Carine Clary - 3/26 - The FrangloSaxon Cooks

Succotash

August 27, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

You won’t be sufferin if you eat this simple succotash. Besides tasting good the combination of a grain (corn) with a legume (lima bean) provides a cheap dish that is high in essential amino acids. Which is why native Americans feasted on it when deer and fish were scarce.

The word Succotash comes from the Narragansett word ‘sohquttahhash’ which is Narragansett for ‘broken corn’ but you can just call it ‘tasty’ which is shorter and easier to spell than ‘sohquttahhash.’

In our house it was always baby limas and summer corn but in truth succotash is a style of prep using corn and beans so you can substitute other beans if you have ’em. Red kidney beans, great northern beans, lady cream peas, purple hull peas and crowder peas (all really beans) are great too. Camellia brand has some nice info on Lady Creams that’s worth reading.

Purple hulls, blackeyed, and crowders came to America with African immigrants and are part of the ‘cow pea’ family. You may read up on it at www.purplehull.com This link to an Arkansas website will fill you in (and up) on cow pea history along with information on, I’m not kidding here, ‘garden tiller racing’ competition. This sporting event called the “Tiller Thriller” was hitherto unknown (at least to me) but it looks exciting if somewhat dusty. You be the judge….and if you wash up in Emerson, AR you might just be the judge. Stranger things have happened. If you do I’m sure your duties will be rewarded with a steaming bowl of purple hulls and hog jowl.

But on to the prep! And it’s easy.

Throw about three cobs of corn into a 350 oven. No need to shuck. Just rinse and let cook for about 20 minutes or until done. They will steam in their husks.Put the limas in a pot of salted water and boil gently for about 10 minutes.

While that’s going fry the bacon in a cast iron skillet until crispy, remove, crumble and set aside. Put the chopped onion right into the bacon grease and cook for about three minutes or until golden then add the flour and cook for a minute. Now start gradually adding the chicken broth until you have a gravy. Season with the celery salt, salt and pepper. Feel free to add some heavy cream to taste if you want to fancy it up a little.

And finally, cut the corn off the cob, drain the limas and stir it all in. Let it cook over a very low heat for a few minutes then fold in the bacon bits and you are ready to serve. Add some chopped tomatoes and it will be even better.

And for a cheater main course do the following:

Add an extra tablespoon of flour to the bacon grease, and a full cup of chicken broth to make the gravy. Throw in as much leftover shredded chicken (realistically a cup to a cup and a half) as you want. Roll out a premade piece of puff pastry to the size of the skillet, poke some air holes in it and run it in a 425 oven until puffed and brown. With that you’ll have all the major food groups except beer so enjoy!

Succotash

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Southern

Ingredients

3 strips bacon
½ cup onion, diced
2 tablespoons flour
¾ cup chicken broth (or more if needed)
2 cups lima (or butter beans)
2 cups corn, cooked
1 tsp. celery salt
Salt & Pepper to taste
Optional: chopped tomatoes

Instructions

Fry the bacon in a skillet until crisp. Remove, crumble when cool and set aside.
Cook the onions in the bacon fat until golden, then add flour and cook for a minute.
Slowly add the chicken broth creating a thin gravy.
If the lima beans are raw, add them and let cook until done. Depending on size this can be 3 to 10 minutes. Next add the cooked corn.
If the sauce has thickened too much add some more chicken broth or water until you get the preferred consistency.
Add celery salt, salt & pepper, sprinkle with bacon & serve.
Chopped tomatoes can be added.

Kale Pesto

August 11, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Finally! Lard lady posts an actual vegan recipe. And surprisingly it’s good. It all started a few years ago with my friend Tina (sister of Nike who was the originator of Takko Chicken), suggested that I try eating kale as it’s so healthy and all… So I tried it. Once. Ugh. Too much like the turnip greens I was force fed as a child.

So I forgot about kale until I had a bite of someone’s kale spaghetti at a restaurant. Eureka! It was delicious, probably also because of all the basil, garlic and parsley that was in it. However, it occurred to me later that the bitterness that I didn’t like when it was served alone made it the perfect foil for bland pasta. After all I liked it when it was in my Garbure and that’s a dish where it plays a supporting role.

I also discovered in my odyssey through kale literature that the flavor of kale is greatly mellowed when, as they always put it, massaged. It had never occurred to me to massage vegetables but live and learn. And what better way to massage leaves than to stuff them into a food processor and pulse? Your answer – no better way. And it’s high in vitamin A and C.

So the prep – in any order you like – is as follows. Rinse the kale and cut out the ribs, then chop and drop into the Cuisinart, then toss in the basil and parsley. For optimal smoothness you will need to mince the garlic before adding it to the mix, then the lemon juice. Add some of the olive oil and drizzle in the rest gradually through the feed tube until you reach your preferred consistency. It may be more or less than called for in the recipe. Always add the nuts last since if you don’t you’ll end up with a nut butter and believe me, you don’t want that.

Here it is all mixed up (like me sometimes). If you have any leftover or are making it ahead of time pour a little olive oil over the top to preserve the green freshness. And note: the last time I made this I made way too much and the olive oil trick kept it fresh in the fridge for almost a week.

Oh, and last but not least, check that note on the recipe. A spoonful of boursin cheese stirred into the pasta while adding the pesto is a wonderful thing.

Kale Pesto

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Italian

Ingredients

2 cups kale (stems removed)
1 cup basil leaves & parsley
⅓ cup olive oil (add gradually, you may need less)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup nuts, chopped
Shredded cheese to taste for topping

Instructions

Put all ingredients except nuts in a food processor or blender and process to your preference. Some people will like it chunkier, some smoother but not too smooth.
Next add the nuts and pulse a few times until they are ground to the fineness you prefer.
This can be used on any kind of pasta, topping for pizza, or topping for bruschetta.

Notes

Optional additions - cilantro and boursin cheese.

If you are making ahead of time, put in a glass jar and pour a little oil over it to cover before refrigerating.

Strawberry Jam

July 2, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Summertime brings baskets of strawberries and this is a way to feel all creative with strawberry jam sans the Grandma Moses all day jam for the masses routine. No sterilizing, no giant kettles with scary bolts on the lid. None of that. This yields one pot of the best jam I’ve ever had (due to a couple of not so secret ingredients). It’s enough for crepes, a batch of kolaches, toast, or just spooned out of the jar.

To get started you need to know the difference between jam and jammin, although I highly recommend the jammin part as background music while you stir the pot. It won’t take long.

After it starts boiling some people skim the foam off the top. I don’t because I don’t think it matters but you can if you’re just standing around watching it.

You don’t have to be constantly be stirring, but if you step away don’t step away for long. And remember, the more times you make this the better you get at just eyeballing the pot to know when it’s done. The great thing about strawberry jam is that if it’s a bit runny it’ll still be great over ice cream or cake or in smoothies or even toast. If you cook it too long stir in a bit of honey to thin it.

Once you’ve done this a few times you won’t go back to grocery store jams (except maybe in the depths of winter).

Strawberry Jam

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Southern

Ingredients

2 cups sliced strawberries (1 16 oz. container of berries)
⅔ cup sugar, scant
1 tablespoon lemon juice
One 6-ounce glass jar
½ tsp. rose water
¼ tsp. scant almond extract

Instructions

Place a spoon into the freezer to use for testing the jam.
In a deep pot, add strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice and let set for a few minutes to draw out the juices.
Heat and stir until it reaches a rolling boil. Boil and stir until it thickens, 10 minutes.
When it starts to thicken take your spoon out of the freezer.
Hold the spoon for 30 seconds then tilt it. If it slides too fast, keep cooking. If it moves slowly, it is done. Test every minute or two and do not overcook it. As the mixture reduces you should notice a ring around the pot where it has shrunk from the original volume.
Pour into a clean glass jar and let set.

Crawfish Monica

April 29, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

What says Jazz Fest to you right after the music? The food! And besides the smoked turkey wings and gumbo what says it the most? Crawfish Monica. So if you can’t make it to the food tent consider your kitchen your very own tent and make it like this.

Invented on a whim by chef Pierre Hilzim and named after his wife Monica, Crawfish Monica was born in the 80s and is now served at Jazz Fest and available to order from their company Kajun Kettle.

My version is very similar but since I also love fennel in all its forms I decided to add it and it’s good (if you like fennel.)

I also did a version with leeks instead of green onions but the taste wasn’t different enough to warrant the trouble and expense of the leeks so it was back to green onions. The only other variation was the use of lemon juice only instead of wine and lemon juice. If you have wine by all means use it but the lemon serves well. And one other thing – I like lots of crawfish so I only use half a pound of the rotini instead of the whole box, but you can always add more if you need or want to stretch it.

To get started you will chop up all the choppable items including the root of the fennel bulb as you see below:

There’s a hard part at the base that needs to be removed, the rest you just chop into small pieces so it will cook quickly. You’ll want to keep the feathery top for garnish and extra flavor.

Once the veg has softened add the cream, spices and crawfish (I get the bagged kind) and set it aside to let the flavors meld while you boil the pasta. I use rotini because it’s traditional and those little kinks hold the sauce well. However, it’s also great for parties while eating on the hoof since you can eat it with a spoon like this:

So happy listening & Crawfish Monica eating during this latest Jazz Fest season!

Crawfish Monica

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Creole Italian

Ingredients

For the sauce:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup sliced green onions (white part, reserve green tops)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 diced fennel bulb (retain tops)
½ cup chopped parsley
1 tsp. ground fennel
1 tsp. ground thyme
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
¼ cup lemon juice, scant (or half lemon juice/half white wine)
2 cups heavy cream
1 lb. crawfish meat tail meat
1 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, civided, half for sauce, half for topping
For the Pasta:
½ lb. Rotini

Instructions

For the sauce:
In a large pot melt the butter and add the green onions, garlic, and fennel. Cook over medium heat until softened but not brown, about 5 to 7 minutes.
Add parsley, ground spices, salt and red pepper flakes and cream.
Stir in crawfish meat with the fat and gradually add the lemon juice tasting it along the way. You may prefer a little less than ¼ cup.
Once the crawfish is heated through add the cheese.
For the pasta:
Boil the rotini in salted water according to package directions, let drain for several minutes and add to the sauce.
To serve:
Place in serving dish or individual bowls and add reserved parsley & cheese to taste.