Recently in Creole Category
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.
We all have those nights where the world rushes by too fast for us to get overly creative and/or fancy in the kitchen. In our house, Tuesdays are usually "no-cook" night, because my son's boy scout troop meets at 7:30pm. Tomorrow evening, however, the Brother Martin High School Jazz Band (which counts my boy as its only 8th grade member, adds the proud dad) has its spring concert. Not wanting to go out twice on weeknights meant cooking last night.
OK, it's easy to cook something, but hey, this is New Orleans. If I can, I want to give family a classy meal.
Enter Mosca's Chicken Grande mix.
Mosca's Restaurant is located across the river, on US 90, where Westwego becomes Avondale. Legend has it that reputed mob boss Carlos Marcello took an interest in the culinary career of Provino Mosca in the 1940s after the war. Needing a place way off the beaten path where his business conversations would go unobserved by law enforcement, Marcello set up Mosca in business. Whether that's true or not really doesn't matter, because the Moscas know how to make Chicken a la Grande.
Nick Mosca's product line includes seasoning blends for both Chicken a la Grande and the other famous dish from the restaurant, Shrimp Mosca. Cooking the chicken is really simple, roast it in the right mix of white wine, olive oil, herbs and spices. The trick is the combinations, of course, and this product does a pretty good job of it.
The restaurant uses cut-up chicken pieces, but I cheated and used boned chicken breasts. They were on the large size, so I cut them up before cooking, browning them on each side in a bit of olive oil, then pour a bit of white wine over them to deglaze the pan:
Add the seasoning mix. The spices smell good right out of the jar:
If you're wondering where my most-awesome cast iron frying pan is, it sat this dinner out. I needed a pan with a solid cover for simmering:
Simmer the chicken for a while. Last night, it was over an hour before wife got home, so the smells of garlic and rosemary were everywhere. Look at the rosemary that comes up just from stirring the sauce:
Dinner! The yummy chicken, along with some angel hair pasta and Green Giant cauliflower with cheese sauce. Not much more work than a pan of Manwich, and infinitely better.
1lb lump crabmeat
1/2 pint heavy cream
1 cup white wine
3tbsp flour
yellow onion
green onion
garlic
creole seasoning
white pepper
salt
olive oil or butter for sauteeing
cheddar cheese
Usually a recipe such as this would call for the "holy trinity" of onion, celery, green pepper, but I made some veal with the trinity earlier in the week, so I went with just onion and green onion tonight.
Told ya, these portabello caps were nice! I sliced off the stems, chopped them, and tossed them into the mix.
Sautee the onions, green onion, and mushroom in a bit of olive oil. You can use butter here, but my contriubtion to limiting my development of clogged arteries is to go with olive oil.
Add a bit more butter or olive oil, then sprinkle the flour on top of the translucent onion. This is a quick-and-dirty roux, because we don't need the flour to brown since the finished product is essentially a white sauce.
While making the white sauce, I tossed the 'shrooms under the broiler for a couple of minutes
Add the wine and heavy cream to the onion/flour mixture, then fold in the crabmeat. Remove from the heat.
Taste the finished crabmeat filling for heat content. Add salt, creole seasoning, and white pepper to taste. Be careful with commercial creole seasoning--both Zatarain's and Tony Cachere's are high in salt. If you're sensitive to salt, make your own, or work with the components directly.
spoon the filling into the ramekins, or, in this case, the 'shroom cap.
cover 'em with cheese!
Now, this is why the people who work with my wife don't like me. I spooned some of the filling into a microwavable dish and then topped it with the cheese, which is what I did with the mushroom and the ramekin. Now she's got lunch for a day next week.
Bake in a 350F oven for 10 minutes to melt the cheese and re-heat the filling.
Wife didn't want the other 'shroom, so I chopped it up and sauteed it in some white wine. Add an ear of white corn and a Binder's pistolette, and eat!
The wine was a bit unusual for this dinner, a Moselle Riesling. It worked.
Chicken Rochambeau from Restaurant Antoine, the oldest operating restaurant in New Orleans.
The difference between "Creole" and "Cajun" food is something that confuses both locals and visitors to New Orleans. Here's a brief explanation of the differences.
The very short explanation is that Creole cooking is from the city and Cajun is from the country.
The term "creole" has its own history and controversy. The original "creoles" in New Orleans were the French and Spanish families that founded and grew the city in the 18th century. The French colony of Louisiana dates back to 1699, and Spanish interaction was natural once the port was established. By the 1780s, the French had sold Louisiana to the Spanish, which meant there was an even greater influx of Spaniiards to the city. When the sleight-of-hand deal that resulted in the US acquiring Louisiana took place, many of those Spaniards remained in the city.
It's at this point that there's a true distinction between Creoles and the rest of the world begins, because the Americans coming down from the Mississippi Valley, Tennessee, and Kentucky (the "cain-tocks") were so different from the European residents. The "Creoles" had their side of town, the down-river side of what would become Canal St., and the up-river side, Faubourg Ste. Marie, was the "American" side. Of course, the food of the creoles was much more interesting and tasty than most of what those of English and Irish descent cooked up. By the 1850s, several creole restaurants were becoming very well-known, such as Mme. Begue's, and Antoine Alciatore's place on Rue St. Louis.
Creole cooking is about taking a simple dish and using sauces and gravies to make it fancy. Take the dish in the photo above, Chicken Rochambeau. Place several slices of baked ham on a piece of toast. Cover it with "Rochambeau sauce," which is a beef stock and brown sugar sauce. (Some restaurants use Marchand de Vin sauce for the dish rather than outright copy Antoine's Rochambeau sauce.) Then cover that with severl slices of roasted chicken, or a grilled chicken breast. Top the chicken with Bernaise sauce and serve.
Now, think about the simple elegance of this, along with the practicality. You roast a chicken, and a ham. You can use both in a number of different ways. A family can make several meals out of them, and a restaurant can make a number of totally different dishes by simply serving them with different sauces.
Trout is another good example of how creole cuisine works. Take a nice-sized file of speckeled trout. You can grill it and serve it with a little butter and/or lemon. Or you can dust it with a little flour and pan-fry it. Take that same pan-fried filet and pour some brown-butter Meuniere sauce over it and you no longer have just fried fish, but Trout Meuniere. Roast some thinly-sliced almonds in the buttery sauce and you have Trout Almondine. If a restaurant's fish guy has a good run on trout for a couple of days, a regular diner could eat trout three days in a row and still be happy about it.
The Italians who moved to New Orleans picked up on this concept fast. We ate this evening at a suburban restaurant, TeCoRo's (short for the names of the three sisters who own the place). They are what we call a "Creole-Italian" restaurant. Their base menu consists of chicken, veal, and eggplant, served with one of three sauces: Plicato, cream, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and cheese, Piccata, which is lemon butter with capers, or Marinara. Simple to deal with in the kitchen, yet the variations and combinations are wide enough to make things interesting.
That's the essentials of Creole cooking in a nutshell, the simple made elegant.
Cajun food might well be called "peasant" cuisine in another culture. This is country cookin', because Cajuns were essentially just that, country folk. When the Acadiens came to South Louisiana, they didn't have much in common with the city folks, so they settled away from New Orleans. That separation, along with the much simpler life of farming, fishing, and hunting, helped them develop cuisine significantly different from the "cultured" tables of the European colony. Cajun cooking's staples are simple fried foods, soups, and stews. Gumbo and etouffee are good examples of cajun cuisine. Both are essentially single-pot (well, two, if you count the pot for boiling rice) dishes. Fried fish and chicken also are common elements of cajun cooking.
Shrimp versus crawfiish: The distinction is a lot less these days, because of commercial, domestic crawfish farms, but there was a time when creole cuisine was more about shrimp and crab and cajun food was about crawfish. Shrimp and crabs were readily available to the city from Lake Pontchartrain. Crawfish, however, are creatures of the swamp. We don't call them "mudbugs" for nothing! For generations, you couldn't get decent crawfish etouffee in the city--restaurants used shrimp. If you wanted good crawfish dishes, you had to go out to Acadiana and dine at a restaurant in Lafayette or Breaux Bridge.
"Blackened" anything: This type of cooking isn't cajun, strictly speaking. It's Paul Prudhomme's style. While Prudhomme is one of the most well-known cajun chefs, he created his own style and brand, and burning a blackened crust onto redfish or a steak is it. (Interesting side note: Prudhomme was executive chef at Commander's Palace in New Orleans before opening his own place, K-Paul's, in the Quarter. In the early 1980s, he got a huge break when St. Ronald of California invited him to be the chef for a G7 meeting hosted by the US at Williamsburg, VA. This propelled him into the spotlight. Upon leaving Commanders, Prudhomme's lead assistant took over the restaurant, a guy named Emeril.)
How do black folks fit into all of this? Unlike the rest of the south, where there was a huge distinction between "white" cuisine and "soul food," you really didn't see that big divide in New Orleans. That's because black folks did most of the cooking for everyone! The better-off creole families had black house staffs, and black cooks have staffed the better restaurants of the city for generations. There are some establishments (Dooky Chase, or the late, lamented Chez Helene to name two) where there is/was a more distinct black style than, say, an Antoine's or Galatoire's, but the differences are more subtle than glaring.
Cajun and Creole both began to merge and cross over in black households. Red beans and rice is a good example. It's essentially another single-pot dish, but black folks in the city would go beyond the basic ham or andouille sausage of the cajuns and serve fried chicken or pork chops cooked in a more creole style with their beans. It was black families that combined the elegance of creole with the low-budget eating of the country folk.
To say this is all a huge oversimplification is an understatement. I've left out the influences of the Germans, the Irish, Latinos, and Africans that all passed through the port of New Orleans. Still, you get the basic idea--the locals took ideas from all these cultures and mixed in what works for us. The Honduran who worked as a cook in a French Quarter restaurant might show the others on the line something his mama did, for example. Whatever it was might not make the Galatoire's menu, but the black guy who noted that dish/sauce/whatever, might use it when he leaves the Quarter and opened his own place. That's how it works, and that's what keeps our food constantly interesting and changing.
After all the weeks I've been away from home, one of the first things I did was make something uniquely New Orleans for dinner last Friday night. A lot of local places do a variant on crawfish pasta with a cream sauce, and I'm constantly experimenting with my own version. I told daysinger
The Basic Ingredients
In the photo, you see a pound of frozen crawfish tails, 1 cup heavy cream, Manda tasso, some pre-cut "Holy Trinity," and bow-tie pasta.
Getting Started
The "Holy Trinity" of Creole cooking is, of course, onions, green pepper, and celery. I cheated for this dinner and bought pre-chopped veggies. Now they're sauteeing in about 3tbsp of olive oil. Some folks use butter here, but I'm trying to be responsible. Of course, that's like drinking a diet coke with a big mac, given the cream sauce.
Tasso!
Tasso is smoked, spicy pork loin. It's VERY spicy, to the point that you really don't need a lot of additional pepper in a dish that includes tasso. Usually I'd sprinkle some creole seasoning on the sauteeing veggies, but here I just added a cup or so of diced tasso.
Making the sauce
When the onions get transparent, sprinkle 3tbsp of white flour over the top. This is the quick-and-dirty way to thicken a sauce. Since we're not looking for a dark roux here, we can get away with doing things more-or-less in reverse. When the veggie-tasso-oil-flour mix gets all thick and starts to ball up, add 1/2 cup of chicken (or fish) stock (I used chicken), and 1/2 cup of wine, stirring constantly. Continue to add stock and/or wine to thin the sauce out a bit more if necessary. To this, add the 1 cup of heavy cream, again stirring constantly. Simmer on low heat.
Shrooms...
Just to be a bit different this time, I added about a cup of sliced "baby bella" mushrooms.
Crawfish...
The crawfish are already cooked, so they go in last. Continue to simmer and cook the pasta.
Dinner!
When the pasta is al dente, drain and toss with the sauce. Serve with lots of french bread, and some dry white wine.
We discussed dinner this evening at breakfast this morning, my 12-year old said "steak!" I wasn't too enthusiastic about that, given that I ate at Outback on Thursday, but he's my kiddo, so steaks it was. But if I'm going to have steak twice in the same week, I'm going to do the one at home in true New Orleans style.
And that's just what we did. Ribeyes on the grill with Marchand de Vin sauce, baked potatoes, and a bottle of "Red Truck" Cabernet Sauvignon. Everything came out just nicely. I'll have to remember to skip on Outback since my kid likes my steaks that much...
Ever since we saw "Talladega Nights," the line "I love crepes" has become a bit of a running joke between Kev and I. Last week, he told me that he never has eaten crepes, so I made them last night.
I have an electric crepe maker. Yup, one of those things you get as a wedding present, and can't quite figure out where it came from to bring it back, so you keep it. Over the years, I'm glad that I did, because it's fun to use. It looks something like this one, but with a cord in the handle. It's basically an 10-inch round heating element that's coated with a frying-pan surface. It's got an 8" or so handle. The idea is that you make up the batter and pour it into a pan that came with the crepe-maker. When the thing heats up, you dip it in the pan, a thin layer of batter sticks, cooks, and you have a crepe. Repeat that for as many crepes you need.
To fill them, I grilled two chicken breasts, then sliced them up. I made a filling of onions, garlic, olive oil, and green onions, thickened with flour, then thinned out with chicken stock, white wine, and heavy cream. I put some of the chicken in a crepe, then some of the filling, then rolled them up and baked them for about 15 minutes in a 350F oven. Once the crepes were made, I thinned the filling out a bit more with white wine to make a sauce to cover them.
Kev didn't like the idea of the olives, so I filled his crepes with chicken and bbq sauce. :-)
This is an easy dinner to do, and grilling the chickens is more fun than simply oven roasting. The orange sauce idea comes from one of my older, favorite cookbooks "Cooking for One or Two," but I like experimenting with variations on the theme. Sometimes I'll do the orange sauce with a marmalade base, other times a flour base. Last night, I went with a flour base, using:
half an onion, chopped
two cloves of garlic, chopped
3tbps olive oil
3tbps flour
1tsp creole seasoning
1/4 cup white wine (I used some of the rose' we had with dinner)
1 cup orange juice.
saute the onion and garlic in 1tbps olive oil until transparent. Add the creole seasoning. Add the rest of the olive oil and sprinkle in the flour. Mix thoroughly and lightly brown. Add wine, stirring constantly. Slowly add orange juice, stirring. Simmer while you're cooking the chicken, adding a bit more orange juice if the sauce thickens too much.
I tossed in a few button mushrooms as well.
My only gripe with this sauce is that it's not "orange-y" enough. It comes out too light:
Maybe I'll add some paprika when served next time. The finished product:
Grits are usually thought of as a Southern dish, not specifically Creole. We're going to "creole" them up today.
The Podcast (30:14, 27.6MB)
The Recipes
Creole Grits And Cheese Casserole
4 cups cooked grits
½ Cup Onion, chopped fine
¼ cup Green Onion, chopped fine
2 cups Grated cheddar cheese, divided
1 tsp Zatarain's Creole Seasoning
1 Egg beaten
2 Tbsp parsley
Prepare grits according to recipe on package. Add the next five ingredients to grits and blend thoroughly until cheese has melted.
Pour mixture into baking dish and top with 1 cup grated cheese and parsley.
Bake in 350°F oven for 30-45 minutes.
Serves 8-10
Grilled Corn Grits
from Zea Rotisserie And Brewery
Ingredients:
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup grilled corn
1 cup yellow grits (not instant)
Directions:
To grill corn, shuck off husk. Lightly butter corncob and grill over charcoal or open fire until slightly blackened. Cool corn and cut kernels from cob with a sharp knife. Bring chicken broth to a boil. Add heavy cream and return to a boil. Slowly whisk in the grits and then the corn. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 5 to 6 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Spicy Creole Tomato Grits
Prep Time: 45 Minutes
Yields: 6 Servings
Ingredients:
1 cup yellow stone-ground grits
2 large Creole tomatoes, chopped
½ cup bacon, chopped
¼ cup butter
¼ cup sliced garlic
3 cups water
½ cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps canned chopped green chiles
¼ cup shredded mild Cheddar cheese
Method:
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, cook bacon until crisp. Reserve drippings in pan. Add tomatoes, butter and garlic. Sauté until garlic is tender. Mix in water, cream, salt and chiles then bring to a boil. Gradually stir in grits, blending well. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened. Remove from heat then blend in cheese until melted. Pour grits into a shallow baking dish until ½ inch–¾ inch thick. Place in refrigerator until grits are cool and set. With a 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut out grits patties. Set on a plate and top with crawfish étouffée, shrimp Creole or eggs Benedict with hollandaise sauce.
Grillades and Grits
* 8 thinly pounded veal escallopes, about 3 ounces each
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
* 1/2 cup olive oil
* 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
* 1/2 cup green onions, finely chopped
* 3 cloves garlic, minced
* 1-1/2 cups bell pepper, finely chopped
* 1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
* 1 bay leaf
* 1-1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning blend
* 4 ripe tomatoes, diced
* 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
* 2 tablespoons tomato paste
* 1 quart beef stock
* 2 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1/4 cup cool water
* 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
* Cooked grits
Season veal escallopes on each side with salt and pepper. Heat butter in a large skillet and sauté the veal until it is lightly browned, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer cooked meat to a platter and hold in a warm oven whilie prepping the sauce.
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Sauté the onion, green onion, bell pepper, garlic and celery until tender. Stir in bayleaf and Italian seasoning, and add the tomatoes, tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce.
When the mixture is well-blended, stir in the stock and cook for 5 minutes, stirring freqently. Make a slurry with the cornstarch and water, and stir it into the sauce to thicken it. Add the parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and cook over medium heat until reduced by 1/4. Remove the bay leaf.
Spoon the sauce onto warm plates, and center a veal escallop on each. Place grits on the side of the meat, ladle additional sauce over the grits and meat. Garnish with parsley and a few capers. Serves 8.
