The Recipe File

There are three recipes for the classic French scallop dish Coquille St. Jacques Provencale in the File, two in my dad’s handwriting and one in my mother’s.  They get increasingly complicated, adding green onions and cheese and other ingredients, and I sense it’s one of those more involved recipes that Ron settled on.  But I went with the simplest version, simplifying it further by eliminating the flour dusting on the seafood, searing them naked instead.  When I started this project, I intended to follow the recipes exactly as written, but lately the voice of my dad has been in my head, repeating his most memorable and important advice to me:  Think For Yourself.  I think in this case adorning the scallops with as little as possible is best.

Coquille St. Jacques Provencale

8 sea scallops

2 Tablespoons clarified butter

2 Tablespoons grapeseed oil (or other high smoke point oil)

salt & peper

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1 clove garlic, finely minced

zest and juice of 1 lemon

Place the scallops on a paper towel, cover with another paper towel and place in the fridge, uncovered, until ready to cook.  (It’s very important that the scallops be very dry when they hit the pan so that they sear instead of steam).  Heat a cast iron pan (do not use nonstick…you will not get a good sear) over medium high heat.  When very hot, add the clarified butter and oil (or oil alone if you don’t have clarified butter, which is easy to prepare–the milk solids in whole butter will burn).  Immediately add the scallops, and sear for about a minute and a half.  When the scallops are perfectly browned, you should be able to turn them easily to sear the other side for another minute and a half.  Remove to a plate and season with salt and pepper.  Lower the heat in the pan and add the garlic, stirring, then the lemon juice and zest and parsley.  Add a spash of wine if the mixture is too thick.  Drizzle over the scallops.

This was our Valentine’s Day dinner, with oysters to start, a beet salad on the side, and individual apple tarts to finish.  I served the scallops over a bed of orzo & quinoa that I tossed with a spicy tapenade.  

This was delicious.  Just really rich (but not heavy) and the kind of thing you don’t get tired of after a couple of tastes.  And the poached boulets were like moist seafood meatballs.  I served it with brown rice, which is not traditional, but this is a great vehicle for the heartier grain because the bisque is so bold.  I made a few tweaks to the recipe and I’ve edited the recipe below to reflect that, so if you copied it yesterday, it will be slightly different today.

We ate this listening to Mardi Gras music and wondered about the cost of a little apartment in the French Quarter…

I was waiting to buy some Ahi tuna last weekend when I thought I heard the sales associate mention crawfish to the customer ahead of me.  In Seattle, we’re lucky to find gulf shrimp, let alone the more obscure delicacy.  “Louisiana crawfish?” I wanted to confirm.  Last year at another store where I expected much better, I came across a package of Chinese import with deceptive labeling that made it appear to be from Louisiana…a photo of the state and words like “bayou,” with the very fine print “product of China.”  But this was the real thing.  At $20 a pound, it wasn’t cheap, but it’s about the same price to have it shipped (Louisiana Crawfish Company) and there’s nothing quite like it to transport me back to New Orleans on this Mardi Gras Day.

I’m adapting this recipe from the File.  Ron’s recipe calls for frying the boulets, which I’m sure is delicious, but I’m going to poach mine in the bisque.

Crawfish Bisque

(original recipe from Tony Chachere’s Seafood Recipes)

Serves 8  (I halved this recipe and it was easily enough for 4 people)

For the boulets:

1 lb crawfish tails

1 onion, finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

2 sticks celery, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 Tablespoon Cajun seasoning

1 tsp salt, or to taste (omit if using a Cajun seasoning that contains salt)

2 eggs

1 cup dry breadcrumbs

Chop crawfish tails briefly in food processor.  Combine chopped crawfish with vegetables, eggs, seasoning and breadcrumbs.  Adjust consistency with water or bread crumbs as necessary.  Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls.  (At this point, Ron’s recipe calls for dredging in flour and frying in 350’F oil.  I plan to set them aside and poach later in the bisque.)

Bisque

1 pound crawfish tails

4 Tablespoons butter

4 Tablespoons flour

1 onion, chopped

1 stick celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno, minced

1/4 cup tomato paste

1 teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 quarts chicken or seafood stock

1 Tablespoon chopped green onion tops

1 Tablespoon chopped parsley

Cajun seasoning to taste

 

Melt the butter and stir in the flour.  Stir over low heat until roux turns dark golden brown.  Add chopped vegetables and stir a couple of minutes.  Add the tomato paste.  Add sugar, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce.  Gradually add the heated stock, stirring.  Simmer, covered, for a couple of hours, stirring frequently.  Add the boulets and simmer 15 minutes, or until cooked through.  Carefully remove the boulets to a plate.  Add the crawfish tails and simmer another 5 or 10 minutes.  Return the boulets to the bisque, being gentle so as not to break the boulets–they will be very delicate.  (If you fail at this, don’t fret…they will still be delicious.)  Serve over rice and top with green onions and parsley.

 

With Mardi Gras one week away, I’ve been leaning towards classic Louisiana recipes in the File.  This Shrimp Stew starts off like many Cajun dishes, with a roux, a mixture of flour and oil that is stirred in a cast iron pot until it turns various shades of brown, depending on the dish; in general, the heartier the protein, the darker the roux.  In this case, it’s a peanut butter colored one so as not to overpower the delicate shrimp.  The great thing about this recipe is that you can make the sauce completely in advance and refrigerate it or freeze it, adding the shrimp for the last few minutes of reheating.  And it doesn’t have to be shrimp; any protein will do.  Classically, it’s served over rice, but any starch or grain can be substituted, as would something unheard of in my dad’s kitchen, that gluten-free, protein rich darling, quinoa.  (If gluten is an issue, substitute rice flour for the wheat flour in the stew recipe–now we’re really going rogue.)

A few notes on Ron’s recipe:  I skipped step 2; I don’t think it’s necessary and by keeping the shrimp raw, you can make the sauce well in advance.  I added cayenne to bump up the heat.  

The shrimp shells can be used to make a stock for cooking the rice:  Simmer in water to cover for 30 minutes.  Strain and use in place of water.  Or freeze for your next seafood recipe.

This makes enough for 2, with leftovers.

 

The recipe below yielded much more than 2 servings, enough that I plan to use the rest for another dinner tomorrow night, forming it into patties and frying them:  Chicken Jambalaya Cakes.  I dreamed about this last night, that you could treat this like the Italians do, making Arancini (fried rice balls) from leftover risotto.  (I know, that’s the sort of thing you dream about when you’re me.)  If I were to make this recipe again, I would season it with my homemade Cajun spice mix, because, while it was good and spicy, it didn’t quite have the rich, rounded flavors of a classic Jambalaya.  I keep this spice mixture in the pantry for anytime I want to add a touch of Louisiana.  This makes a lot, but is easily halved or quartered:

Cajun Seasoning: 4 T onion powder, 4 T garlic powder, 4 T dried oregano 4 T dried basil, 2 T dried thyme leaves, 2 T cayenne pepper, 4 T ground black pepper, 2 T celery seed, 5 T sweet paprika, 5 T smoked paprika Combine and store in an airtight jar.

There are few notes on the pages in the File; Ron didn’t leave clues about whether he liked the recipes or whether he even got around to making all of them.  Sometimes he crossed things out and changed quantities, which makes me think that he had cooked that recipe at least once, but some of them are so odd to me that it’s hard to imagine him choosing them, like this one from a book called “Cajun Cooking.”  There are several ways that this departs wildly from any Jambalaya I’ve ever had:  First, the inclusion of tomatoes, which makes it more like the New Orleans version of this classic than one from Cajun country.  And then there are the mushrooms, peas and sherry that make it seem like it was written by someone trying to recapture the Paella he remembered from a trip to Valencia, although I can’t imagine my dad opening a can of peas.  I’m pretty sure that never happened, so while I plan to follow the recipe pretty much as written, I will be using frozen ones, and I think 45 minutes is too long at 400’F, so I will be checking at half an hour.  He notes here that the recipe serves 2, but I’m guessing there will be leftovers.  Leftover Jambalaya is a very nice thing to find in the fridge when you’re looking for lunch on a Sunday afternoon.

Although I remember certain 1960’s aspects to my parent’s entertaining (bridge parties, Lipton Onion Soup Dip…), I can only recall one cocktail making an appearance, the Old Fashioned.  So I was surprised to find this recipe for a Singapore Sling in the File.  It brought back memories of occasional trips to Trader Vic’s where the food seemed wildly exotic, and where I imagine my dad first ordered this cocktail.  We had Korean Bulgogi Sloppy Joes last night, which was not the sort of thing my father ever made, all of the  non-Western main dishes in the File being either Indian or Moroccan-inspired.  It seemed like the perfect time to begin with this retro cocktail, which I feared might be terribly sweet.  It wasn’t, but it was rather strong; I handed Phil his as he was finishing up some work to meet a deadline and I’m not sure it was the most helpful gesture.  With all the fresh juices and the throwback garnish of cherries and pineapples, it’s easy to overlook that there are 4 1/2 ounces of liquor in this benign looking tippler.  Next time, I think I might consider this 2 drinks instead of one.

Note:  Ron’s recipe calls for Peter Heering, a cherry brandy, with marashino cherry as a garnish.  Instead, I used Drunken Cherries that I make every summer when fresh fruit appears at the farmers’ market, using the liquid they steep in to substitute for the Peter Heering. Since that liquid is bourbon-based, it could explain why my version of this cocktail should probably be renamed Singapore Sloshed.

A couple of years ago, my memoir about cooking at a fraternity was published and there is a passage in it that explains the roots of this current project:

“I was [in New Orleans] in the second grade, the last year before my father was transferred to London, sitting in class bored out of my mind when I complained of a stomachache severe enough to require a phone call to my dad…on sight of me in the principal’s office [he] knew exactly what I required.  We sat by the levee overlooking the Mississippi eating a messy roast beef po’boy in happy silence, gravy and fresh tomato juices and mayonnaise running together.  At the time, I only thought of my joy that someone I adored had not been mad at all, had not marched me home to bed, but instead had just understood what I needed.”

The meat in a “roast beef” po’boy is actually braised beef, cooked low and long in flour-thickened juices until fork-tender.  This recipe in the File is one of the simplest I’ve seen, perfect with some grits and green beans for a rainy Seattle midweek dinner.  I’ve modified Ron’s recipe, for a quicker meal, using thinner cuts of beef.  Next time, I may add any or all of these:  a little tomato paste or chopped tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, red wine and fresh thyme.

3 Tablespoons olive oil

salt & pepper

1 lb. top round steaks, each 1/2″ thick

2 Tablespoons flour

1 large onion (about 12 ounces), sliced

1 cup chicken stock, heated

Heat oil in a cast iron skillet.  Season steak with salt and pepper.  Coat lightly with some of the flour.  Brown in skillet and remove to a plate.  Add sliced onions and saute, adding a little of the stock if necessary, scraping up the browned bits from the beef.  Season onions.  Add any remaining flour and stir.  Return beef to skillet and add heated chicken stock.  Cover and simmer gently until meat is tender.  Uncover and allow gravy to thicken.

It’s Mardi Gras season in my home state which, for people who live in the southern part, means a constant appearance of King Cake from now until February 9.  The date changes each year and people say that Mardi Gras Day is either early or late…it is never just right.  Sometimes it’s closer to my birthday in March, but this year it’s early.  When I was a child growing up in New Orleans in the early 70’s, Mardi Gras parades were a family thing; I never heard about the boob flashing and frat parties on Bourbon Street until much later.  And I’m not making this up because I still have a jar full of them…the beads were glass from Czechoslovakia, not plastic from China.  I have vivid memories of sitting on my dad’s shoulders to catch those beads, which were heavy and could do some bodily damage.  Ron did not bake and he didn’t even like cake, but King Cake is actually brioche and that he did like.  The one upside of living in Seattle and not New Orleans this time of year is that I can’t buy this treat ready-made, and so I have to make it, which means it’s actually fresher than many of the store bought ones back home and it’s also very much less sweet;  I follow this King Cake recipe from the New York Times for the “cake” part, but I use a different filling and, because I loath that heavy white frosting, I just brush mine with a little corn syrup and sprinkle on some sugar in Mardi Gras colors (you can make this yourself by stirring food coloring paste into plain white granulated sugar).

Pecan Orange Cream Cheese Filling:  cream cheese, orange zest, chopped pecans, a little sugar, a splash of vanilla and Grand Marnier.

Phil and I are co-owners of a 750 acre hay farm about two hours from Seattle.  The goal is to turn it into a diverse farm with both crops and animals, but we’re a long way from that and make monthly trips to meet with the other owners and go through the less fun, but necessary steps of business structure, tax forms, and the sticky red tape of government contracts.  Knowing we’d be out there yesterday and not home until close to 8, I made this recipe from the File on Friday.  I’ve never been a huge fan of French Onion Soup, having had it mostly at restaurants where I suspect they were using canned beef stock, or worse, beef base, making it taste more of salt than caramelized onions.  But this recipe is a reminder of why it’s a classic, really subtle and just the thing to pull out of the fridge for an easy winter supper.  The recipe is one of a few in the File in my mom’s handwriting, not my dad’s, and it has references to metric measurements, making me wonder if she was taking notes from the owner of a hotel restaurant on the Normandy coast where we often stayed when my dad had business there.  She had a gift at prying out recipes from the locals wherever we went.

French Onion Soup

Serves 6-8

2 pounds onions, finely sliced

4 Tablespoons butter

4 Tablespoons flour

2 quarts hot beef stock*

3 cups dry white wine

1/2 cup port

salt, freshly ground pepper and (my addition) fresh thyme

Croutons:

12 slices french bread

1 Tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic

3/4 cup Gruyere and Parmesan, combined

Heat the butter in a large saucepan on medium-low heat and add the onions.  Saute until golden brown.  (This takes patience and about an hour, but you needn’t stand there the whole time, just keep the heat low and stir every few minutes or so).  You can let the onions go darker if you want a more intense flavor.  Add the flour once the onions are browned and stir a couple of minutes.  Add the wine and port and allow the alcohol to cook off for a few minutes.  Add the stock and simmer for 30 or 40 minutes, partially covered (or uncovered if you want it thicker).  Taste and adjust seasoning…with an unsalted homemade stock, it will require more seasoning; if you use a canned stock (but why?!) you should not need to add any.  When ready to serve, make the croutons:  Heat oven to 350’F.  Toast the bread slices in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Brush with oil on both sides and rub with garlic cloves.  Sprinkle with cheese and broil until melted and lightly browned.  (Classically, the soup is topped with croutons, but I prefer to serve them on the side).

*I used homemade beef stock and it makes a big difference in a simple thing like this with so few ingredients.  Even a rich homemade chicken stock would be better than anything out of a can and if you make it in a pressure cooker, it only takes an hour and freezes.  This is not a hard thing to do:  some roasted bones, a carrot, an onion, some celery if you have it, water to cover, and some time on the stove.