June 2008 Archives

There's a McDonald's across the street from Hitachi Data Systems' European Education Center here in Waardenburg, NL. OK, I know most of yomu regard it to be an abomination to eat at the Plastic Arches while in Europe, but it's either that or the company cafeteria (we're in an industrial park).

I go up to the counter and order "Menu 2" which is the Quarter Pounder Value meal. (And no, unlike the French and "Pulp Fiction," the Dutch call it a "Quarter Pounder." The assistant manager rings me up (€ 5.50), and says something foreign to me, in English:

"We are cooking your Quarter Pounder, please have a seat and we will bring it to you."

whoa :-)

Family cooking can be a challenge when there are small children in the house. Adult tastes and kid tastes can be so totally different. Here in New Orleans, the challenge can be even greater, because our Creole dishes can be complex and unappealing to kids. With that in mind, here are some tips for cooking with kids:

1. Creole seasoning is your friend. Not a lot, but just a bit can start kids on their way to appreciating spicy food. Try baked/broiled chicken where you sprinkle just a bit of creole seasoning on the pieces before putting them in the oven. They'll come out with a bit of a crust, and cooking with a bit of salt helps cut back on a diner's craving to put more on at the table.

2. Cook easily-assembled foods. Bagel pizzas and quesadillas are great possibilities. Even if you make tacos with one of those everything-in-a-box kits, the kids can help. Individual pizzas using bagels or english muffins as a "crust" can be tailored to each member of the household. Same for quesadillas or fajitas. There are no rules for toppings and content, everyone gets what they want!

3. Use wine when cooking for kids. Try this--slice boneless, skinless chicken breasts into tender-size pieces. Sprinkle both sides of tenders with creole seasoning and saute in a bit of olive oil until brown, just a couple of minutes per side. Put them in a glass baking dish. De-glaze the saute pan with a bit of white wine and pour the wine/drippings back onto the tenders. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F. You get chicken tenders with a much more complex flavor. The alcohol in the wine evaporates while in the saute pan, leaving the flavor and enabling you to cut back on the salt you use.

4. Make it fast! There are a lot of easy alternatives to cooking from scratch that don't involve a lot of work. Buy some pre-cooked chicken tenders. Warm them in a pan and add a bit of white wine, heavy cream, and white seedless grapes. Serve over pasta. Don't put the sauce on the kids' plates. Instead of microwaved chicken, you now have a creative meal!

5. Serve your food to the kids. Take a look at my Chicken Bonne Femme. OK, kids aren't going to get into the sauce, with the onions, mushrooms, diced ham and wine, but they will get into fried potatoes, chicken, and bacon! Go ahead and cook for YOUR palate and dumb down the meal a bit for the kids. Creole cooking is great for this, because the recipes add complex sauces to otherwise simple dishes. Cook crawfish in a cream sauce for you, but pull some of the mudbug tails out before adding them to the sauce. Dust them in a bit of flour, saute, and you get popcorn crawfish!

If you follow the principle of refusing to eat what YOU like, you can let your imagination run wild with ways to accomodate the kids.

And it'll be fun!

"The Good Wife's Chicken" has a number of names. The base dish has been around since antebellum days. Local restaurants have created their own variations on the dish, such as Chicken Clemenceau at Antoine's or Tujague's, or Chicken Pontalba at Brennan's.

I did a podcast on Chicken Bonne Femme back in 2005, but didn't accompany it with any photos at that time. My firstborn, home for the summer from the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been regularly requesting that I cook classic Creole dishes for the family, since he doesn't get much of that in Atlanta.

The Ingredients:



(Full recipe is at the bottom.) The classic recipe calls for two whole chickens, cut up. When I make this dish for just wife and I, that's how I do it. She'll eat the white meat pieces, I'll go for the dark. The boys complicate this, though, because they're also white meat people. For this meal, I went with "chicken breast tenders." Zuppardo's Supermarket sells not only boneless, skinless chicken breasts, but they also cut them up into tender-sized pieces. This has some pluses and minuses. On the plus side, there's less fat in the dish this way, but that fat is also part of the flavoring. I also cheated by using diced-up ham, the kind you buy for omlettes and such. That helped speed things up in cooking.



The starch in Chicken Bonne Femme is fried potatoes. We call them Brabant Potatoes when served as a side course. The usual way to cook the potatoes is to cube and deep-fry them. Rather than deep-frying in vegetable oil, I usually convection-bake the potatoes in a bit of olive oil. This way, I don't have to pull out my deep-fryer, which makes the house smell like a fast-food restaurant for a day or two.




Cut up bacon into small pieces and fry. When cooked, remove bacon and reserve the fat for cooking the chicken.



Lightly dust the chicken with flour and fry in the bacon fat. I usually add a bit of ground thyme and creole seasoning to the flour.



Saute the onions and green onions until they are translucent. Add the ham, mushrooms, Tabasco, worcestershire and wine. Simmer for a few minutes. Once the mushrooms are cooked, add the potatoes. Sauce is ready to serve when the potatoes absorb the liquid.

Melt the stick of butter in a saucepan. Remove from heat, skim off foam, and add chopped or pressed garlic.

To serve, spoon some of the sauce onto a plate, Place the chicken on top of sauce, then drizzle garlic butter over chicken. Top with bacon crumbles:



Some variations of the dish will call for placing toast or a Holland rusk on the plate first, then the sauce. This helps absorb some of the sauce if the dish is a bit runny.

Congratulations, you've cooked Creole!

The formal recipe:

Ingredients

4 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch squares
2 chickens, about 3 1/2 lbs., quartered
2 Tbs. flour
1/2 cup ham, cut into tiny dice
1 cups chopped green onion tops
1 cup chopped yellow onion
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
1 cup dry white wine
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. Tabasco
2 lbs. white potatoes, peeled and diced
Vegetable oil for frying
1 stick butter
8 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Fry the bacon in a large skillet until crisp, then remove. Drain excess fat, leaving about a teaspoon.
2. Dust (don't dredge) chicken quarters lightly with flour. Raise the heat to high and brown the chicken pieces on all sides. Remove the chicken pieces and keep warm.
3. In the same pan saute the ham, green onions, and yellow onions until the latter turn translucent. Add mushrooms, wine, Worcestershire, and Tabasco, and bring it up to a boil. After a minute, lower to a simmer.
4. In a separate skillet, fry the potatoes in 390-degree oil until very lightly browned. Drain them well and add to the ham, onions, etc. (The bonne femme garnish.)
5. Continue simmering sauce until all of the liquid is absorbed; lightly stir to distribute ingredients. Remove from heat.
6. Heat the butter in a small saucepan until it starts bubbling. Lower the heat, skim the foam off, and add the garlic. Cook the garlic in the hot butter for about a minute.
7. Put the chicken pieces in a broiling pan. Spoon the bonne femme garnish over and between the chicken pieces. Spoon the garlic butter over and salt and pepper the lot. Crumble the bacon over the top.
8. Put the pan into a preheated 400-degree oven and cook for 7-12 minutes. Turn the pieces, redistribute the sauce, and bake for another 5-7 minutes. If the white meat is cooked, remove it from the pan and keep warm. Continue cooking the leg quarters until the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced. Return the breasts to the mixture, and serve with lots of the garnish. Serves four.

I can't think of a better place for us to have an evening Tweetup than NOLA:

ABITA DINNER SERIES 2008

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

NOLA Restaurant

534 Saint Louis St.

New Orleans, Louisiana 70130

(504) 522-6652 for reservations

$70 all inclusive (dinner, beer, tax & gratuity)

Beer Tales: 6:30pm

Seating: 7:00pm

Full details on the Abita Website.

What say you, tweeple?