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!