The Blog

Once again, my cousins Tangie and Damond pulled out all the stops. Great food, great music, great company.

Here’s the menu, and the pictures follow it. (I’ll try to get the recipe for the fish and leg of lamb posted here.)

Leg of Lamb (Julia Child recipe)
New Orleans Baked Fish
Seafood cornbread dressing
Scalloped potatoes
Sweet potato casserole
Brussel sprouts
Kale
Cranberry sauce
Wine and champagne

Table is set.

Tangie blesses the food.

Leg of Lamb (rough recipe by one of the featured chefs in one of Julie Child’s cooking books)

New Orleans Baked Fish

- 3 lb. red snapper or white fish
- 1/2 c. butter or oil
- 1 c. chopped onion
- 1/2 c. chopped green pepper
- 1 to 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 tbsp. flour
- 3 c. tomato sauce
- 1/2 c. chopped parsley
- 1 tsp. thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- Pinch of oregano
- Salt & pepper to taste

Wash and dry fish, melt butter or oil in fry pan. Add onions, green pepper and garlic. Cook until pepper is tender, stir in flour, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, bay leaves and oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Place fish in greased pan, pour some of the sauce inside of fish and rest over top. Bake 1 hour in slow oven (325 degrees).

Clearly, it was good. And so was the lamb.

Seafood dressing

Brussel sprouts

Today was the first time I really got to experience the streets of the city. A few of us woke up in the middle of the day (nice to do that on vacation) and walked to Placa de la Bouqueria. This is one of those open air markets that Anthony Bourdain and his kind are always walking through to get ingredients for a cooking segment. I was in heaven!

I’ll have more pictures of the market later…

From there, I met up with the entire group to tour the Pablo Picasso museum. Honestly, Salvador Dali is my favorite Spanish painter, but I really enjoyed the museum. I will be seeing Dali on Monday or Tuesday.

This was the only drawing I could find of an African.

One room (pictured above) had no paintings in it, but was so breathtaking that I had to take photos. By the way, we were not allowed to take photographs in the museum at all. I had to sneak them in.

After the museum, we came back to our apartment and I cooked clam pasta for those who like seafood, which turned out to be just four of the seven of us. Fine. More for us. (*sticks out tongue) I’ve posted the recipe below.

Ingredients: olive oil, garlic, flat-leaf parsley, clams (in shell), white cooking wine, and long pasta.

1. Place clams in a large dry pot or pan. Make sure clams are in one layer. Cover and heat on low heat until clams have opened and are swimming in their juice.
2. In another skillet, cover a medium to large sized pan with a generous amount of olive oil. On medium low heat, saute two to three cracked cloves of garlic in the oil until cloves are lightly golden brown. Then remove the cloves from the pan and let oil stand.
3. Remove clams from pot with slotted laddle, place in bowl and set aside.
4. Pour off the juice of the clams into a separate bowl and set aside.
5. Bring water to boil for pasta. Boil pasta until pasta is al dente.
6. Remove pasta and transfer to pan of garlic olive oil. Turn heat to medium. Pour in clam juice. Pour in about a cup and a half of white wine.
7. Add in shell (or shelled) clams to pasta. Stir and let wine, clam juice and olive oil coat pasta and clams. Add salt to taste.
8. Add chopped flat-leaf parsely and stir until parsley is spread evenly into pasta.
9. Serve immediately, with bread and wine.

This is the second time I cooked dinner for the my parents. I’ve cooked the chicken recipe once before with a fellow food enthusiast. Have any variations on these recipes? Leave them in a comment.

Chile-Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado

(Recipe)
Ingedient list: Fresh lime juice, extra-virgin olive oil, vegetable oil, jalapeño, cilantro, honey, garlic, black pepper, lump crabmeat, Hass avocados, red onion, and heirloom tomatoes.

Spinach and Bacon Macaroni and Cheese

(Recipe)
Ingredient list: macaroni, fresh baby spinach leave, bacon, flour, milk, shredded cheddar cheese, grated parmesan cheese and salt and pepper.

Chicken Saltimbocca

(Recipe) (You may need to sign up for an America’s Test Kitchen account.)
Ingredients list: unbleached all-purpose flour, ground black pepper, thin-cut boneless skinless chicken cutlets, fresh sage leaves, thin slices prosciutto, olive oil, dry vermouth or white wine, lemon, butter, fresh parsley leaves, table salt

Asparagus

All you need for this is fresh thyme, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper. Spread the asparagus on a baking sheet and rub the all the ingredients evenly on the the asparagus stalks. Bake them in an over at 350 F until they are tender. Serve immediately.

Oh, how I love mussels and fries. It’s the best lunch/snack. And it’s not too expensive to make, although a little labor intensive. (Wish I had a better picture of it for you. This is taken with my iphone.)

Ingredients: olive oil, leeks, shallots, garlic, mussels, white wine, lemon, salt and freshly ground black pepper, butter, tomatoes, fresh thyme, and fresh parsley.

And, here’s the recipe.

Now let’s see if I can find some really good and fresh mussels in Baltimore…

(Photo and food presentation by ALM)

I’m a little embarrassed to say I ripped this recipe from the Tyler Florence’s Ultimate TV series. But I’m unashamed to say how good it is…

His recipe calls for baking the chicken before glazing it with the chile-lime butter sauce. Instead, I deep fry the chicken pieces in hot veggie oil. I also zest about 1 tablespoon of lime zest into the sauce mixture. (The smell is heavenly.)

Here’s the recipe: Crisp Chicken Wings with Chili-Lime Butter

Sides: I did sweet potato and yukon gold potato fries. Julienne the potatoes and fry them in hot oil (separate from the oil the chicken is cooked in). Then quickly blanch asparagus in shallow water. Plate and drizzle stems with olive or white truffle oil.

Got any other good wings recipes? Leave them in the comments section. I’d love to try them out.

While in New York a few weeks ago, my cousins and I stumbled into a seafood market in Chinatown. I saw the live blue crabs and couldn’t resist. Within seconds, we had all agreed to having a major crab feast for dinner that night. I was in charge of the blue crabs.

Here’s the recipe and instructions:

Ingredients: one egg, all-purpose flour, Kosher salt, pepper, five-spice seasoning, Old Bay seasoning, garlic powder, jalapenos, green onions, vegetable oil (for deep frying), and six to eight live (or dead, if you must) soft shell (blue) crabs.

Step 1: Put live crab in egg-wash

Step 2: Put crab in flour batter (after combining all dry [powdered] ingredients)

Step 3: Deep fry those bastards in hot oil (until golden brown and crispy)

Step 4: Drain finished crab in bowl, make garnish: deep fry (in fresh oil) chopped jalapenos and green onions.

Step 5: Top crabs with garnish and extra seasoning (all dry ingredients except the flour)

Eating them:

You can eat the crabs shell and all. The claws have meat that you should break open and eat. The body has a little meat, but be careful not to eat all the body. Most of it is crab organs, etc.

Photos courtesy of Racquel Payton (my cousin)

Here’s a few photos from a dinner I cooked for my parents and sister a few months back. I’ve posted links to the recipes and ingredient lists for each. I must emphasize cooking the scallop dish last, as it doesn’t take very long at all. And…all of it turned out good.

Chile-Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado

(Recipe)
Ingedient list: Fresh lime juice, extra-virgin olive oil, vegetable oil, jalapeño, cilantro, honey, garlic, black pepper, lump crabmeat, Hass avocados, red onion, and heirloom tomatoes.

Scallops Provencal

(Recipe)
Ingedient list: bay or sea scallops, Kosher salt, black pepper, all-purpose flour, unsalted butter, shallots, garlic, flat-leaf parsley leaves, dry white wine, and lemon.

Onion Soup

(recipe from Bistro and Brasseries cookbook) (Closest online recipe)
Ingredient list: unsalted butter, sweet onions, garlic, curry powder, Chablis (white wine), all-purpose flour, beef stock, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, baguette, Gruyere cheese, parsley (or chives)

Rice

Simply cook white jasmine rice, but drop in chopped parsley just before reducing heat to steam.

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Got any versions of these recipes I should try? Let me know.