Showing posts with label #SundaySupper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #SundaySupper. Show all posts

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Smothered Cabbage with Pork

Pork pan-fried until the edges are crunchy and caramelized, smothered with plenty of onions and cabbage, seasoned with chilies and freshly ground black pepper is home cooking at its Louisiana best.

In southern Louisiana, we like to smother things. My mother says that growing up, she never had a crunchy vegetable. Green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, okra, eggplant, you name it, it was cooked till soft and mushy. Now when she’s making maque choux, she cuts the fresh corn off the cob and barely introduces it to the heat and calls it done. I’m really not sure what my grandmother would think. We all think it’s very tasty.

My maternal grandmother has been mentioned on these “pages” before. She was a woman who had it all, before we even knew what that looked like. She ran her own business with my grandfather, raised three girls, kept a tidy house and cooked a full meal for dinner (what she called the midday meal) every day of the week, with an extra full menu on Sunday. Their major appliance store was on Center St. in a small town and their house was right behind it. She’d nip away to get dinner started and leave a pot roast or round steak, smothered with onions, simmering on the stove while she attended to customers and answered the phones. She and my grandfather would close the store for dinner and open again after they had eaten and they had watched their stories, which is what they called the soap operas. The characters on The Guiding Light  and As the World Turns were part of daily life and their adventures were discussed as if they were neighbors. They had been watching those characters live their lives for almost 20 years so by the mid-1970s, when I started eavesdropping, the conversations were candid and, frankly, a little bit alarming. John Dixon’s wife Kim wants to divorce him! He forced himself on her. Is it rape since he’s still her husband? This was pretty radical stuff for daytime television. Even my grandfather was hooked.  If I sat quietly on the periphery, the grownups never even noticed me there, with my wide eyes and bigger ears.

Anyway, the point of all this is that dishes that could simmer, covered, were easy favorites for a woman trying to run a store, cook a meal, and keep up with her stories, and this cabbage with pork was no exception. It’s still one of our favorite dishes so, when I make it, I make a BIG pot. We can eat this for days!

This week’s Sunday Supper theme is Eat Your Greens in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Our host with the most is DB from Crazy Foodie Stunts and we have a great round up of green dishes and drinks for you.  Make sure to scroll on down for the link list.

Ingredients - for six to eight servings
4 thick pork chops, bone in (Approximate weight 2 lb 10 oz or 1200g)
White vinegar (just a few tablespoons)
Sea salt flakes
Black pepper
Cayenne
Monosodium glutamate (optional) – my grandmother used something called Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer. But I use MSG since none of us have a sensitivity to it.
2 heads cabbage – I used one normal cabbage and one Savoy – total weight 7 3/4 bs or 3500g
1- 3 small red chilies – This is my addition. My grandmother would have seasoned this dish with cayenne and black pepper so if I don’t have fresh hot chilies, I do that instead.
2 large onions (Approximate weight 1 lb or 500g)
11 1/4 oz or 320g smoked slab bacon
Olive oil

Method
Cut the bone off the pork chops, leaving a little meat for those who like to chew the bones, by which I mean me.  Cut the meat into small chunks and sprinkle the bones and chunks with some plain white vinegar. (I keep one bottle with a lid that has holes cut into it for easy sprinkling.)

The vinegar helps tenderize the meat as it marinates.
Season the meat liberally with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, cayenne and, if desired, MSG.

Put the pork into a bowl and toss it around so that all the pieces are well seasoned. Cover with cling film and set aside to marinate.

Cut the bacon into similarly sized chunks.



Core your cabbage and then slice it into thin pieces. Set aside a couple of handfuls of the very greenest pieces for adding to the pot right at the end. Smothered cabbage may taste delicious but it’s not the prettiest dish. Adding some bright green at the end helps with this.



Peel and slice your onions thinly. Split the red chilies down the middle then mince them finely.



In a big pot, big enough to hold all your ingredients, and that has a tightly fitting lid, heat a good drizzle of olive oil and start to pan fry the pork, including the bacon, a few pieces at a time.

As they brown, remove them to a plate and keep pan frying until all the pork is wonderfully browned and caramelized. Add a little more olive oil along the way, if necessary.



Once all the pork is browned, you should have some lovely sticky stuff left in the bottom of the pot too. Add another drizzle of olive oil then the sliced onions and chilies.



Pop the lid on and let the onions sweat for a few minutes.  Use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape all the delicious brown bits off the pot.


When the onions are translucent, add the pork back into the pot, making sure to scrape in any juice that pooled in the bottom of your plate.


Right here I need to tell that my grandmother would have cut the cabbage into larger pieces and put it all in at once and cooked till it was smothered down and completely soft. So feel free to use her method if that appeals to you. I add mine in a bit at a time so that when the pork is cooked and tender, there is cabbage of varying degrees of doneness in the one pot, all the way from melted into almost nothing to still just a bit crunchy.

So here it goes, my way. Add about one third of the cabbage to the pot and put the lid back on. No need to stir yet. Simmer over a medium low heat until the cabbage is wilted and soft, about 20-25 minutes.



Remove the lid and give the whole thing a good stir.  Add in another third of the cabbage and put the lid back on. Simmer for another 20-25 minutes before removing the lid and stirring the pot. The second batch of cabbage should be wilted now too.

Finally, add in all but the couple of handfuls of the greenest cabbage leaves and put the lid back on again. Simmer, covered, for another 20-25 minutes.





Stir the pot and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Finally, add in the last green handfuls of cabbage and stir. Cook for just a few more minutes until those greens are slightly wilted but still a little crunchy.

These were the outer leaves of the Savoy cabbage. I saved them because they are a much brighter green than the normal cabbage. 


Enjoy!


Eat Your Greens this week! Now you have no excuse not to!

Green Light Appetizers and Sides
Getting Greens Through Salads
Entreés That Will Leave You Green With Envy
Desserts and Beverages That Will Make Others Turn Green



Posted by at 4:00:00 AM 33 comments
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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Louisiana Roasted Barbecue Shrimp


In New Orleans, this dish is simply known as barbecued shrimp despite its method of cooking, which doesn’t get anywhere near hot coals or even an electric grill. I’ve added “Roasted” so you know that the oven is where the action takes place. 

I came to barbecued shrimp late in life. It wasn’t something either of my Cajun grandmothers made, at least, I don’t recall ever eating it at their houses. Fresh gulf shrimp in their hands became an étouffée or were boiled whole in spicy seasoned water along with baby new potatoes and corn on the cob. Even my mother, born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, is more likely to bread and deep-fry shrimp or, if company is coming, cook them in a cheesy rich Newburg sauce. Now we are going back a few years but it was my cousin, Misty, who first introduced us, me and the barbecued shrimp. It was love at first bite.

We were visiting Misty one summer at her lovely home in New Orleans and she baked the shrimp with a full cup of butter and a package of wonderful seasonings from the folks at Bolner’s Spices. You know I had to go buy a packet or two right after that. But, living as we do overseas, remembering to buy enough spice packets to keep us going from year to year often just didn't happen. It was time to figure out how to do it on my own, from ingredients I could get. This week’s Sunday Supper theme of Fat Sunday - sharing decadent or Mardi Gras inspired recipes – was just the motivation I needed. I am calling this homemade version of roasted barbecue shrimp a great success based on my husband’s comment after the meal, “We could have this again, and often.” Why, yes. Yes, we could!

Ingredients (to feed two greedy people on shrimp and bread or four normal people, if you include side dishes like potatoes and salad)
1 lb 10 oz or 750g fresh shrimp or prawns (without heads, shells still on)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary
4 cloves garlic
Olive oil
1 lemon
1 small purple onion
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter
1/4 cup or 60ml Worcestershire sauce
To serve: Chopped green onions for garnish and French bread for sopping up the sauce. Sides of boiled baby new potatoes and salad – optional

Method
Use a mortar and pestle to grind together into a thick paste the paprika, black pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, the leaves off of your sprigs of rosemary and thyme and the cloves of garlic.



Add in a couple of glugs (perhaps two tablespoons) of olive oil and stir until loosened.



Spoon the spice paste into a medium-sized bowl with your shrimp. Using a microplane or a fine grater, zest the yellow peel off of your lemon.

Give everything a thorough stir to make sure that the spices and zest are well mixed with the shrimp. Set aside.



Finely mince your purple onion. Put the minced onion and the butter into a large ovenproof pan on the stovetop. Gently melt the butter and sauté the onions over a medium heat.

When the onions are translucent, turn the fire off and remove the pan from the stove. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and allow the mixture to cool.



When the pan is cool enough not to cook your seasoned shrimp on contact, pour them in and mix thoroughly. Set aside to marinate further.



Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  When the oven is hot, give the shrimp another good stir and pop them into the oven, uncovered, for about 20 minutes or until they have turned pink and are cooked through. Squeeze on some of the lemon juice from your zested lemon.

Sprinkle with a little chopped green onion, if desired. Serve barbecued shrimp with sliced French bread to dip in the pan juices because, honestly, that’s the best part! This is a meal you will eat with your hands. It's gonna get messy but it's gonna be good!


Enjoy!








Whether you celebrate Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, the final day of indulgence before the start of Lent, or just love decadent dishes, desserts and cocktails, you are going to love our round up today, hosted by the talented Leslie of La Cocina de Leslie. I know I want to try everything on the list!

Cocktails & Other Beverages:
Appetizers:
Main Dishes:
Side Dishes:
Desserts:

Posted by at 5:11:00 AM 23 comments
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Sunday, February 9, 2014

Meyer Lemon Butter Sauce Prawns with Linguine

Meyer lemons, thought to be a cross between Eureka or Lisbon lemons and mandarin oranges, are only available for a few months at the beginning of the year. They work well in both sweet and savory dishes, especially seafood.

If you’ve been reading this space for a while, you know that last year, for the very first time, I found myself living somewhere I can buy Meyer lemons.  I brought a bag of six home and spent a great deal of time creating recipes that would let them play an important role. After all, they were not cheap. And, to reiterate, I only had six. This dish was one of our favorites and it’s just perfect for today’s Sunday Supper Valentine Recipes for Two theme.

Ingredients
1 lb or about 450g prawns or shrimp, cleaned and peeled
Sea salt
1 Meyer lemon
6-8 cherry tomatoes
1 clove garlic
2 shallots
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Olive oil
2/3 cup or 155ml dry white wine
1//2 cup or 120ml cream
7 oz or 200g linguine
Generous handful arugula (rocket) or fresh spinach

Method
Thinly slice half of your Meyer lemon.  Juice the other half and set the juice aside.



Split each prawn in two down the middle with a sharp knife and give them a light sprinkle with sea salt.


Mince the shallots and garlic.

In a large non-stick skillet, pan-fry the lemon slices over a medium heat in a drizzle of olive oil.



When the slices are nicely browned, removed them from the pan and set aside. Add in two tablespoons of the butter and let it melt and sizzle.

Now toss in the prawn halves and cook them until they are all curly and just pink through.


Remove them from the pan and set them on the browned Meyer lemon slices.


Add in the last two tablespoons of butter, then the minced shallots and garlic. Turn the fire down and sauté them until they are soft and translucent.



Meanwhile put water on to boil for the linguine.

Add the wine and lemon juice to the shallots and garlic, along with the cherry tomatoes.  Stir well.

 Cook until all of the liquid has almost evaporated, keeping an eye on it and stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile put your linguine in the boiling water with a teaspoon or two of salt. Cook according to package instructions but set your timer for about one minute less than the prescribed time. When the linguine is almost done, toss in the greens, allow them to wilt.


Drain the whole pot through a colander.  Set aside.


When the shallot/garlic pan is almost dry, add the prawns and Meyer lemon slices back into the pan. Give it a good stir.



Pour in your cream and stir again.

Season with some extra salt and a few good grinds of fresh black pepper.


Divide your pasta into two bowls and then share the creamy, lemony butter sauce with prawns over the top.


Enjoy!


If you are looking for special Valentine’s Day inspiration, you’ve come to the right place! We’ve got dishes for two galore today!  Many thanks to our host this week, Susan from The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen, who just happens to have the perfect red Valentine kitchen.

Alluring Appetizers:
Exquisite Entrees:
Decadent Desserts and Drinks:


Posted by at 6:37:00 AM 19 comments
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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Spicy Roasted Corn Shrimp Dip




This spicy, extra cheesy baked corn dip with shrimp will become a party favorite. For a vegetarian version, substitute chopped black olives for the shrimp. 

Today is the biggest game day of the season for those who follow American football. It’s the championship they call the Super Bowl and it’s a pretty big deal even for folks who don’t have a team they normally support in the game. Over the years, we’ve woken up at some pretty bizarre times to watch the Super Bowl, because live television was the only way to catch the action. Now, with one-click record at the ready, we can watch at our leisure the next day, at a decent time and eat things like chips and dip.  (Nobody but me feels like chips and dip at 3 a.m., which is such a shame.) Anyhoo, I’m just here to tell you that I will be scarce on social media on Sunday evening and Monday, until we can watch the recording, because folks do persist in giving blow-by-blow accounts of the game as it is played and I don’t want to find out like that! Sort of ruins the fun, I’m sure you will agree.

What I wouldn’t mind a blow-by-blow of, on the other hand, is what you are serving so feel free to share those leading up to the game! The best part of Super Bowl watching parties is always the food and drink. If you are still dithering over what to make, the Sunday Supper group has got you covered with 50 great recipes for any game day!  I can highly recommend this cheesy corn dip with shrimp.  I brought it out sailing yesterday and even at room temperature, it got rave reviews.

Ingredients
12 oz or 340g shrimp or prawns, already peeled and cleaned
Olive oil
4 cups or 625g frozen corn, thawed (and drained, if necessary)
1 onion
Small bunch green onions (Mine weighed about 1 2/3 oz or 45g.)
1 large red chili pepper
1 jalapeño
12 oz or 340g extra sharp cheddar
1/2 cup or 110g mayonnaise
2 1/2 oz or 70g cream cheese, at room temperature
Freshly ground black pepper

For serving: Tortilla chips for dipping

Method
If you have a pan that can go from stovetop to oven, use it.  Otherwise, we’ll do the first steps in a skillet and then transfer everything to an ovenproof dish for baking.

In your pan of choice, cook the shrimp with a drizzle of olive oil until they are just cooked through.

 Remove them from the pan and chop roughly.  Set aside.



In the same pan over high heat, add another drizzle of oil and fry the corn until it gets a little browned or even charred, stirring every once in a while to keep it from sticking.

My lighting is poor but it really does have browndy bits.




Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Mince your onion, green onions, red chili and jalapeño and grate your cheddar cheese.



When the corn has some nice browned bits on it, remove it from the pan and set aside to cool a little.

Add yet another drizzle of olive oil to that same pan and, over a medium heat, sauté the chopped onions and peppers until everything is soft and the onions are translucent.  This will take about 10 minutes.  Stir regularly to avoid the onions scorching.




Remove the pan from the heat and add in the corn, chopped shrimp, cream cheese, mayonnaise and about two-thirds of the grated cheddar.  Give the whole thing a good couple of grinds of fresh black pepper.  Stir well to combine.



If your pan is ovenproof, spread the mixture out evenly and top with the remaining cheddar cheese.  Otherwise, transfer to a baking dish and do the same.



Bake for about 15-20 minutes in your preheated oven or until the dip is melted and the cheese on top is bubbling.  Don’t bake it too long or the oil starts to separate out of the cheese.

Serve with tortilla chips for scooping up big bites of the dip.



Enjoy!

Check out all the delicious party food we’ve got for you this week. Appetizers, main courses and sweet treats – there’s something for everyone here. Many thanks to this week’s Sunday Supper host, Heather from Hezzi D’s Books and Cooks! And may your own favorite team win!

Game Day Appetizers:

Game Day Entrees:

 Game Day Desserts:









Posted by at 1:28:00 AM 32 comments
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