The ComplEAT Kitchen

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On Sunday there is always this free newsletter , The ComplEAT Kitchen, about what is going on in my food and drink world, at SoFAB, at the SoFAB Research Center at Nunez Community College, and out in the world. Tip of the Tongue, my podcast, appears on Monday. This Monday I air the interview with Lisa Steele about her new ccokbook In Season. And one or two more print issues appear during the week for paid subscribers.

Cooking: Today I made our house Carob bars and our house brown bread. Since returning home from our trip, I have been relying on bought bread to get us through because I have been trying to catch up after putting all work on the back burner for 19 days. Whew.

This week I have an article due for Louisiana Life magazine, 2 demonstrations at various Jefferson Parish libraries, dinner one evening with friends, and a very good friend who is leaving town. She is someone I will miss very much. Next week is Rick’s birthday, so I have to prepare for that. And the last week of the month our granddaughters are coming to visit.

Coming up in August will be Rick’s birthday and my younger granddaughter’s birthday. I am planning on resurrecting my Baba au rhum recipe. I’ll make the cake with yeast and perhaps agua faba to keep it vegan. Instead of rum, I can use rum extract and applejuice. Or maybe I will make a chocolate icing, split the cake into layers and ice it. It is a nice stable cake made with yeast, so it is vegan.

And I have decided to make Creole Remoulade Sauce as the demonstration dish for the library. I will bring some jarred sauce for people to compare to the homemade sauce. People can try it on a cracker. Of course, it is great for shrimp, but also chicken salad, and other salads. It would make a great pasta salad, especially if we amped up the flavor.

Creole Remoulade Sauce

*1 egg

*2 tablespoons Creole mustard

*1 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons pickles, chopped

2 tablespoons parsley, minced

Zest of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons hot sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

1 tablespoon Creole seasoning (without salt)

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1. Place the egg and mustard into a bowl and whip the 2 together. Then begin adding the oil, beginning with about a tablespoon. Begin steadily whisking the mixture. When incorporated add about a tablespoon more and continue whisking. Keep doing this until all of the oil is incorporated. (This is the mayonnaise base or use prepared mayonnaise.)

2. Add the pickles, parsley, and zest. Continue whisking. Add the hot sauce and lemon juice. Keep whisking to incorporate the ingredients. Don’t worry if the liquid loosens the sauce, just keep whisking. Add the horseradish, Creole seasoning, and the paprika. Taste.

3. The pickles, mustard, hot sauce, and horseradish will be salty. Don’t add salt without tasting first. Add pepper and salt, if necessary. If the mixture needs more spice, add more Creole seasoning. (This is why you should use seasoning mixes without salt, because if you need more seasoning you aren’t inadvertently adding more salt.)

*Or 1 cup mayonnaise instead of making it yourself

Watching: I continue to really enjoy watching Ina Garten cook. She seems relaxed and communicates the desire to give he guests a delicious meal. Every time I watch her, I want to give a dinner party. Right now, I am going to a friend’s house for dinner, so I am thinking about what sort of gift I should be bringing her. I may have to bake a loaf of bread.

I na Garten’s newest book

Gardening: I have gotten to know my squirrels all over again now that I am back, looking out my window as I work. Today we ate a mango, so the peeling and the core went to the grass under the squirrels’ tree and the male came down, after lots of cautious false starts, and held the core in his paws and tasted. Finally he figured out how to get the core up the tree and it disappeared.

I really need to get back into the swing of the garden, but have been holding back beyond maintenance, because we still the house on the market. I don’t want to invest too much time into the garden, if I am going to leave it. And the hummingbirds are back in the garden. I have to see about getting the feeders in shipshape again. There are lots of blossoms that the hummingbirds are feeding from, so I am not worried that they will starve.I have shallow water bowls for them and the other small birds and even the bees.

Dining: Not only will be grandchildren be staying here and, of course eating here, but we are having a few friends over as the summer comes to a close. I am thinking about that meal, and will share some ideas next week. It may involve Creole Remoulade Sauce since I will be making some this week.

News from the Nunez Culinary Research Center: Some of you may remember Phil Johnson, who was the assistant manager of WWL-TV in New Orleans, and veteran journalist, who was a catalyst behind the Chefs Charity which raised funds for St. Michael’s Special School in New Orleans. Johnson was a Nieman Fellow of Harvard University and a well-respected home chef. He compiled and edited a book, New Orleans Chefs Cookbook, in 1988.

To quote Phil Johnson, “The idea for the Chefs’ Charity came from Warren Leruth, founder of the fabled LeRuth’s Restaurant in New Orleans.” Johnson was able to attract many out-of-town chefs to participate, such as Jacques Pepin, Pierre Franey of the New York Times, Merle Ellis, also known as The Butcher, Pete Fountain – New Orleans clarinetist, and movie star Jane Powell. Each chef demonstrated a dish, which was made in quantity by the staff of the venue where the event was held. Wine distributors donated wines.

The book contains a short biography of participating chefs along with several recipes shared by the chefs. These notable chefs include Jean Luc Albin who was Chef de Cuisine at the Fairmont Hotel (now the Roosevelt), Willy Coln, who was the Executive Chef at the Royal Sonesta Hotel and later chef at his own west bank restaurant, Louis Evans who was the chef at the Caribbean Room of the Pontchartrain Hotel and later the Executive Chef of Kabby’s at the Hilton Riverside, Warren Leruth, the founder of LeRuth’s Restaurant, and Gunter Preuss, of his own restaurant, The Versailles. This column is too short to name all of the chefs who contributed to the book.

Chef Mike Rousell, Executive Chef at Brennan’s, contributed his seafood gumbo recipe to the book:

Seafood Gumbo

Serves 6 to 8

1 ¼ cups vegetable oil

1 large white onion, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

5 to 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

4 sprigs fresh parsley finely chopped

2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce

1 8-ounce can whole tomatoes, mashed

3 ounces Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce

4 pounds fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 hard-shell crabs, boiled and broken in half

1 ½ pounds fresh okra, cut up (or 2 packages frozen cut okra)

2 bay leaves, broken up

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

½ pound lump crabmeat

Put the oil in a heavy 6-quart aluminum pot. Add all the chopped vegetables except the okra and simmer over medium heat until the vegetables begin to get soft. Add the tomato sauce and the mashed whole tomatoes and simmer for a few minutes more. Then add the water, shrimp, crabs, okra, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and Lea & Perrins. Stir gently to mix. Cover and cook over low heat until the shrimp and okra are tender. Turn off the heat and leave the gumbo in the pot, covered. When you are ready to serve, turn the heat on low and add the lump crabmeat. Heat just until the gumbo and crabmeat are warmed through. Serve over boiled rice.

If you or relatives or friends have cookbooks, pamphlets, old menus, or other remnants of our food culture, please consider donating those things to the Nunez Culinary Research Center when you clean house or do a purge. Our goal is to amass the largest and best culinary research center in the country right here in St. Bernard Parish. Help us grow this unique resource in St. Bernard Parish.

I have good news, we have completed Phase One of the installation of the Randall Abney Family and Community Cookbook Collection. The entire collection of almost 2000 family and community cookbooks has been entered into a special data base. The books are often bound in ways that make them difficult to put on a shelf as well as more fragile than a mor conventionally bound book, so instead of putting them on the shelves, they are in a special part of the library in special boxes. They are organized by state.

And this week we begin Phase Two of the organization of the collection, which will number the boxes and label the which book goes in which box. All of that information will be added to the database. This collection continues to grow, so with out new organization, a new book can easily be added to the collection. We still have one state - Delaware - which is not represented in the collection. Please help us find a community cookbook from Delaware!!

Want to join us in the quest for excellence in a Culinary Research Center? Just get in touch with me and we’ll find a way for you to participate. Get in touch at lizwillia@gmail.com.