Food Minia

From Homemade Rendered Lard I just started my new site American Gourmand and I kicked off my posting with a dish near and dear to my heart, Buttermilk Fried Chicken ! While I love working on Nola Cuisine as well as this blog, I need an outlet to explore other culinary pursuits; barbecue, pizza, sushi, charcuterie, etc., so American Gourmand is born! Next week I am off to Nashville for 4 days of Southern food exploration and hopefully a heck of a lot of great music too! See you soon! Danno

I brought dessert to a party a couple weeks ago and everyone asked for the recipe, so here it is. :-) For a 10" tart (plus some left-over pastry): 1 egg 1/2 tsp salt 125g sugar 250g flour 125g butter 2 or 3 ripe pears (d'Anjou or Bartlett) ground cinnamon almond powder or thin almond slivers (optional) Prepare the  pâte sablée  pastry as follows: Beat the egg, salt, and sugar in a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, until they become foamy and turn to a pale yellow. (Note: why use a stand mixer when you can have a free workout?) Sift all the flour at once over the egg and sugar mix. Start mixing slowly with the wooden spoon, then use your fingers to mix all the ingredients. Rub small amounts of dough between your fingers or hands to turn the mix into a grainy "sand." ( Pâte sablée  means "sanded dough.") Cut the butter into small parcels. If the butter is very cold, heat up in the microwave for a few seconds. Add to the mix and knead the dough with your hands

Hi All! Just a quick note to let you know that I have updated the Recipe Index and A La Carte pages (see the tabs  just under the blog title). I hope you'll have fun browsing my 80+ recipes, either by key word / main ingredient (in the Recipe Index ) or by type of dish (with the A La Carte menu).

It was last weekend, a few days after la Chandeleur , the French "crepe day." I had made the batter around 4pm on Saturday, thinking that we would have the crepes for dinner that evening. Since the batter needs a couple hours of rest at room temperature, I left it on the kitchen counter while we visited our new friends, a family we met through preschool. But kids and parents alike had such a good time that we decided to end the day at the restaurant all together. I figured that the crepes could wait another day. On the way back from dinner, I put the bowl of batter in the fridge until Sunday's lunch. And what a lunch we had! Making crepes is a bit like making jam, as far as I'm concerned: as simple as the recipe might be, something always goes wrong, and I never know what it is. Crepes end up being too thick, jam overcooks... It's an art much more than it is a science. Successes always seem like miracles.  On Saturday, although I always prepare the batter with a w

A few souvenirs from my recent trip to Lyon... Christmas lunch at my parents' Shrimp, avocado, and grapefruit salad Stuffed duck with truffles, sautéed potatoes, and mushrooms Tome de Savoie , Beaufort , Charolais , Fourme d'Ambert , Saint-Félicien , and other delicious cheeses Fruits déguisés ("costumed fruits"—dried dates, prunes, figs, and walnuts, stuffed with almond paste) Dinner at my aunt's and uncle's Raw oysters from the Atlantic ocean Another lunch at my parents' Beef roast just about to go in the oven Sautéed zucchini and tomatoes Baked apples sprinkled with cinnamon, butter and a little bit of sugar (I believe they were Golden Russets— Reinettes grises du Canada ) Lunch at my parents-in-law's Quail eggs Saucisson de Lyon (regional cooked sausage. This one came from Pierre's grandmother's butcher.) Pierre's aunt Suzanne's famous Christmas cookies