Monday, August 15, 2011

Blue Crabs

Spring in southern Louisiana is all about crawfish. Summer is all about blue crabs.  I don’t know what truth there is to the family lore, ingrained in my psyche since toddlerhood, that the crabs are fullest just after a full moon. The theory goes that the crabs can see better, and therefore feed better, by the light of a full moon.  It may sound crazy but it certainly held true this past weekend.

Saturday evening we enjoyed the most wonderful full-of-meat crabs I have had in a long time, seasoned with just the right amount of red pepper (read: lots!) with salt and other spices.  The Seafood Connection in New Iberia always gets it right. If you ever find yourself within driving distance, do it!






The detritus 
 

Here a little thing that made me chuckle: I was searching for information for Seafood Connection because I always like to add a link if possible when I write about a store or restaurant or market or supplier of anything I’ve used. I came across the official website for my hometown, New Iberia, and was tickled to see it had a link for local recipes, right alongside the link for city history. Food is indeed just as important to the inhabitants! 



Sunday, August 14, 2011

Grilled Duck Breasts with Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella Salad


Just me and younger daughter at home the other night. The tomato was a lovely large specimen from Atkinson Farm by way of Revival Market on Heights Blvd.

Ingredients
1 duck breast per person, preferably pastured. Ours came from Countryside Farms
Ripe, summer tomatoes
Fresh ball/s of mozzarella
Fresh basil leaves
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Method
Magrets de canard or duck breasts
Slit the fat about 1 cm apart on the duck breasts and sprinkle both sides with sea salt and black pepper. 


Preheat your griddle pan. Let it get screeching hot and then put the duck, fat side down, for 3 minutes, uncovered. The fat will begin rendering from the skin so you may need to put a splatter guard over the pan to keep it from spitting fat everywhere.



When your 3-minute timer goes off, flip the breasts and push the timer for another 3 minutes.  Cover the pan with a loose fitting lid.  



When the time has reached 1.5 minutes, turn the fire down to medium. When the timer goes off, turn the duck breasts skin side up again and set the time for 3 more minutes.  Cook with the lid off for 1.5 minutes and then put the lid back on for the rest of the time. When the timer goes off, remove the breasts to a cutting board and cover with the pan lid. Let them sit for about 3-5 minutes. Slice thinly at an angle and serve.

Terrible photo but you get the idea.

Tomato Salad
Slice the tomato in quarter-inch slices and lay all around the plate.  Cut those slices in half again, if they will fit your plate better. Sprinkle sparingly with sea salt. Slice the fresh mozzarella ball and place one slice of cheese of each slice of tomato. Sprinkle a little more sea salt and a few grinds of pepper. Add small leaves of basil or chopped leaves of basil on top of the cheese and tomato slices.  Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and serve.




Friday, August 12, 2011

Best Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs


This weekend I am going to visit my grandmother. Yes, you read that correctly, my grandmother. I am 48 years old and I am blessed to have one grandparent still living.  She is full of life and an inspiration to us all. One of her favorite meals is spaghetti and meatballs so I am cooking a good pot to take with us.

Several years back, I made sauce with Italian sausage, removed from the casing and browned and chopped up to look like ground beef, and loved the way it flavored the tomato sauce as it cooked.  Then a couple of years back I watched a Jamie Oliver show where he used sausage but pinched an inch or two out of the casing at a time to make meatballs, which he pan-fried before adding them to the sauce. I thought this was brilliant and, for a time, that was the only way I made meatballs as well. Happily, this coincided with our move from KL to Singapore and Cold Storage in Singapore has wonderful, flavorful fresh sausages in a variety of flavors. To cook with Puy lentils, I would buy the small herb and garlic ones. For spaghetti sauce, the spicy Italian.  Lamb with rosemary worked beautifully for a dinner of mashed potatoes and a vegetable of some sort. Quick, easy, delicious.

Now, of course, you know if you’ve been following along lately that since reading Eating Animals, I try not to buy meat from a regular supermarket (at least not here in Houston because alternatives are readily available) because I cannot know its provenance and how the animal was treated. I would prefer to support the family farmers who raise cows and pigs and chicken out in the pasture, eating what animals should eat, by which I don’t mean antibiotics and other unnatural feed.  Unfortunately that means the selection of sausage is not that great.   So, I was back to making meatballs the old-fashioned way, but trying to mimic the flavor of my beloved sauce with Italian sausage.  


Ingredients
3 lbs or 1360g ground pork, preferably pastured pork
1 oz or 30g hot Italian sausage seasonings (I bought mine from a great supply store off of I-45 at Airline but you can get them online at Penzeys or in their store, also near me. I love the Heights in Houston! If you buy Penzeys, you might want to add cayenne or crushed red pepper since theirs isn’t hot.) 
1 large yellow or white onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
One large 28 oz or 794g can whole peeled tomatoes
One large 12 oz or 340g can of tomato paste – not sauce – paste. The really thick stuff.
2 heaping tablespoons of oregano
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons of sugar




Method
For the meatballs

Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Mix half the seasonings into the pork thoroughly. 


Fry up a small piece to taste. 


Add more seasonings, frying a little piece after each addition. Only you know your family’s taste and you don’t want it too spicy or salty.  That said, some of the seasonings will be transferred when the meatballs cook further in the sauce so don’t panic if you find it suddenly spicier or saltier than you think it should be.

Grease a baking tray with olive oil and drop the meat mixture spoonful by spoonful on the tray. 


With your oily hands, roll each piece into a ball and return to the greased tray.  


When all the balls are rolled, pop the tray into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Tray one

Tray two
Meanwhile, get started on your sauce.  Chop your onion and garlic and sauté them gently with a little olive oil.  


When they are soft and translucent, add the can of tomatoes (and a can full of water) and the can of paste (and a can of water.)  Add oregano, bay leaves and sugar and bring to a boil.  Turn down to simmer and cover. (Yes, my meatballs are already in for this photo. Truth is, I forgot the oregano and bay leaves and had only added the sugar.  It doesn't really matter if you put them in before or after the meatballs but I thought the instructions should reflect how I MEANT to do it.)



When the meatballs are browned, add them to the sauce pot, making sure to scrape any sticky meaty goodness out of the pan and add it to the pot as well. (Add a little water to the pan if you have to.) Stir gently and cover the pot again. 





Simmer for as long as you can before serving over pasta boiled according to package suggestions. The finished sauce you see here is a little thicker than I would usually serve it but since I am transporting it across state lines, I let it cook down and will add some more water as I reheat it.



All my life, my grandmother has cooked for the family and, like most folks from New Iberia, LA, everything she makes is made with love and spice. She doesn’t cook as much as she used to, although she’ll still fry chicken when begged. (I have watched her and written down her every move but I will be darned if I can replicate her chicken. Hers is still the best!) Every summer I am grateful that Gram is still around and grateful that she can still enjoy some good home cooking.  Preparing one of her favorite meals has given me great joy and it will be even more joyful when we can sit together to share it.  (I’ll add photos after the meal.)

The finished bowl
After note:  The spaghetti and meatballs were a hit!  I could not get a good photo of Gram, despite younger daughter and I both trying with two different cameras.  She does not pose and when we asked her to smile, it reminded us of the Friends where Chandler and Monica were taking engagement photos. Here are a couple anyway.