Grilled Shrimp

To Peel or not to peel......that is the question


Grilling shrimp is a great summertime alternative to more conventional ways of fixing our favorite crustacean.

The problem is that it is easy to end up with something tough and chewy. Here is an idea that may seem like too much work but it will yield you a more tender shrimp dinner.

First, use only large or jumbo shrimp, split the shell down the back and remove the vein. Then put the shrimp on not one but two skewers close together which will make it easier to turn on the grill. Depending on what else you are having, figure on 5 to 6 shrimp per person.

While the grill is getting hot, melt 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter in a pan and add the juice from one large lemon and a teaspoon of caraway seeds and a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce. Let this simmer for a few minutes. Reserve half of the butter sauce for later.

Put the shrimp on the grill over medium heat and bast with the butter sauce. As the sauce drips down the smoke will help give the shrimp a great flavor. Cook until just turning pink and turn the shrimp over. Baste again and cook until the shells are slightly brown and the shrimp is pink.

To serve you have a choice: In the shells or peeled; warm off the grill or cold. Personally, I'd serve them in the shell right off the grill and let your guests peel them and pass the reserved butter sauce for dipping. Match it up with sliced tomatoes and homemade mayonnaise and hot french bread and you have a great summertime meal!

By the way......this works great with scallops too.


What am I drinking with this??

This dish cries out for a crisp cool Cotes du Provence rose'. I suggest the Domaine Houchart produced by Jerome Quiot on his wife's estate near Aix. Make sure you get the cuvee Sainte Victoire.

Good Wine, Good Food, Good Friends on Saturday night

Shrimp in Champagne Reduction with Green Rice and
Molten Chocolate Souffle

We were having close friends Joe and Melissa Blanchard for dinner on Saturday. Karen had been to Charleston and went to Magwood's Seafood in Mt Pleasant and brought home fresh shrimp so the main course was set.

Note:
If you want to buy only fresh caught shrimp then Magwood Seafood is the best around. Located on Shem Creek in Mt Pleasant, SC, the address is 100 Haddrell St. and the phone number is 843.884.3352.

Joe likes rice (it is one of the few things he can cook since all he has to do is boil water and stick a bag of rice in it). So rice was going to be the starch, but since I wasn't making a creole sauce I wanted to make sure I had a rice recipe that was rich and would not be dried out.

A dessert I haven't fixed in a while is a rich chocolate souffle that used to be a staple on the menu at Commander's Palace in New Orleans. It is not complicated to make but be warned......it is heart-stoppingly rich.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about shrimp, when I peel the shrimp I save the peels and use them to make shrimp stock. The stock can be used for a variety of purposes but  in this case, I use the stock to cook the rice:

Green Rice
Take four cups of shrimp stock and bring to a boil. Add two cups of basmati rice and two bay leaves then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for around twenty minutes.
While the rice is cooking, melt a stick of butter (yes a whole stick...this is nothin.....wait until you get to the dessert!) in the sauce pan. With the butter add:
1/2 cup of green onion
1 can of artichoke hearts (canned in water not oil) drained and chopped coarsely
1/2 cup of diced green bell pepper
1 cup of diced celery
1/2 cup of chopped parsley
1 bag of baby leaf spinach, roughly chopped,stems removed and washed.

Simmer slowly until the spinach is cooked down. By this time the rice should be cooked.

In a casserole dish, combine the rice and sauteed vegetables, cover with tin foil and set aside.

Now let's prepare the dessert

Molten Chocolate Souffle

Soften 1 1/2 sticks of butter. Take two tablespoons and liberally grease six ramekins that hold six ounces.
Take the remaining butter and 1 pound of good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped; into to the top of a double boiler over simmering water to melt stirring periodically.
In a food processor, crack 8 eggs. Mix together the eggs and 1 1/2 cup of sugar until smooth. Add the blended butter and chocolate mixer to the food processor and blend with the egg/sugar mixer for three minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and blend for another three minutes. Pour the mixture into the six ramekins, place on a cookie sheet, cover with wax paper and set aside.

OK, let's get ready to cook the shrimp and eat.

Shrimp in Champagne Reduction

In a large saute pan, put 3 tablespoons of olive olive oil. Add 4 or 5 thin slices of fresh ginger. Heat the olive oil over a low fire and and gently "sweat" the ginger for 5 minutes or so to infuse the ginger into the olive oil. Add the shrimp and continue to saute over low heat until the shrimp  are barely pink. Be careful not to have too hot a fire or cook the shrimp too long or they will be tough.

Remove the shrimp and ginger from the oil, and add to the pan:
1/2 cup of chopped green onion
1/2 cup of chopped red bell pepper
1 tablespoon of mince shallots
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Saute until the vegetables are cooked, about 3 minutes. Add three cups of champagne. Increase the heat until the champagne is simmering briskly. Reduce the champagne to about 2 cups. Turn of the burner and add the shrimp to the pan. Then add two tablespoons of cold butter and stir in to incorporate into the liquid to make a sauce.


Remove the rice from the oven and put a serving of rice in the middle of the dinner plate and top with a serving of the shrimp and serve.




While eating the shrimp, place the baking sheet with the souffles in the oven at 350 degrees. Let them cook while eating the main course. Check after 30 minutes. When the souffles are puffed and a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly, remove from the oven.




 Carefully invert a ramekin over a desert plate and remove the souffle from the ramekin onto the plate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. The outside will be nicely baked and the inside should be a gooey, "molten" chocolate.




What am I pouring with this?




We started with a vintage 2003 rose' champagne from Pommery. That was my offerring.

Now Joe has an excellent cellar which includes a diverse selection of white wines. He selected three very different French whites: one from Alsace, one from the Northern Rhone Valley and one from Bordeaux.

The clear winner was the Laville Haut-Brion from Bordeaux. The Alsatian wine and the Condrieu from the Rhone were too sweet for the dish although excellent representatives of their Appelations.

Since most of us don't have access to these kinds of wine, I would suggest, as always, anything that doesn't over-power the food. That immediately rules out California Chardonnay which, as those of you who know me, know I consider the worst wine bottled. Look for a sauvignon blanc from France or South America. From South America,  look for the wines from the Mendoza region of Argentina. There is a Spanish white made from the Albarino grape which would also go nicely with the shrimp. The Spanish wines are reasonably priced and quite good.
The wines from Spain and Argentina aren't easy to fine but are worth looking for. If you are local, check with Bryan at the Gourmet Shop.

Cookies for the 4th

I don't bake.....well....not much. It's not really a guy thing but the main reason is I'm not very good at it. (Now ask me to make a porcini sauce with a Marsalla reduction for veal like I did last night and your on).

 I made french bread once that alternated from perfect to something with the consistency of rebar. I make cheese straws from time to time that are never as good as everybody else's.

But Karen has a few traditional items she bakes at holidays and these 4th of July cookies are one she and her buddy Bitsey have been doing for years

It takes a little time but it is worth it.:

Watermelon Cookies

2/3 cups butter softened(5 1/2 Tbsp)

2/3 cups shortening, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla

4 cups plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Red paste food coloring

2/3 cup semi sweet mini morsels

3 cups powdered sugar

4 Tbsp water

Green paste food coloring

Beat butter and shortening in a large bowl until it is blended well. Gradually add sugar - mix well. Stir in eggs, milk and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and slowly add to the other mixture. Add red paste and mix well. Put in a smaller bow, cover, chill well (at least three hour or overnight). On floured wax paper, roll out a portion of the dough to 1/4 thickness. Cut with round cookie cutter, then cut in half. Put on ungreased cookie sheet, put chocolate chips in the middle as "seeds". Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Do not brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Combine green paste, water and powdered sugar. Dip rounded edge of cookie in this mixture and let dry on wax paper. Store with wax paper between layers. This will freeze well. (Makes approximately 110 cookies).





Cooking with Wine

I haven't met too many dishes that I prepare that I don't think are better after I add wine.
The question is, when the recipe says: "And add wine"......what kind of wine do you add? Is it OK to just grab whatever is open in the fridge?

If all else fails, follow the one golden rule: "If you wouldn't drink it.....don't cook with it".

Now assuming you don't keep wine around that you wouldn't drink, let's talk about which wines are better for cooking.

Domestic Chardonnay

Probably the one white wine most Americans drink and probably the worst wine to cook with. The intense oaky flavor of these wines rarely will add to the flavor of food. So even if you like drinking the stuff, I would not recommend cooking with it.

Pinot Grigio

Next to chardonnay, pinot grigio is the most popular white wine consumed in America. The wine is so light in taste that it doesn't hurt to cook with it but, in my opinion, it doesn't add anything either.

Savignon Blanc

This popular white is produced world-wide and has a pleasing citrusy taste. Non-oakie it does not change the taste of food like the domestic chards but does have a distinct taste unlike the pinot grigio. So of the "big three" I give the nod to savignon blanc with one major proviso: I wouldn't cook with the popular savignon blanc wines from New Zealand. They have a much stronger "grassy" taste then their cousins from France or from the U.S.

What about red wines?

Reds don't seem to have the same differing effect on food as do whites. But because of the strength of the taste, be careful as to how much you use.

What about other wines?

I suggest you try something different from whites or reds such as sherry, port and even champagne.  I have found champagne is a zippy alternative to white wines.....must be the bubbles. Try it and I think you will like it.

Port and sherry are fortified wines that have very rich flavors. They can both add a lot to food but can also overwhelm food. If you use sherry, use a medium bodied sherry like an Oloroso. Stay away from the sweet stuff.

Here are some suggestions for cooking with wine.

Try this with chicken:
Melt a tablespoon or so of butter in a sauce pan and add a package of chicken tenders. Cook over medium/high heat until browned and cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan. Add a half of a thinly sliced onion and saute until starting to brown. The bottom of the pan should be dark brown from the chicken and the onions. Once the onions are browned, had a cup of white wine to the pan stirring and scraping up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook until the wine is reduced by half. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in one tablespoon of cold butter. This will thicken the sauce and give it a velvety texture. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.

There are a number of variations to this basic sauce. Sometimes I will use champagne. Sometimes I'll add flour, make a roux, and add chicken broth and cook it down to make a rich gravy. Sometimes I'll use sherry. The Oloroso I mentioned earlier can give the sauce a pleasant nutty taste.

Oh yeah.....here is another idea. Brown some butter in a sauce pan (be careful not to burn it). In a separate pan poach a fillet of fish like flounder or tilapia in champagne (see my post about bubbles for non-champagne ideas). Spoon the butter over the fish and serve with lemon wedges and capers. It will eat.

What would I pour with that?

Any bold tasting white will overpower the fish. A white Bordeaux will go nicely or try one of the white Burgundies from Macon. They are inexpensive and no oak.

My Favorite Dessert (Bread Pudding)

Monday was daughter Susan's birthday. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner the first thing she said was Bread Pudding.

I have a lot of "oldie but goodies" but bread pudding is the most requested. It is not hard to make since it is basically custard and french bread but I rarely see it in a restaurant outside of New Orleans and I don't know any other home chefs that make it so.......here it is:

French Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

One cup of sugar

8 tablespoons of butter, softened

5 eggs, room temperature, beaten

1 pint heavy cream

dash (or two) cinnamon

1 tablespoon (or more) vanilla extract

1/4 cup raisins

One loaf of French bread cut into 1 inch thick slices

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees

In a Kitchenaid mixer with the paddle blade, cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs, cream, cinnamon, vanilla, and raisins mixing well.

HINT: Don't let the cream be too cold when you add it to the eggs and sugar. It will cause the butter to clot and make for an uneven custard. And don't think you need a big ole Kitchenaid stand mixer to make this....it is just easier to use than a hand mixer.

Arrange the bread in an oven proof dish, glass, pottery whatever. You should have about 12 pieces of bread. Don't cram them in, they should fit loosely.

Important: Always use french bread!!! Stale bread is even better (how do you think those cunning Creoles came up with the recipe to begin with).

Pour the custard over the bread lifting the corners slightly for the custard to fill in between the pieces. Let it stand for 5 or 10 minutes then without breaking the bread, turn the pieces over to make sure as much of the custard as possible soaks into the bread.

Set the dish in a larger baking pan:

You can see from the picture that the custard hasn't soaked all the way through which is fine. Place this into the oven and then fill the pan 1/2 inch or so from the top with HOT water. This water bath, will prevent the custard from burning while it is cooking.

Cover with foil and bake for 45-50 minutes uncovering the pan for the last 10 minutes or so to let the bread brown slightly.

Carefully remove from the oven (try not to pour the hot water all down your pants). It will (hopefully, no guarantee) look like this:

The custard should be soft, not runny but not hard.

While the pudding is cooking, you can make the rum sauce or, if you prefer, you could have made it earlier.

Rum Sauce

1 cup of sugar

2 1/4 cups of water

1 cinnamon stick or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon of dark rum

In a small glass or dish, mix 1/4 cup of water and cornstarch and put aside. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, 2 cups of water, cinnamon, and butter. Bring to a boil. Stir in the cornstarch and water mixture. Simmer stirring occasionally until the sauce is clear. Remove from the heat and add the rum. The sauce will be very thin.

Serve the pudding on a plate or in a shallow bowl and pass the rum sauce.

As a wise man once said...."It eats pretty good".

If you figure two pieces per serving, the recipe will serve 6. If you have leftovers then congratulations. It will last in the refrigerator for several days. When you serve it again, don't heat the pudding just heat up the rum sauce and pour the hot sauce over the pudding.

What am I pouring with this?

Well, this dessert is tailor made for a sweet dessert wine. The most famous, of course, is Sauterne which is made from the Semillion grape in the Bordeaux region of France. These wines can be quite expensive although delicious. The other grape variety that is used a lot for sweet wine is Muscat. Dessert wine from Muscat is produced in Provence in the village of Beaumes de Venise and in Languedoc around the village of Rivesaltes. 

These muscat wines are a little earthier than their Bordeaux cousins and a little sweeter but much cheaper.

I give the nod to the muscat wines from Rivesaltes. They are not quite as heavy as the wines from Beaumes de Venise.

These wines can also age very nicely too. What I opened was a 1999!

The Domaine Cazes is distributed by Master Wine Guy Jean Pierre Chambas with Aleph Wines.

If you want the wine check with Bryan at the Gourmet Shop: 803.799.3705

Cook's Illustrated

This is a quick post. I've gotten a few questions about cook books.
If you every go into cook's kitchen and want to know what is his favorite cookbook just look for the one that is tattered, no dust cover and liberally coated with food splatters and that is the favorite.

As I've mentioned here before, the Plantation Cookbook is my all time favorite. You can get it at Garden District Books in New Orleans http://www.gardendistrictbookshop.com/

Next is the Commander's Palace Cookbook the one published in 1984. There is least one published since then.

I like Barefoot Contessa Cookbooks: In Paris and Family Style.

But the highest recommendation I can give you is Cooks Illustrated. I started with their magazine but the better way is their web site http://www.cooksillustrated.com/ . It is not free but it is not expensive and I have not had a bad recipe yet.

Any other food and wine questions let me know.



Chicken kabobs

Raise your hand if you have ever cooked chicken kabobs on the grill that were so dry and tough you could throw them through a wall? They were so dry and tough that the only way you could eat them was to bury them in BBQ sauce?

Put your hand down. I feel your pain. We have all been there.

But, dear reader, stay the course, relief is on the way.

First. Always use good quality chicken. Get the "all natural" chicken such as Publix's Greeewise or the chicken sold at Earthfare.

Second, and very important, brine the chicken. All lean meat such as duck, venison, pork and chicken, all benefit from brining before cooking.

Third, to give the chicken a smoky grilled taste and also to help the meat stay moist, is to rub the chicken with a bacon paste.

So here is the whole recipe:

2 lbs of boneless chicken breasts (you may want to substitute boneless chicken thighs) cut into 1 inch cubes.
Brine the chicken in 2 quarts of cold water with a quarter cup of salt and a quarter cup of light brown sugar dissolved in the water. Place in the refrigerator for one hour.

While the meat is brining, combine:

Two tablespoons: Sweet Paprika
Four teaspoons: sugar
Two teaspoons: smoked paprika

After the chicken has brined, discard the brine and pat the chicken dry.

Cut two slices of bacon into 1/4 inch pieces and process the bacon in a food processor until it forms a paste. Mix the spices with the bacon.

Rub the spiced paste on the chicken and place the chicken on skewers.

Grill the chicken over a medium heat turning every couple of minutes and cook until the breasts register 160 degrees.

Now, right before they are cooked, I baste the chicken with a homemade bbq sauce I make with ketchup, brown sugar, chopped onion, worcester sauce, and other ingredients. I'm keeping this one for now but I suggest you can use any sauce you make or buy that is dark brown and slightly sweet.

Don't use much sauce. The chicken won't need it.

That's it! What you will have will be a tender and wonderfully seasoned piece of chicken. I usually cut squash, bell peppers and onions, skewer them and grill them along side the chicken. Once cooked you can eat them as they are or try this:

Cook a cup of Basmati rice according to instructions and set aside. When the squash, peppers and onions are cooked, coarsely chop them. Stir them into the rice along with two tablespoons of melted butter. Stir over low heat to re-warm. Once warm serve the rice along side the chicken. Pass some crusty french bread with a good quality olive oil for dipping and you got something! I think you will be amazed at how tender the chicken will be.

What am I pouring with this?

There is an inexpensive vin de pays from France called QES. It is made by Jerome Quiot from Chateauneuf du Pape. It is a light and fruity red that will go well with the chicken.

A more expensive choice would be the cru wines from Beaujolais. Look for the 2009 vintage which was outstanding. These red wines are a great food wine especially for grilled foods like chicken or pork.

What about a white wine? After all, it is chicken. Trust me these reds stand up to it better but if you have to go white, stick with a white burgundy, dry and un-oaked. Or, since it is summer, a dry crisp Rose' from Cote du Provence.

Need a source? Brian de la Volpe at the Gourmet Shop located in Five Points in Columbia. 803.799.3705

"Would you like me to open it so it can breathe?"

How many times have you been at a restaurant and ordered a bottle of wine. The waiter brings it over, presents the wine and she asks you the "open and let it breathe" question. What do you say?

We've all been there. What do you say? Does the wine need to breathe? Does ANY wine need to breathe? What does it mean for a wine to breathe anyway?

The simple answer is that some red wines (and some high quality white wines) need aeration because of the high degree of tannins that can be found in the wine.

Without getting too technical (read: boring) these tannins can give a wine (especially a young wine) a harsh astringent taste. When the wine comes in contact with air, the oxygen will break down the tannins giving the wine a softer more pleasing taste. So, based on this, when the waiter asks the "open and let it breathe" question you have been dumb lucky and correct to say yes.

Maybe maybe not.

First of all, if the wine needs to breathe how much breathin you gonna get out of a hole the size of a quarter? You guessed it.....not much. So if the wine does need to breathe you need to have the wine decanted. No big mystery, decanting is simply pouring the wine out of the bottle into a fancy jug called a decanter. This will allow more of the wine to come in contact with the air which will allow the wine to "open up" more quickly then gasping for breath out of the opening of a bottle.

But do all red wines need to breathe? The simple answer is no. So here is a cheat sheet for what to say when the waiter pops the question.

No white wines unless you are springing for a young grand cru white burgundy in which case I hope I'm with you .

For reds? Honestly, the average bottle of red wine ordered at a restaurant won't improve dramatically by allowing it to breathe. But here is a compromise. When hit with the "open and let it breathe" question simply tell the waiter to go ahead and pour it even if your not ready to drink it. Your glass will act like a mini decanter and the wine will benefit from just sitting in the glass.

A bigger problem then letting it breathe is the temperature most restaurants (or you at home for that matter) serve wine. But that will be a topic for another time.

Sunday Dinner

OK we have talked about recipes and we have talked about wine, let's look at a menu.

Last night we had old friends over for dinner, just the four of us so it was not a major production especially since all of it was done ahead of time.

Menu:
          Curried Corn Chowder
          Shrimp Ceviche
          Penne Pasta with Zucchini Tomato Sauce
          Blackberry Cobbler & Vanilla Ice Cream

Now I've talked about the chowder and tomato sauce before. In fact, I made the chowder on Wednesday and made the tomato sauce on Friday. The only thing we did on Sunday was I made the ceviche and Karen made the cobbler.

We served the chowder as an hors d'oeuvre in pastis glasses. Now, most folks won't have that on their bar so any small glass (a rocks glass or even a juice glass).

Then to the dining room where we had the ceviche as a first course followed by the pasta and cobbler.

The ceviche recipe was from Cooking Light and was the first time I made it. It was just ok (the recipe called for cilantro which I usually don't like and this recipe was no exception). Everything else was delicious especially Karen's cobbler.

What did I pour?

We started pretty fancy with a 1997 Laurent Perrier Brut champagne. After that, we had an inexpensive white Burgundy from Domaine Talmard and an inexpensive red vin de pay from Jerome Quiot called QED. Both wines are great values and both are distributed by my friend Jean Pierre Chambas at Aleph Wines in Columbia.

The best thing about the meal was doing it ahead of time and Karen did her cobbler which is always outstanding.

Homemade Tomato Sauce...easy and healthy

I love tomato sauce any time of year but especially in the summer when I can load it up with fresh vegetables.

The problem is the tomato.

This time of year is just a bit early for great fresh tomatoes. The stuff at the grocery store just won't work. Also, the best tomato for sauce is a roma or plum tomato because they have more meat and less juice and seeds. So......shock of shocks......I use canned tomatoes.

These guys are a good alternative to fresh and they are canned without a lot of juice. What I suggest you do is pour the contents through a mesh strainer over a bowl allowing the watery juice to drip into the bowl. Take the tomatoes and cut then into thirds or fourths and keep them with the thicker juice that did not drip through into the bowl. Set this aside.

Coarsely chop three pieces of bacon and fry in a deep sauce pan. When cooked remove the bacon and set aside. To the bacon grease, add a small onion and half a bell pepper diced. Cook until barely tender then add two medium sized zucchini that have been peeled and diced. You may need to add one or two tablespoons (or more) of olive oil because you may not have enough grease and you don't want this stuff to brown. Now add fresh rosemary, about two tablespoons minced; and add two cups of chopped fresh basil. Stir that around for a minute or so then add two cloves of minced garlic. Stir until the garlic is aromatic but not brown.

Put the tomatoes and the thick juice into the pan with the vegetables and add the bacon. Stir to incorporate. I then add about 3/4 cup of dry red wine. Instead you could add the thinner juice from the can but why would you want to skip the wine? (You may want to add some heat to it by adding a teaspoon or less of red pepper flakes).

Bring all this to a low boil then reduce to a simmer. Taste it to see if it needs salt and pepper (it will need pepper, maybe not salt). Cover and simmer on very low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally. Serve with penne pasta and fresh Parmesan cheese.

I like to make this a day or so ahead of time as the flavors will meld together better in the fridge over night.

Tip:

Later in the summer when fresh tomatoes are easier to find I'll make a version of this with fresh tomatoes but I will blend it into a creamy sauce which freezes great. Remember with fresh tomatoes you want to discard the seeds and most of the juice.

Whether you use canned or fresh tomatoes I think you will enjoy this, chunky or smooth!

What do I pour with this? Nero d'Avola is a red wine variety from Sicily that is not too tannic so it won't fight the acid in the tomato. From France I would drink the young reds from the Cote du Ventoux appelation or one of the "cru" wines from Beaujolais such as Morgon or Moulin-a-Vent. From America? I suggest sweet tea.

Let's talk bubbles

"I only drink Champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty"

Lily Bollinger

"Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right"

Mark Twain

Drinking bubbles around our house is a common occurrence. I blame this on our neighbors the Blanchard’s. Joe and Melissa are close friends who love good food and good wine. As I have the good food and they have the good wine, it is a match made in heaven. ( It’s not that I don’t have good wine he just has better wine and it’s not that he can’t cook but…if you have had the Spécialité’ de la Maison of hamburger and rice, well……)

Most of us think of champagne as a festive wine to be drunk at weddings and parties. But champagne is just wine and more and more folks are enjoying it before a meal as an aperitif or with a meal just like any other wine.

What is this wine with the bubbles? Where is from? How is it made?

Champagne is produced in, well, Champagne which is Northeast of Paris. Only sparkling wine produced in Champagne can be called champagne.

Although most champagne is white, two of the three grapes used to produce it are red: pinot noir and pinot meunier. The other major grape used is chardonnay.

Fermenting champagne twice is part of the process know as Méthode Champenoise.

This method includes adding sugar during the second fermentation which, among other things, how the wine is classified. The most common being Brut which is considered dry champagne

Most of the champagne produced is non-vintage or “NV”. These NV wines are blends of juice from several years. It is quite an art to blend wine from different years so as to taste the same year after year.

If there is a particularly good vintage then a producer may bottle a vintage champagne witch will have the vintage year on the bottle. Vintage champagnes will be harder to find and more expensive.

That brings me to the problem of drinking champagne on a regular basis……it is expensive!

So what can we do to enjoy our bubbles without breaking the bank?

One thing we can do is buy sparkling wine from France or Spain that is made the same way as champagne but less expensive. In France you would look for Cremant and in Spain, Cava. Also, Italy makes a number of sparkling wines, one we like is Prosecco. It is made differently and tends to be a little lighter but it is refreshing and much cheaper then the real thing.

I could go on and on about this but my editorial staff (daughter Susan) says some of my posts are too long so I’ll end here. If you want some specific names or have a question send me an email.

After all, what is your host's purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.

P. J. O'Rourke

Simple marinade

My youngest Catherine is in town tonight and I'm cooking flank steak on the grill. Any lean cut of meat like that is always better marinated before you cook it.

There are dozens of store-bought marinades available and hundreds of recipes but here is a simple one that works great on any beef:

1/3 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1/3 cup of bourbon

That's it. Marinate it for a couple of hours in the fridge and let it sit out on the counter for about 1/2 hour or so before you grill it.

This works great for beef tenderloin  and pork tenderloin too.

What am I pouring? With the beef it will be red and with Catherine home it will be something good.

Emmet loves it

Grandson Emmet at the beach over the weekend when he heard we were having Shrimp Creole for dinner.

I've mentioned the creole recipe before. It is from the Plantation Cookbook.

The good thing about creole for dinner is the sauce freezes well so when I make it, I make several batches and freeze it in different sizes.

We had eight for dinner Friday night and all we had to do was peel the shrimp and make the salad.

What did I pour? A fabulous white Bordeaux called Secret De Grand Bateaux. It is around $20.00  and a bargain at that price.

In Praise of Shrimp

Although there is a season for catching shrimp, thankfully there is no season for eating them.

First let me quote the bumper sticker you see around the coast: “Friends don’t let friends buy imported shrimp.”

It is not just a taste issue; it is a way of life issue. As Asia continues to flood the market with their tasteless, frozen, and cheap product, more and more of our local shrimpers are put out of business. So always remember to buy the shrimp from local waters.

Your best bet is to prepare your shrimp the same day it was caught. You don’t necessarily have to eat it - I’ve got shrimp in my freezer right now that was caught last fall. I froze it the same day it was caught. Once thawed it smells and tastes just as sweet and fresh as when it was fresh. Catching shrimp is a topic for the fall when bait shrimping is in season and my son-in-law is heaving his eight foot net over baited poles. For now we will talk about cooking shrimp and eating them.

Growing up in New Orleans, the shrimp we ate came boiled, peeled and served with a cocktail sauce or better yet with a remoulade sauce. There are some great remoulade sauce recipes, but my favorites are from Commander’s Palace restaurant and Galatoire’s restaurant, both in New Orleans. My father would disagree with me, but I give the nod to Commander’s. There are two Commander’s cookbooks, and while I have and use them both, the recipe I like is from the first one.  If you can’t find it, email me and I’ll send it along.

The other typical way of eating shrimp in New Orleans is Shrimp Creole. My favorite recipe for that is from the previously mentioned Plantation Cookbook. I like to jazz it up a little bit by adding diced andouille sausage to the recipe.

Then you have the fad that took off a while back of shrimp and grits. I think some restaurant in Charleston started this craze but it has been around in low country kitchens for ever. There are a million recipes for the stuff, but my hands down favorite is in Charleston Receipts and is called “Breakfast Shrimp” from a recipe by Emily Whaley. Now I adored Emily Whaley, as did anyone who was lucky enough to know her. Her recipe calls for small shrimp (which we call creek shrimp). Those little shrimp are hard to find fresh, and even if you could, they are a pain in the neck to peel.  So just use medium shrimp.

Now I want to talk about what I think is the most versatile way of cooking shrimp.  You can also find this recipe in the first Commander’s Palace cookbook: “Shrimp and Fettuccini”.

What I like about this recipe is you can take what I call the guts of the dish and then make any number of changes to it. I’ve cooked it a million times and I’m not sure I’ve cooked it the same way twice.

OK here are what I call the guts:

Cook two cups of fettuccini (I confess I never know how many noodles to fix so I always fix too much).

One pound of shrimp, peeled and deveined. ***IMPORTANT*** as you peel the shrimp, put the shells in a medium saucepan. Once the shrimp is peeled, add half a chopped onion and a bay leaf to the saucepan and add enough water to cover (at least two cups). Bring this to a boil and reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Pour through a fine mesh strainer and you should have a cup or two or shrimp stock. Set it aside. (What you don’t use freezes well).

One cup of bell pepper diced

Two cups of diced onion

One clove of garlic diced.

½ a cup of chopped green onion (green part only)

Two tablespoons of chopped parsley

Two tablespoons of butter placed in the freezer.

In a twelve inch skillet, heat two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoon of butter.

Sautee the bell pepper and onion until the onion is translucent.

Add the garlic and cook until fragrant but NOT brown.

Add the shrimp and stir briefly to mix with the vegetables.

Add about a cup of shrimp stock and green onions and increase the heat allowing the shrimp to poach. DO NOT OVERCOOK as the shrimp will get tough.

Remove the pan from the heat. Add the parsley then stir in the butter from the freezer creating a creamy sauce.

Add the pasta to the pan, stir and serve.

Now. Back up. The guts end before you add the shrimp.

You may want to add diced tomato (just the meat not the juice)

You may want to add diced tasso ham or andouille sausage.

Better yet….go back to the beginning and instead of olive oil use bacon grease! (Now we’re talking!)

Or..before adding the shrimp, add the stock and cook down to a tablespoon and then add a ½ cup of white wine or, better still, champagne to poach the shrimp (champagne really is overlooked as a substitute for white wine. The flavor is markedly different).

Consider adding chopped basil when you add the pasta.

Whatever you add or don’t add, this is a lighter and more flavorful dish than shrimp and grits.

OK. What am I pouring with this?

It is hard to think of shrimp this time of year without a cool crisp rose’. But thinking white wine a perfect accompaniment would be a nice white burgundy. The chardonnay’s from Burgundy are so different from the oaky/vanilla chardonnay disasters from California. Burgundy’s are built for food. They don’t overwhelm. So when you think of white wine and food, think Burgundy.

Exploring Rhone Wines (and one idea to eat with the wine)

_{© Terroir-France, French Wine Guide 2010}



I can't tell you how many times I've been in the wine store (usually the Gourmet Shop in Columbia, SC) and watch folks wander through the sections on French wine with a deer in the headlight look. They don't know what they are looking at so they don't know what to buy. Americans are spoiled by American wine labels (NOT the wine). Most American wines are single grape wines (or varietal wines) such as Merlot, Cabernet Savignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and increasingly, Syrah. So it is pretty easy to put the name of the grape on the label. So you had a bottle of wine from California that was a syrah and you liked it. Finding one from America can be as easy as wandering through the section on American wines and look for the syrah on the label.

But what if you want a syrah from France? You start looking in the French wine section. To your dismay, the labels read: Cote Rotie, Hermitage, St Joseph, Cotes du Rhone, Gigondas etc. The prices range from over $300.00 down to $15.00 and nowhere does it say syrah or any grape for that matter.

Still want that syrah? Well.... your getting warm.

Welcome to the Rhone Valley of France.

A lot of the wine in France is a blend of different grapes but there are two notable wine producing regions that produce red wine where only a single grape is used. One area is the Northern Rhone valley and that grape is syrah.

Looking at the maps at the top you will notice that the northern appellation is located tightly along the Rhone river while the southern Rhone appellation is spread out. This because the banks of the Rhone River in the north are hills that are quite steep and the best wines from the Northern Rhone, Cote Rotie and Hermitage are grown on these steep hills. These wines are some of the most expensive Rhone wines and are also the most age-worthy. In order of least expensive to most expensive the reds of the North are:

Croze-Hermitage
St. Joseph
Cornas
Hermitage
Cote Rotie

For my money the best value in the north is St Joseph

So, if the wines of the north are 100% syrah, what about the wines of the south?

The southern rhone produces, by volume more wine than any other part of France. From the top of the heap: Chateauneuf du Pape all the way to Cotes du Luberon, the Southern Rhone valley which is also the heart of Provence, is awash in wine and unlike their ritzy cousins to the north, these wines are all blends of grapes. Predominately grenache blended with our northern friend syrah followed by mourvedre. There are other varieties such as cinsault that are used but grenache is number one followed by syrah.

The biggest appelation in the southern rhone is Cotes du Rhone. When you see Cotes du Rhone you know you will be buying an easy to drink red (and some white) at a good value (under $20.00) that is mainly consumed young but some of the better ones can age 10 or more years.

The heavyweights in the south are the Chateauneuf du Pape. They are the most complex and the most expensive. Next on the expense chart will be Gigondas.

The best buy however, are the Cotes du Rhone Village wines. Cotes du Rhone Village wines are Cotes du Rhone blends but must meet more stringent requirements for vinification. They are a higher quality than regular Cotes du Rhone but not that much more expensive. Look for these wines as the best mix of taste and cost.

OK. Your have your wine, now what do eat with it?

Well it's red so you think beef but beef in Provence is not easy to fine and usually not very good BUT LAMB!!! Provence is know for it's lamb especially from the village of Sisteron. So sure you can have the usual suspects you would eat with red wine but I would go with lamb and here is an easy way to do it.

Get a boneless leg of lamb and ask the butcher to butterfly it for you so it is a relatively flat piece of meat. Then simply marinate it in Italian salad dressing and a couple of rosemary sprigs and smashed garlic cloves. Marinate for several hours in the fridge then take it out and allow it to get to room temperature. Cook it on the grill to rare or medium rare. Let it sit covered for 10 minutes and carve.

As Susan's friend Sam would ask: "You got any sides with that"? Well yes such as oven roasted potatoes, sauteed asparagus....you get the idea. (Remind me for a great recipe for a marinade for grilling asparagus).

I finish this as Karen and I finish off the tomato sauce and pasta I fixed Monday (sauces are always better as leftovers) I'll send along the tomato sauce recipe later it is fabulous and easy. Oh yes....I'm, courtesy of Jean Pierre Chambas, washing it down with a 1998 Cotes du Rhone Village; Domaine de Cabasse from Seguret. As I said, these wines are clearly capable of aging. The problem is you can't find them outside of my basement (more on my basement/cellar/cave later).

OK....you can now go to the wine shop and know what a Rhone wine is. That's the good news. The bad news is you still won't be able to tell a Bordeaux Cab from a Bordeaux Merlot from simply looking at the label but stay tuned.....we will solve this problem in due time.

Basic Curry Soup

As I said in my first post, my Mother is a great cook. Not long ago, she told me about a curry soup recipe she got from an old cookbook and said it was pretty tasty. She read it off to me and I use it all the time because it is so versatile. The soup itself is kinda boring but it is a great base to add vegetables or chicken. Here is the basic recipe:

2 tablespoons of diced onion
3 tablespoons of butter
4 teaspoons of a good quality curry
1 tablespoon of flour
3 cups of chicken stock
1/2 cup of white wine
4 egg yolks
2 cups of cream

Saute' the onions in the butter until opaque. Add the curry and the flour. Stir until the flour is cooked then slowly wisk in the chicken stock and wine. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. While simmering, separate the eggs and lightly beat the yolks and set aside. After 30 minutes wisk in the yolks until fully incorporated then add the cream. Stir, taste, and adjust seasoning.

That's it......pretty easy.......and pretty boring.

Let's back this thing up a little bit and see what we have in the fridge that we can add like: zucchini, squash, spinach, corn, chicken, shrimp, crab meat......get the picture?

So now, peel and dice a nice sized zucchini and add it the sauteed onions and cook until the zucchini is cooked but still firm then follow the rest of the recipe. Once finished, if you want, take half of the soup and run it through a blender and stir it back in so it will still be chunky but more soup-like. Now make it more interesting by adding diced cooked chicken, fresh baby spinach leaves and sweet corn and you got something. Add a little truffle oil and you really got something. Or....forget the chicken and add cooked shrimp. I would use the frozen popcorn shrimp you can find at the supermarket.

Healthy right? Well, make it fat-free as well by substituting fat-free yogurt for the cream. Add the yogurt 1/2 a cup at the time until you get to the thickness you want.

You dump all that stuff in the soup you have a meal not a first course and I like it better cold than hot.

Another serving suggestion is to serve it in shot glasses as a hors d'oeuvre.

Anyway, fool around with it. Add what you want and serve it the way you want.

What do I pour with it? Clearly a white wine not red and I favor the citrus undertones of a sauvignon blanc over the dryness or oakiness of a chardonnay.

Going creole for dinner

A lot of the food that is indigenous to New Orleans are dishes that make something cheap taste good and Grillades (pronounced Gree yahds) is no exception. A grillade is a thin sliced bite-sized piece of meat usually beef or veal. Since veal is so expensive, I've been using beef rounds.

It is a "kitchen sink" meal meaning a lot of ingredients ( onions, celery, bell pepper, green onions, garlic, wine etc) which creates a thick savory stew that is not complicated to make but takes a long time on the stove. New Orleanians usually serve it for brunch because it freezes well and you can make a big batch ahead of time, heat it up and serve it over grits.

My father used to love to make grillades and although I make them all the time, mine don't seem to be as good as his. Probably because he was cooking them in New Orleans and I'm in South Carolina.

You can google grillades and find a bunch of different recipes, most look the same. The one I use comes from the Plantation Cookbook which is a must have for anybody who likes traditional creole cooking. The book is still in print and can be bought from Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans. http://www.gardendistrictbookshop.com/

Now for a secret to fixing grillades: If you use the beef, after you cut it into pieces, brine it for a couple of hours. It will make the meat more tender.

What do you pour with grillades? Well, you could go red or white because although it is a stew, it is fairly light not like a heavy beef stew. That being said I would stick with a red but nothing to young and heavy. Go with a burgundy or a left bank bordeaux. If you have a Rhone with some age on it say '98 or '99 that should work.

Bon Appetit

Just cause it is pink don't make it a blush Zin

One of my favorite wines to drink are the rose' wines from France. The first warm spell we had this spring my daughter looked at me and said: "It is warm and sunny outside, it's rose' time!"

Rose' wines are nothing like the stuff you see on the grocery store shelf. That "blush" Zinfandel is nasty sweet and ghastly to drink. Rose' on the other hand, is crisp, dry and refreshing. They are great summer wines meant to go with grilled chicken or shrimp or simply as an aperitif.

Where does it get that color? Well in some countries the pink color comes from blending red wine with white wine. In France that is not legal so the short answer is the color comes from the juice from red wine grapes that has stayed in contact with the grape skin for only a short time before being drained out. The longer the juice stays in contact with the skins, the darker the wine. This is why a Cotes du Rhone rose' is darker than a Cotes du Provence rose'.

Most rose' used to be a by-product of making red wine. The vintner would simply draw off some of the juice he was making red wine from and bottle it as rose'. Now as rose' is gaining in popularity, more and more vignerons are harvesting grapes specifically to produce rose'.

There is an ocean of good quality rose' wines out there so what, if any, is the difference? Most every where that wine is made, produces a rose' wine but France produces the most. And most of the French rose' comes from Provence in the southeast part of France. I prefer the Cotes du Provence rose'. They are very light in color and have a delicate taste that you can't get from the darker versions. The Languedoc rose' are similar. Some of the chateau in Bordeaux bottle a rose' wine but refer to it as clairet. These also can be quite tasty.

Rose' wines are meant to be drunk young so look for 2009 and 2010 vintages. Any older than that you will be disappointed.

Most rose' wines can be found for under $20.00 a bottle and many between $10.00 and $15.00. There are some like Domain Ott that sell for over $40.00 and a few for has high as $90.00. Well if I'm not spending $90.00 for a grand cru burgundy I'm sure not spending it on a rose'

What am I pouring? See the picture! This is Domaine Houchart 2009. I also like one called Whispering Angel produced by Sacha Lichine. Both should be easy to find.

It's Virginia's fault

I grew up in New Orleans where cooking and eating are serious business and I love to cook.

I cook dinner for my family every night. Two of my daughters don't live here anymore. So I'm cooking for my wife and middle daughter and whatever strays we pick up.

Creole cooking is my favorite, and I have to thank my Mother for teaching me the basics.

What is good food without good wine? I prefer French wine. The French still make the best wine in the world from $10.00 to $1,000.

So the other night daughter Susan and her friends Virginia and Julie were here for dinner celebrating Virginia's last night before moving to Richmond. I fixed a new recipe from Cooking Illustrated for chicken kabobs which we washed down with a crisp dry Provencal rose'. Susan was kidding me about always emailing her my dinner menu for the night. Julie said she would love to be on the email list. Virginia said better yet, start a blog.

So......here it is. My blog about what I'm cooking and what I'm pouring. It is dedicated to all the male chefs out there. All you guys who love to cook and love good wine. All you guys who thinking cooking is something more than just slapping a steak on the grill. All you guys who aren't embarrassed to get a cookbook for Christmas. All you guys who watch "Top Chef" and pull for your favorite like it was a football game.

So Virginia, this is your fault. We will miss you and come back whenever you can: I'll be fixing something. Julie you have a standing invitation any night. Susan, I hope this doesn't embarrass you too much.

Oh. Dinner tonight is penne pasta with homemade tomato sauce and fresh vegetables. I haven't picked the wine yet!