Culinary School New York

Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

I’ve made this recipe a few times and it has worked out great, it is based on a recipe of Rick Bayless who is probably the best Mexican influenced chef in the U.S.

Ingredients:

- 12 ounces (2 medium-small round or 4 or 5 plum) ripe tomatoes
- Fresh serrano chiles to taste (roughly 3 to 5, 1/2 to 1 ounce total, or even more if you like it really picante), stemmed
- A dozen or so large sprigs of cilantro
- 1 large garlic clove, peeled and very finely chopped (optional)
- 1 small (4-ounce) white onion
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
- Salt, about 3/4 teaspoon

I roughly chop all the ingredients, except the onion, and put them in a blender. Blend these ingredients well but not too much. Finely chop the onion and rinse in cold water. Add the onion to the mixture in the blender and give it a few pulses to get everything blended together. The reason to keep the onion separate is that it will get sour if blended. Of course you can use a food processor for the ingredients except for the onion. All of these you can adjust for taste. I have been using plum tomatoes but will try larger tomatoes because I think I’m getting too much flavor from the skins of the tomatoes.

Refrigerate for at least an hour, the longer the better.

Boiled shrimp has got to be my favorite type of seafood and cooking method. Since I was a little kid I have been going to Mobile, Alabama to visit my grandma and the first night of our visit she would always cook up a few pounds of fresh shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico. She would always buy it right off the shrimp boat.

Cooking boiled shrimp is pretty easy. You either use Rex or Zatarains crab boil. I always get the kind that comes in the mesh bag. It will season up to 3 pounds.

To boil shrimp you need a big pot and fill it with water, make sure you have enough to cover the shrimp when they are boiling and that you don’t put too much water in the pot because you do not want boiling water to overflow when adding the shrimp.

Once your water is boiling add the crab boil and let that boil for a couple of minutes, then add the shrimp. Let the water come back to a boil and boil for 3 minutes, then turn the heat off and let the shrimp soak in the water for 10 minutes. This helps soak up the spices from the crab boil.

Then drain the cooked shrimp and put it in a bowl and put it in the refrigerator, or if you are like us, in the freezer. Once that shrimp is cooked we can’t wait to eat it. It is best if it is cool.

The next step should be done while you are waiting for the water to boil. You need to make some cocktail sauce to dip your shrimp in. Use a half cup of Heinz Cocktail sauce (it’s near the ketchup at the grocery store) and about a tablespoon of horseradish. You might need to experiment depending on how spicy you want it. You can make cocktail sauce with ketchup or chili sauce, but I find this pretty easy and it tastes good. You can add some lemon to the sauce as well.

Now all you have to do is peel the shrimp and dig in. We always peel them one at a time and peel and eat. If you don’t know how to peel a shrimp, it is usually easiest to learn by watching. But what I do is break the tail off and peel away the legs which will peel some of the shell off and just get the remaining shell off. When eating boiled shrimp we never de-vein them.

Cooking shrimp this way is excellent for gumbo.

Have you ever checked the internet for a copy cat recipe, like a for KFC Fried Chicken recipe? There are tons of websites, 252,000 to be exact. Well I’ve found one that is pretty darn good.

It might not be the secret KFC fried chicken recipe, but it’s darn good! I’ve made this a couple of times and the chicken turns out real tasty!

Ingredients:

* 1.5 Tablespoons Salt
* 2 tablespoons Louisiana Hot Sauce
* 1 chicken cut in pieces (they have this at the grocery store)
* 3 cups nonfat buttermilk
* 1.5 cups flour
* 2 pounds vegetable shortening (you can use canola or vegetable oil)
* 1 tablespoons baking powder
* 2 teaspoons pepper
* 1 teaspoons cayenne pepper

Directions:

Mix together the salt, Louisiana hot sauce and buttermilk, add the chicken and make sure the chicken is coated with the buttermilk mixture. Cover tightly and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Put the rest of the dry ingredients, including 3 teaspoons of salt, into a paper sack and mix up the ingredients in the bag by shaking the bag.

In a heavy skillet–cast iron is best, heat the oil or shortening to 375 degrees. Make sure you are using enough oil to cover each piece of chicken. Also, make sure the sides of the skillet are high enough so the oil doesn’t overflow when the chicken pieces are in the oil cooking.

Take each piece of chicken out of the buttermilk mixture and one at a time drop in the paper bag and shack to thoroughly coat the chicken, do this with half the pieces and put in hot oil. Cook each piece for 10 minutes on each side. When done drain on rack or paper towels and coat and cook the remaining pieces in the same manner.

If you want to cook more chicken just double or triple the recipe.

Here’s my recipe for Salsa Verde or Green Hot Sauce. It’s great with tortilla chips and on chicken tacos and with black bean–refried or regular. And it’s fairly easy to make. Also, if you live in an area where tomatillos are plentiful and reasonably priced, this is cheaper than store bought salsa and way better because it’s a good recipe and it’s fresh.

Ingredients:

8-12 Tomatillos
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup white onions (sweet onions if possible)
Juice of 2 limes
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cilantro de-stemmed
3 jalapenos

I use a blender to mix the ingredients, you can use a food processor, but I prefer the consistency the blender gets.

Remove the husks and wash the tomatillos. Cut the tomatillos in half. Put the tomatillos cut side down on tinfoil in the broiler. Also put the jalapenos on the tinfoil. It will take about 10 minutes for the tomatillos to get browned/cooked from the broiler. Turn the jalapenos when one side gets cooked. Let the tomatillos cool on the tinfoil. After the tomatillos have cooled there will probably be some juice left from the cooking, don’t include that, it will make the salsa too runny.

Put all ingredients in blender then put the tomatillo and jalapeno in blender. Blend to a smooth consistency. You can adjust the lime, salt, sugar and jalapenos to suit your taste. I usually put two jalapenos in at first and then taste, some jalapenos are very spicy so it’s good to gradually bring the heat up. Of course you can use more jalapenos and if you want serrano peppers would work as well.

Serve chilled. This makes about 2 cups of salsa.

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Here’s my recipe for Crawfish and Sausage Gumbo. I have done this one a number of times and it comes out great. I make a dark roux, so the finished gumbo is almost a chocolate brown in color. I have made this with shrimp and sausage; and chicken and sausage. For the chicken I usually get one of the rotisserie chickens from the grocery store and use all the chicken meat in the gumbo–just tear it up and put it in after the sausage. Or you can used boiled shrimp. Get 2-3 pounds of good gulf shrimp (they don’t have to be large in size–medium is fine). If you have to use frozen, it won’t taste as good. Boil the shrimp using Zatarain’s or Rex Shrimp boil and follow the directions on the box. Get the crab boil that has all the spices in a mesh bag.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons oil
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 tablespoon cayenne or to taste
Louisiana Hot Sauce (preferably Crystal)
1 large yellow onion
1 large bell pepper (green pepper)
8 - 12 green onions
3 - 5 links of smoked sausage
5 pounds live crawfish
8 cups chicken stock
cooked rice

To start out you need to boil the crawfish. Here is my crawfish boil recipe that is adapted from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival’s recipe (so you know it’s good–and spicy):

5 pounds of live crawfish
3 oz. cayenne pepper
1 oz. Tabasco sauce
4 cloves garlic - cut in half
6 lemons cut in half
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 bay leaves
1 oz. Louisiana Hot Sauce
6 oz. salt
2 bags Zatarain’s or Rex crab and shrimp boil

Put everything except the crawfish in a very large stock pot (the crawfish and ingredients displace a lot of water so make sure you have enough space in the pot and don’t over fill with water). After this comes to a boil let it boil for 10 minutes. While the water is coming to a boil, soak the crawfish in heavily salted fresh cold water to clean them.

Put the crawfish in the boiling water, after the water starts boiling again, cook for 10 minutes. Turn the fire off and let the crawfish soak for another 10 minutes. Strain out the crawfish and let them cool. Now you need to peel the crawfish and retain the tail meat.

Some people might not want to go to this trouble boiling the crawfish like this, but it really gives them the proper taste.

Now that the crawfish is done, you need to cook the sausage (these can be cooked at the same time). Cut up the sausage into 1/4 - 1/2 inch slices. Then brown them in a fry pan. I cook the sausage first to give them more flavor and to cook some of the grease off. When done, drain the sausage on paper towels.

Now cut up the vegetables in a medium dice. The vegetables need to be all cut up prior to making the roux.

Before making the roux heat your stock, it needs to be at a simmer when the roux and vegetables are done cooking. And you don’t want to be messing around with the stock while you’re cooking the roux since the roux needs constant stirring.

Making the ROUX - my favorite part, or at least the most important part of the gumbo. Heat up a large skillet pan, one that is large enough to cook the vegetables in. Put the oil in the pan and mix the flour in with the oil. Stir the two ingredients together thoroughly. The pan should be on a fairly high heat or cooking the roux will take a real long time. On a high heat it will take 10 - 20 minutes. You need to keep stirring the flour and oil constantly, you don’t want it to burn. After a few minutes it will start turning color. You need to keep stirring and cooking the roux until it turns the color of a Hershey Bar–a nice chocolate color. When the roux is done, quickly mix in the vegetables with the roux, this will stop the roux from cooking. Turn the heat down to medium.

Keep stirring the vegetables and roux together and cook for about 10 minutes until vegetables are softened and the mixture is becoming one. The smell at this point of the roux and the vegetables cooking is one of my favorite smells in cooking. Now spoon the roux mixture into the simmering stock and mix well. Also add the sausage. Let this simmer covered on low heat for 45 minutes. Add the cayenne and stir. While simmering stir occasionally.

After 45 minutes add crawfish and cook another 10 minutes. At this point turn off the heat and let stand covered for 10 minutes–it’s now done. Serve in bowls with some rice in the bottom of each bowl (cook the rice while the gumbo is simmering). I like a healthy portion of Crystal Louisiana Hot Sauce in my gumbo. But you only need to add it after you serve it, some people love it and some people don’t. The gumbo will be great without it.

This gumbo takes awhile to make. The version that takes the least amount of time is with chicken and sausage, but that still takes about an hour and a half.

This will give you 5-6 bowls of gumbo with extra for seconds.