this dish reminded me of was Hot Mustard, the crappy Chinese delivery that I live off of a lot of the time. It is a prototypical ghetto Chinese restaurant, and their fried stuff and rib tips are sublime, but their stir-fries and soups are always bland and awful. They are really cheap and fast, though, so I order it all the time anyway. I keep a pretty good pantry, so I am ready to dress up the offerings as needed. This dish was that, except by design, instead of being due to wild, mind-bending kitchen incompetence.

No offense, Hot Mustard. I want you to know I still love you!

About the Author

                                                                  (Not the author...)

To tell you the story of the genesis of this blog, I have to tell you about Sarah. To tell you about Sarah, I need to tell you a little about myself.

        My name is Jesse Sutton, and I am a chef in Charleston, SC. I initially started cooking because my then-girlfriend, Christine, wouldn't loan me twenty bucks. I was a waste of space, I had no job, and I asked her to spot me some cash. That day, her roommate was hanging out with the KM of a local dive bar, and he intervened, as I was being berated, with the offer of a job, despite my total lack of credentials. Fast-forward 19 years, and I have cooked in diners, red-sauce Italian joints, 5-star hotels, and once did a 6-month apprenticeship with a Michelin 3-Star badass.

        I got my first (and to date, only) executive chef job at age 33. It was a wine bar with a wood fired pizza oven. My job was to make food that was elegant enough to go with their serious wine program (for instance, they had a 5-year vertical of Vega Sicilia Unico) but also bring in a Charleston bar crowd. It was irritating, trying to get large crowds of smoking hot 23-year-old chicks (less exciting than you would think) to get into serious food and wine, but I loved it. I gave that place everything I had and then some. It didn't last (more on that later), but I went down swinging.

        Before that, I worked at the badly misunderstood and never lucrative Tristan, right hand man to the intense, talented, and taciturn Nate Whiting. His food was beyond impressive. We got great reviews, and why we didn't make great money is something I'm not gonna touch right now. But it was during my time of playing Leo McGarry to his President Bartlet that I met Sarah.

        We needed a cook, and I saw that one applicant was from Louisiana, where I spent some time. Her resume wasn't all that well put-together, but it included a run at Bayona, where my wife worked post-Katrina. Susan Spicer is a really respectable chef, but more than that, she is a goddamn hardass, so I knew that this girl was at least worth talking to. I gave her a call. She was quiet and reserved on the phone, with a thick small-town Louisiana accent, and I didn't get much of an impression. We set up a stage for the following Tuesday.

That Monday, Nate was off so I was running the show. It was slow as balls, so when I saw Sarah's name on the reservation book, it jumped out. The girl was coming in for dinner the day before a stage. Very, very smart. Good sign. When she showed up (as part of a deuce, dining with a friend), I asked the hostess which one was Sarah.

“The pretty one!” the hostess replied.

        Sure enough, Sarah was a doll. Small, slightly built, pale skin and gorgeous dark hair, and a 1000 watt smile. Damn.  I hadn't counted on that. I used to get nervous talking to pretty girls. (Dealing with the wait staff at the wine bar cured me of that. All girls, all lookers! Our pastry chef called it 'the Hooters of wine.')

I went up to the table and introduced myself. I apoligized for Nate's absence, and asked if we could cook for them. I remember saying something about how we would see what she was all about the next day, so now was time for us to show her what we are all about. I don't rememer the wording, but it was a good line. To be honest, the real reason I went above and beyond was that Tristan didn't pay very well, and we really needed people, so I wanted to put our best food forward.

We cooked for them, she had a great time, total success. Even better was that she turned out to be an absolute sweet heart. Ken, the manager, said “She's never gonna make it. Way too pretty, way too nice.”

I went and saw them again at the end and she said,

“Now I'm terrified. That was the best food I ever had and now I'm so scared.”

“Don't be scared, be excited,” I replied. She took that advice to heart.

        The next day I was out fishing, and I got a call from Nate. He said “Dude, this girl you cooked for is awesome, I really want to hire her. Do you mind if I just do it?”

        I reminded him that he was the executive chef, and could do whatever, but that I appreciated him asking. And so little Sarah joined the team. She was very green, but wanted to learn so bad. And she had an ingenuity to her that belied her short-ass resume. One day, she was blanching asparagus, and she had them all laid out all over her cutting board. I asked what she was doing, and she said she was putting all the fat ones together, all the medium ones, and all the skinny ones, for even cooking. She did this without being told. It was a remarkable moment.

Sarah and I bonded almost instantly. I saw a little of twenty-year-old me in her, with the insatiable curiosity and analytical mind. But she was like a better version of twenty-me, because she lacked the arrogance, the swagger, and the devotion to partying above all other things. She had a fresh enthusiasm about her craft that was (and is) a constant source of inspiration to me, up until this day. During my last year at Tristan, I put a lot of energy into her. Nate and I loved her like a baby sister. I taught her as much as I could, and my wife and I befriended her on a personal level. I took her fishing, I took her to interesting restaurants (including her first tapas bar, which her stodgy and conservative father misheard as topless bar, leading to an awkward but hilarious conversation), we made family dinner together on holidays.

        When I left Tristan to take over the wine bar, she became my biggest fan. She would walk over after her shift (the restaurants were neighbors), sit at the bar, and try new dishes. She would accompany me to events when I didn't have enough help. She ran the kitchen for our staff holiday party. One of our bartenders fell in love with her, and was absolutely CRUSHED when I revealed her sexual orientation, and thus, his lack of a chance. (Oh, yeah, Sarah is gay, btw.) I offered her a sous-chef job something like 150 times.

        Sarah took to Tristan like a fish to water, but sadly, didn't do the same to Charleston. Her time here was marked by traumatic personal-life issues, and she was deeply lonely. She had moved to town following the dissolution of a relationship, and she never fully recovered from that. I tried as best as I could to be a good big brother to her, but there were wounds I could not heal.

        The situation was, she wanted her old girlfriend back. At first, I thought this was insane. I am of the opinion that when relationships end, its usually for a reason. And besides, they no longer lived in the same state. Well, long story short, the more I heard about the situation, the more I began to realize that she may have ended the relationship for the wrong reasons. And little by little, they started to thaw the ice. First, they texted. Then there were little weekend trips. Eventually, they were back together, and are to this day. I was over the moon to see the veil of melancholy leave my young friend, but I also knew this meant a very real chance of her moving away.

         Rachel, for that is her girlfriend's name, was planning to go to grad school. Her choices were U of South Carolina (two hours away in Columbia) or LSU (16 hours away in Baton Rouge). The plan was, if she went to USC, that they would live in Charleston, and she would commute (brutal but technically possible). However, unfortunately for me, LSU won out, which meant little Sarah was moving away. I was crushed.

        Don't get me wrong, I was, and am, absolutely overjoyed that she is in a committed relationship with a girl who is smart, pretty, funny, talented, and amazingly nerdy. (I'm a sucker for nerdy girls.) But I was losing my fishing buddy, protege, little sister, and source of endless inspiration. Who was I going to have gumbo contests on Fat Tuesday with now? There was going to be a void in my life and I needed to make sure we stayed in contact.

        That's where this blog came in. It was a medium for us to remain connected. A place where we could share ideas, learn together, challenge each other. We did it for about three years. I don't know why we let it die. I think partially it was Sarah's move away from the culinary world. There wasn't much in the way of good hospitality work in Thibodaux, LA, and besides, she needed to be a bread winner, due to Rachel's grad school. So she got a corporate yet blue collar job (she drives a forklift at a hardware store) and doesn't cook anymore. Which is a shame, because her experience never had a chance to catch up with her natural talent. I still fantasize about her getting back into the game, but I respect her choice. As for the two of them, they bought a house, they are doing great. They are my family and I love them. But that is how I came to have a defunct food blog, named after the chef-aliens from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

        Meanwhile, my job status was also changing. The wine bar was a labor of love, but the space was too large and too high-rent to actually turn a decent profit. There was no day-time business whatsoever, and a shift in neighborhood demographics had curtailed our late-night business most nights. The place had limited daylight appeal. It was too dark, too clubby. The space needed to be busy for lunch and dinner every day in order to pull the kind of numbers we had to pull, so the owner (who also loved that place like a baby) pulled the plug.

        I kept my job in the company. They converted it into a barbecue restaurant, that I am perfectly proud of. I don't write the menu, but I develop recipes, and my job description hovers in that gray area between prep chef and systems analyst. I like the people I work with, and I have to say, the amount of success we have had is terrific. We just finished our first year and we are dominating the wine bar's numbers, which was a bitter pill to swallow at first, but it would be petty of me to complain about success, so I got over it.

        The problem is, I like making food. I like writing menus, I like technical challenges. Every once and a while, I get to fine-tune a recipe, but for the most part, my job doesn't include much actual cooking. I have always enjoyed food writing, but never taken it particularly seriously. I was banging my head on how I could get some ideas out, and I remembered this blog. I got Sarah's permission to change the direction a bit, and thus, The Dentrassi is reborn.

The name, by the way, referrs to the aliens in Hitchhiker's Guide that are chefs to the evil Vogons.

“The Dentrassi...let us on board.”

“Who are the Dentrassi?”

“THE best cooks, and THE best drinks mixers, and they don't give a wet slap about anything else.”

Beer on the Mind

Hey Jesse! Here is a few ideas for a menu I am working on. It isn't a complete menu by any means but I know with a little guidance from you it is a great first step. The beers listed are made by Bill Mungai who is a home brewer in LC.

Snack: Charcuterie
          Serrano ham, mortadella, corned beef, pastrami w/ whole grain mustard, cornichons, garlic                 aioli, spent grain flat bread or crackers
Pairing: Dry Stout, 4.7% ABV

Snack: Spicy Jerk Wings
         Jerk seasoned grilled wings w/ molasses lime sauce
Pairing: Pilsner Shade Tree, 4.5% ABV

App: Duck Confit
         Black pepper crepe, mushroom, spinach, onion & Dubbel Blueberry Sauce
Pairing: 500 Dubbel, 7.3% ABV

Salad: Chop Salad
          Romaine, blue cheese, bacon, eggs, cucumber, avocado, tomato w/ citrus vin.
Pairing: Kolsch, 5.6% ABV

Sandwich: Classic Reuben
         Spent Grain Rye Bread, 1000 island, Sauerkraut, corned beef (would love to use tongue but I              think it would scare LC people), swiss cheese
Pairing: 500 Dubbel, 7.3% ABV

Burger: Loaded Burger
         Brioche bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, gruyere cheese, Dusseldorf mustard
Pairing: Altbier Dusseldorf, 5.2% ABV

Pizza or Pasta: Carbonara
         Spent grain pizza dough w/ parm sauce, bacon, garlic, parsley, mozz, and sunny side up egg

or

         Spaghetti, pork belly, egg, parm, olive oil, black pepper, parsley
Pairing: 80/- Scottish, 6.1% ABV


Main: Roasted Prime Rib
         Prime rib roasted w/ herbs, spices, & coffee, gouda mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, Quad demi
Pairing: Quad, 11.5% ABV

Dessert: Brie Apple Pie
         Brie crust apple pie w/ vanilla ice cream and Kolsch caramel sauce
Pairing: Kolsch, 5.6% ABV

Miss you and hope to hear from you soon!

Louisiana Lessons

Ok, so I have a co-worker named Andy.  His nicknames are Eye-Candy Andy and Sexual Harassment Panda.  Anyway, he is interested in Louisiana cuisine, so I have been showing him a few dishes during down time.  I promised to teach him a new Louisiana dish every week till the end of the year.  This is great for me, too, because I need a refresher, and it helps you tighten technique to teach it to someone else.

First we did Etoufee.  In this case, we used shrimp, because that's what we had access to.  This allowed me to show the brown roux technique (along with my secret hack trick, which I will not state here, but it rhymes with Bitchin' Croquet).  So many cajun and creole stews use this formula, I had to say 'To be honest, it can be hard to say where etoufee stops and gumbo starts.'  It came out really nice.

Next up, we tackled Blackened Fish.  Our blackening seasoning wasn't totally authentic, just because I don't keep that many dry herbs and spices on hand, but we faked it nicely.  Smoked paprika, salt, sugar, pepper, cayenne, and oregano.  The sugar is a controversial ingredient, but I like it.  It just burns black, but it helps the crust really stick on and gives it a bitter edge that really accentuates the sear and plays well with the heat.  To complete the dish, we did Brabant Potatoes (another NOLA original), and Hot-Sauce-Honey-Butter, which is cliche, but also delicious.  The fish we used was flounder, which I acknowledge is not the authentic choice, but its what we had.

Lastly, this sloppy mess is Barbecue Shrimp, in the style of Pascal's Manale on Napoleon.  Really came out amazing.  I never understood why it is called Barbecue Shrimp, but New Orleans cuisine has always had things with really odd, esoteric names, so why not?  Are you familiar with this one?  I sort of reverse-engineered the dish, using a couple of online recipes and my personal experiences.  You should try it.  You need:

Half a pound of head-on shrimp
Olive Oil
2 lemons, cut into wedges
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 branches of rosemary, chopped
1 beer
1 T. worcestershire
1 stick butter, diced
Salt, black pepper, cayenne, parsley
Toasted French Bread

Heat the olive oil in a skillet.
Add the lemons and let them caramelize a little bit.  This will spit and fuss, but the depth it gives to the broth is outstanding.
Drop in the garlic and rosemary, shaking the pan well.
A blast of aroma should hit you in the face.
At this point, drop in the shrimp, deglaze with the worcestershire and half of the beer, and season heavily with the salt and 2 peppers.
Slam the rest of the beer for me, boo.  Or share it with an attractive young librarian and try to get her into a festive temperament.  And remember, beer comes in six-packs, so you can apply more if necessary (for the librarian, not the shrimp.)
Swirl in the butter and check seasoning.  Sprinkle parsley over.  This is window-dressing only, but its a pretty ugly dish, so it needs help.

The way you eat a shrimp is to peel it (still hot and totally greasy, do not wear white for this one), dip the tail meat into the spicy buttery beer jus (holding it by the head), and then eat it in one bite, slurping at the head juices.  Then dip some bread into the jus, soak it up and consume.

This might be the best way in the universe to eat shrimp.

Carving of the Fruit

My outlet at work is the fruit display and so far watching YouTube videos while I eat breakfast has served me very well. At first it was hard for me to see what I wanted to carve by just looking at the fruit. I had to see someone else do it first VIA YouTube before I could understand it. I am slowly getting better at visualizing and kinda doing my own thing based on the fruit I have available to me. I hope to be able to manipulate colors soon. Honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon especially because if I can use the three colors they naturally possess to my advantage then the only limitation is my imagination! X D