Shrimp Provencal... take 1

Last night I tried my hand at a re-make of the delicious shrimp dish that Saba had at Blue Ribbon Restaurant in NYC. I've actually been kind of trying to figure out what was in this recipe since last week (I'm a dork, I know), so making it yesterday was kind of exciting. I talked about the dish in detail in the last posting, so I won't do it again (trying to make these more succinct), but the overall flavor of the sauce was pretty interesting to me, and I really didn't have any idea what the components were so... Chall-ange!

The first thing I did was just do an Internet search for Shrimp Provencal recipe to see if anything came up. Hey! I didn't say I needed to create it from scratch... just figure out what was in it:-p No luck with that. :-p

The next thing I did was to do an ingredient search on epicurious and the food network site to see if I could find anything with the ingredients that I thought I tasted, shrimp, butter, cream and fennel and cheese ravioli. From that little search I initially thought maybe it was a sort of Mornay Sauce which is a Bechamel sauce with added cheese, but I didn't remember tasting any cheese in the sauce.. somehow through a random series of searches I came across a recipe for a Lobster Ravioli in a Chervil Nage. I'd never heard of a "Nage", but the picture looked very much like the shrimp Provencal sauce and the ingredients seemed promising. Saba was pretty sure that the primary herb was tarragon and that there was no cheese in the sauce. I asked my boss (who is very food knowledgeable, and shares an office with me) some questions about fennel bulb (which I rarely cook with), and she mentioned that fennel bulb tastes much like anise when cooked, which was one of the flavors that I initially thought i tasted. So it looked like I was making a Tarragon infused nage sauce. Yay! I actually found quite a few recipes for Tarragon nage sauces, so I figured I was on the right track, but Emeril's nage recipe seemed more complex so I figured I'd pretty much use that one, but sub the tarragon for the chervil. I decided against making homemade ravioli, because I just couldn't do all that on Saturday. I thought there was goat cheese in the ravioli, but Saba thought it was just ricotta... I found a goat cheese ravioli at Whole Foods that had Ricotta as it's first ingredient so I decided to just use those. Here is the recipe I decided to use...

1.5 onion
3 carrots
1 lemon, juiced
1.5 leeks (white part only)
1.5 shallots
3 sprigs tarragon
3 springs parsley
½ tsp coriander seeds
6 peppercorns (or 1 tsp)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon salt
1 lb shrimp
1 bulb fennel fronds and upper stems reserved
3 tablespoons minced tarragon
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon lemon zest

I first made a "stock" out of all the the veges and spices (Onions down to Salt). I then threw the shrimp skins in with the veggies. The initial recipe called for the lobster shell to be simmered in the stock. I simmered that for about 30 min. I cooked the shrimp in a butter with only kosher salt and black pepper. I cooked the shrimp only until it started to get pink in the center and then set it aside. When the "stock" had simmered for about 20 min I strained all the solids out and then added the fronds of fennel and boiled it on high.... According to the recipe I was supposed to boil it until the gallon of water reduced to 2-3 cups... but I had a hungry friend over who was getting drunker, hungrier and more belligerent by the moment so I figured I needed to get some food on the table, STAT! I just took 2+ cups of stock out and started to make the nage. The instructions for the nage said to bring the stock to a simmer and add the chopped tarragon, cream, butter and lemon zest, stir and remove from the heat.

So... I finished the sauce and it looked REALLY watery and was kind of bland, so I decided to add some flour to thicken it up... didn't help much. I added more salt and pepper and it helped a bit, but it was still really watery. But my girl was hungry, so I put it all on the plate and we ate. This is what it looked like:

Honestly I really liked it. In terms of mimicking the flavor I recalled I give myself a solid C+ The flavor of the sauce was similar, but it wasn't nearly as potent/flavorful as the original. Also it was WAY WAY too watery. The sauce didn't stick to the shrimp or the ravioli.. They just sort of swam in the butter/cream.

Next time I think I'm going to start with a vegetable broth instead of water. Maybe use less than a gallon of veggie broth with the same amount of vegetables to make the stock and let it reduce down to the 2-3 cups to make a more potent broth. I will also let the stock with the shrimp shells simmer for a little longer 30-35 min and add a bit more tarragon and actually add the coriander. Made a cream of asparagus soup for Christmas that had a lot of coriander and I think that was really one of the flavors that was missing. Saba said she tasted rosemary... I'm not sure if I missed the taste of rosemary, but maybe next time I'll add some rosemary to the chopped up tarragon.

Also I have to figure out how to thicken the sauce... maybe I'll start with a roux? Maybe I'll just use less stock?

Also I discovered how useful shrimp shells are! I ate some of the boiled out vegetables and you could REALLY taste the flavor of the shrimp shells in the vegetables. I think I'll start saving my shrimp shells. I know people use them to start sauces for risotto, bisque's, etc. I never really thought of it, but it really does make a big difference to the depth of flavor.

So overall I give the entire dish a C/C+ I give it a C+ for overall flavor, a B+ for the shrimp, but a D+ for the wateryness of the sauce.

If anyone has any suggestions about thickening the sauce, please let me know. I'm going to try this again in a few weeks.... it's a bit too rich to be eating all the time. :-p

Butternut Squash, Leeks and Apples... a story in pictures

I spent a lot (entirely too much) time photographically documenting the process of making my butternut squash and leeks last month, so I feel obligated to share the process with all of you. I am on a plane and I don’t really feel like typing, so this will be a description in pictures…. Here we go....


... and for those of you who are more word inclined...
1. Take a lovely butternut squash and strip it of its modesty and chop it up into bits
2. Take 4-5 big leeks, clean and decapitate
3. Soften up the mixture in a skillet with some olive oil…
4. Get a Granny smith Apple. Chop granny up and add her to the pot.
5. Get out some sweet wine. I used a lovely cranberry wine… Pour some wine… into a glass and drink it. Pour some more wine into the glass and drink it too. Pour some wine into the Buttnut squash mixture.
6. Let it all stew and simmer and whatnot until the buttnutt is nice and tender.
7. Bake up a piece of tilapia with some salt, pepper, and thyme.
8. Put it all on the plate and bring the plate to the couch
9. Ignore the sad, begging look on Leroy’s face
10. Enjoy!

Off to the pumpkin patch…

What up y’all…

Fall has fallen upon us… like a cold, windy, dreary brick… but never fret, what Mother Nature taketh away in terms of weather, she giveth back with a bounty of tasty fall produce! Heh heh I’m corny…

I have a few staple meals that I make a lot in the fall: butternut squash soup, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted vegetable soup, Asian yams… This fall I decided I should branch out a little bit more and try cooking with fresh pumpkin.

This fall was only my second time cooking with fresh pumpkin… much to the chagrin of my friends, and pumpkin connoisseurs, Janet and Curtis. The first time I cooked pumpkin was last year. I tried to roast some pumpkin and add it to my roasted vegetable soup…. Unfortunately I used a carving pumpkin... Carving pumpkins are not for eating... they have no taste, a really thick flesh, and are just all together nasty... The picture demonstrates how I felt about eating pumpkin after my first experience.



I think I mentioned my disdain for fresh pumpkin to Janet ‘I love pumpkins!’ Tang and she quickly schooled me on pumpkin types that were more suitable for cooking. Instead of buying the mammoth carving pumpkins, she told me to try the smaller pumpkin varieties because they have a sweeter flesh and are better for baking. I also learned that the “pumpkin” in canned pumpkin is actually not pumpkin! Canned pumpkin puree is usually made from one or more kinds of winter squash like butternut, Hubbard, or Boston Marrow, which are less stringy, sweeter and have a richer orange color…. But before anyone tries to get their money back from Libby’s for false advertising, there’s a pretty fuzzy line between what is called a pumpkin and what is called squash… so just calm down and enjoy them…

ANYWAY I digress… So I went out and picked up a little sugar pumpkin to make cookies with. Cooking with pumpkin, just like cooking with fresh butternut squash, is pretty labor intensive. You have to first roast the pumpkin, then scrape out the flesh and then puree the flesh. You use the puree the same way you would use the canned pumpkin. Janet had warned me about the pumpkin puree being more watery than the pumpkin puree you get in the can, and the excess water may affect the texture of the cookies. Fortunately I’m pretty lazy and let the roasted pumpkin sit in my fridge for a few days before I pureed it. By that time the flesh had dried out considerably and wasn’t watery at all.


One of the things that I noticed when looking up cookie recipes is that most pumpkin cookies call for oil or shortening instead of butter…. I just couldn’t write my brain around cookies made with shortening or oil, so I found this Pumpkin and Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe on the foodtv.com that used butter only. The recipe called for chocolate chips, but I liked Janet’s suggestion of using butterscotch chips, so I used those instead. The batter for the cookies was REALLY runny and more like cake batter than cookie batter. The cookies baked up to be really soft as well, but they were tasty... it was just hard to keep them from sticking together.

The recipe called for a few spices, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, but I couldn’t really taste the spices too distinctly in the cookie. I took the cookies to my friends birthday party and people seemed to like them. Someone even asked me for the recipe. I made another batch of cookies for my friend, and fellow pumpkin lover, Curtis. He had been at my house when I was making the first batch and was mad that I only gave him one. He had mentioned that the ginger was a bit strong in the first batch so I cut the ginger down in this batch and upped the nutmeg a bit. He seemed to like them better that way, but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference.

All in all I give the cookies a solid B. They were a little soft for my liking... I like my cookies to be chewy on the inside with a bit of a crisp crust. I think they would make REALLY great muffins with a little recipe tweaking... maybe with a nice crumbly struedal topping... Oh well... I honestly don't know if I'd make these again for myself but other people seemed to enjoy them. Maybe I'll try one of the ones that use oil or shortening? Maybe the stability of the shortning will produce a denser cookie? I'll keep ya'll posted b/c I KNOW you're just as interested in this as I am. :-p

Amaranth Cakes with creamy mushrooms

Hey Ya'll...

It's time for recipe number 3 y'all! My friend Curtis came by tonight for dinner and our monthly Scrabble game. Curtis is a vegetarian, so it's always a bit challenging to come up with creative meals that aren't just a bunch of side dishes masquerading as an actual meal.

When I'm looking for veggie meals, the first place I check is the Vegetarian Times website. They usually have some good recipes and they aren't necessarily a rigid, super health conscious vegetarian site (ie they're vegetarian, but not hippy, dippy, crunchy granola)... it's more about the taste and using interesting and innovative ingredients. So I was looking through the site and stumbled upon this recipe for Amaranth Cakes with Mushrooms.

Amaranth is another one of those grains that most people don't really know about or cook with. Amaranth Grain (according to Wiki) is a very hardy grain that was a staple food among the Incas, Aztecs and other native peoples of Mexico and is also cultivated in Guatemala, Peru, India and Nepal. Amaranth grain is becoming more popular in developing nations because it is inexpensive, easily harvested and, much like quinoa, Amaranth is complete protein , and is a good source of fiber and a variety of minerals.

Ok... that's enough with the history of amaranth. .... You make the amaranth cakes basically the same way as polenta is made. You cook the grain down into a mush in a broth of mushroom juice, shallots and some spices and then you fry into like pancake type things.

In order to make the broth, you had to soak some dried mushrooms. The mushroom water would be used as broth and the reconstituted mushrooms were chopped up to be added to the amaranth mix before cooking. I was being cheap when I bought the mushrooms, so I didn't buy the dried porcinis that were $5.99 for like 2 ounces at Whole foods... instead I bought some Nameko Mushrooms... which were like $3.99 for a big pack. I actually had never heard of a Nameko mushrooms, but on the back of the bag it listed a website like, "www.greatporcinis.com" or something like that, so I just figured they were a type of porcinis.... i think I was wrong... I don't think they were porcini's, but they were definitely nasty. Bleh. I soaked them in boiling water for about 20 minutes and just tasted the water... it tasted like musky dirt... like bitter, musky dirt.... and you were supposed to cook the amaranth in the mushroom juice so that the amaranth cakes would take on the taste of the mushroom... Being that the mushroom juice tasted like ass, I wasn't too keen on cooking the amaranth in it or chopping up the reconstituted mushroom (which also tasted like ass) to go into the amaranth mix. I thought about cooking the amaranth in some broth, but I only had chicken broth on hand, which wouldn't work with a vegetarian meal... so I went ahead and cooked the amarnth in the smelly mushroom juice... I figured I could always just add some salt... salt makes everything better!

So while the amaranth/musky dirt water mix was simmering I went about making the mushroom topping. The Veggie Times recipe included the recipe for the mushroom topping, but I decided to use the topping from an appetizer I had made for a holiday party. The mushroom topping was basically shallots, garlic, lots of mushrooms, heavy cream, fontina and parmesean cheese. MMMMMHMMM! I also added some sherry, which is always good with mushrooms.

After the mushroom mix was done it was time to fry up the cakes... I tried the amaranth/dirty water mix... it tasted a little bitter, but not as bad as I expected, so I just added some salt and lots of thyme.. and little sherry. .. i wasn't quite as nasty then. The frying didn't quite go as planned... he cakes kept on falling apart in the oil, butI got a couple nice ones... I think next time I'll use a metal spatula.

I also roasted up some carrots and made a little zucchini to go with the mushroom cakes.

All in all it came out really well! Curtis seemed to really like it! The topping was delicious and the creamy, savory mushrooms were actually a really good compliment for the nutty/dusty flavor of the amaranth cakes. The only change I would make if I were to make it again would be to grind the amaranth before cooking them so the mixture would be more polenta like and less graand zucchini made the meal look better on the plate, but it would have been nice if theiny. I would also buy the right type of mushrooms, or maybe use some dried Shitaakes from China town... Also I think the mushroom/cake could use a little more color. When the mushrooms cooked down they looked like purple/brown mushroom mush... not too appetizing. The carrots re was even a small sprinkle of color in the mushrooms.

Overall I give the dish a solid B. I'm not sure if I would make it at home for myself, but with the above changes I think it would be a viable option for another vegetarian meal.

Skillet Millet! Delicious, Nutritious AND Catchy!

What up everyone....

I made the 2nd of my 100 new recipes tonight- Chicken-Millet Skillet! I was having a serious craving for kale this afternoon, but I didn't want to just braise it like I usually do.... so I did a quick search of epicurious.com to see if I could find a some sort of recipe with kale. I couldn't find anything on epicurious that I hadn't made before and didn't contain sausage (apparently pork is the yin to kale's yang..), so I kind of gave up on the kale idea and decided to look at Whole Food's website to see if they had any type of in-store specials and the picture of the Chicken-Millet came up. EUREKA! I had some millet that I had bought a few years ago when I was on a grain kick (quinoa, amaranth, millet.. all that good stuff) and I had never used it AND the dish had greens in it. So I could mark the millet off of my list of foods I've never tried AND I could mark another new recipe off. YAY!

Millet, for those of you who haven't heard of it before, is a grain that is similar to wheat... before it's cooked it looks kind of like cous cous, but there are little holes in the center (like little cous cous donuts :-p). You cook it similar to cooking rice or other grains (I think it's 1 part millet to 2 parts liquid) and when it cooks it gets to a porrigey consistency. Actually I think I originally bought the millet for breakfast food on the advice of my sis. Millet is fairly high in protein (11% protein by weight), but it's not nearly as high in protein as my favorite grain, quinoa (which can have up to 18% protein by weight).

Anyway.... the dish was basically prepared by browning some chicken thighs, toasting the millet with onions, mushrooms and garlic and then cooking simmering everything in chicken broth, white wine, rosemary and thyme.

I have to say it was hella tasty! The millet aquired a bit of a creamy consistency (kind of like polenta) and really took on the flavor of the chicken broth and spices. I added some fresh corn, just because I thought it would be tasty, but other than that I made the recipe exactly as it was written. The only minor issues I had with the dish is that it could have been spiced a little more heavily... maybe some parsely and definintely more salt, and it could have used a little more color. The green from the wilted kale was nice (although the color wouldn't have been nearly as vibrant if I'd cooked it the 10 minutes the recipe suggested), but everythingn else was pretty beige. I think carrots or perhaps red pepper would be nice in the dish. Also I think it would have been better to use cut up chicken breast or boneless chicken thighs instead of the thighs with bones as suggested in the recipe. Anywhoo this is what the dish looked like.... I need to figure out how food photographers make everything look so tasty... I promise this tasted WAY better than it looked :-p

Overall I give this dish a solid A- It was healthy, really tasty and I will definintely make it again!

New Recipe 1- Shrimp with Roasted Tomatoes, Basil and Feta

Hey Ya'll...

Falls here! Yay! I can start cooking again. My summertime "cooking" is usually relegated to salads, sandwiches and other cold things... Now I can get back to making some more fun stuff.

My first "new" recipe is actually a recipe that I've eaten before, but never made. I had this really tasty shrimp dish last Easter when I was visiting my brother Ekow and sister-in-law Marie Mensah in Cincinatti. Marie served this shrimp dish for dinner with a simple salad and some tasty "take and bake" bread. To make the dish you basically roast fresh tomatoes and then add shrimp, parsely, lemon juice and feta. I didn't have parsely so I used basil. The freshness of the lemon with the sweetness of the shrimp and saltiness of the feta mesh really well and it's a REALLY easy dish to prepare. I asked Marie for the recipe a while back, but never had a chance to make it.

I treated myself to some "take and bake" bread from Whole foods to go with it tonight, but from now on I think I'll probably have it with whole wheat pasta, or just skip the starch all together.

Here are some pics of my entree numero uno.... i am not a food photographer... but I promise it tasted MUCH better than these pictures make it look. :-)

Here's an extreme close up of the tender shrimp swimming in the garlicy, lemony, basily sauce... MMMMM