Recipe: Pineywoods Grillades and Grits

To purchase: Crescent City Farmers' Market Cookbook. This book has been placed in the Comfort Food From Louisiana blog store as Amazon has it for far less a price! Help support a farmers' market and cook wonderful recipes for your family: win-win.

Poppy Tooker is a long time New Orleans food instructor. She also has been a promoter, a culinary activist, of perserving the New Orleans food heritage like the century old dishes of Calas (Rice Cakes) and Creole cream cheese. She strongly supports the Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans and wrote this cookbook to help support the market.

The cookbook is 216 pages, published by marketumbrella.org and focuses upon telling the centuries long history of food markets in New Orleans since 1718 along the Mississippi River. Tooker founded the Slow Food Movement in New Orleans 11 years ago and her group is credited with helping revive the Farmers Market after Hurricane Katrina.

To purchase: Crescent City Farmers' Market Cookbook. This book has been placed in the Comfort Food From Louisiana blog store as Amazon has it for far less a price! Help support a farmers' market and cook wonderful recipes for your family: win-win.

What else is featured in this new cookbook? There are 125 featured recipes from New Orleans area chefs, local farmers and even shoppers who frequent the market! The forward is by famed food author and chef Alice Waters who also is a farmers' market advocate.

Pineywoods Grillades and Grits

From: New Orleans's Famous Chef Poppy Tooker, from “Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook”

Serves: 6 - 10, depending upon your appetite!


Ingredients:

3 lbs. round steak

Flour (for dusting steak)

Bacon drippings or oil (for sautéing steak)

1/4 cup bacon drippings or oil

1/4 cup flour

1 onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 (1-lb.) can crushed tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1 clove garlic, minced (we add about 5 cloves garlic at our house)

1/2 tsp. thyme

Salt and pepper

Cayenne pepper

Hot cooked grits (or rice at our house)

Directions:

1. Dust steaks with flour and sauté in bacon drippings until browned on both sides. Remove steaks from pan and keep warm; deglaze the pan with water, then pour pan juices into a bowl and reserve.

2. Put drippings and flour in skillet and cook, stirring constantly, to make a dark roux.

3. Add onion, then celery and bell pepper; sauté until vegetables are translucent. Add reserved pan juices, tomatoes, bay leaf, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and cayenne; mix well. Simmer at least 10 minutes.

4. Add steaks and simmer over low heat until steaks are fork tender. Serve with grits.

Note: Grillades recipes often cut the steak into serving pieces. Chef Tooker prefers to leave them whole. Others like to cut the steak into strips like we do at home because sometimes your skillet isn't large enough to leave the steak whole or in large pieces! Personally, I like to brown the meat on more sides for that wonderful caramelization browned taste.

To purchase: Crescent City Farmers' Market Cookbook. This book has been placed in the Comfort Food From Louisiana blog store as Amazon has it for far less a price! Help support a farmers' market and cook wonderful recipes for your family: win-win.

Thank you for visiting and have a great weekend!

Recipe: Hot and Spicy Flaming Chocolate Mousse

Image via Wikipedia

From Denny: If you are coming for a visit to New Orleans this April you might want to sign up and take these cooking lessons from some renowned New Orleans chefs!

Photo of Royal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.

From Country Roads Magazine: Each week renowned New Orleans chefs including Maras, Poppy Tooker, Frank Brigtsen, and Boo Macomber come to The House on Bayou Road to teach their delicious lessons, at 5:30 pm each Thursday through Saturday in April. 2275 Bayou Road, twelve blocks from the French Quarter on Esplanade Ridge. All classes are $150 per person, all inclusive. (504) 430-5274.

Hot and Spicy Flaming Chocolate Mousse

From: House on Bayou Road, Chef Poppy Tooker

Yield: Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds semisweet chocolate morsels

½ tsp cayenne pepper

4 egg yolks

2 cups heavy cream

¼ cup sugar

8 eggs whites

¼ tsp coarse salt

8 sugar cubes

¼ cup 151 proof rum

Directions: Place the chocolate in a Pyrex bowl and melt in the microwave. Stir in cayenne pepper. Cool to room temperature.

Using an electric mixer, beat in egg yolks one at a time. Whip 1 cup of heavy cream until thickened. Gradually, add the sugar, beating until the cream is stiff.

Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the whipped cream. Stir about one third of the cream mixture into the chocolate. Gently fold in the remainder, sprinkling pinches of salt into the mixture as you fold. Pour into individual serving dishes or a serving bowl and refrigerate, allowing it to set for at least 2 hours.

Before serving, whip the remaining cup of heavy cream. Soak the sugar cubes in the dark rum. Top each serving with a dollop of whipped cream, then carefully place the rum soaked sugar cube on top. Light the sugar cube and serve.