Oysters Bienville
Few restaurants make oysters Bienville anymore, but that doesn't make it bad. This classic baked-on-the-shell dish, named for the founder of New Orleans, is seriously delicious. However, there's no gold standard for the dish. Nobody is sure who invented it, in fact. Arnaud's, Antoine's, and Commander's all make claims, and Pascal's Manale and Delmonico are also famous for their versions.I'm persuaded that the ingredient list must contain bacon, shrimp, mushrooms, bell peppers, sherry, a butter-based light roux, Parmesan cheese and some lighter cheese, and bread crumbs. Other ingredients lurk in the background. You can bake oysters Bienville classically on the shells, but I find they're just as good made in a small casserole or au gratin dish. I serve them that way at Thanksgiving instead of oyster dressing.
When cooking, oysters release a good deal of water, and that can rip the sauce apart. The solution is to use more bread crumbs than looks or feels right. And to have the sauce fully cooked and hot before it goes into the oven, so that the dish can be cooked mostly by heat from above.
- 1 lb. small shrimp (50 count), peeled, rinsed, and chopped coarsely
- 1 stick butter
- 1 rib celery, chopped coarsely
- 1 large, ripe red bell pepper, seeds and membrane removed, chopped coarsely
- 8 oz. small white mushrooms, chopped coarsely
- 1/4 cup dry sherry
- 4 strips lean bacon, fried crisp, crumbled
- 2 green onions, sliced finely
- 1 cup of oyster water (or as much as you can get, plus enough water to make a cup)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2/3 cup warm milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 2/3 cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup bread crumbs
- 1 tsp. salt-free Creole seasoning
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 4 dozen large oysters, well drained
1. Heat 1 tsp. of the butter in a skillet until it bubbles. Sauté the chopped shrimp until it turns pink. Remove and set aside.
2. Add 2 Tbs. butter to the pan and heat until it bubbles. Add the celery, bell pepper, and mushrooms. Sauté until they get tender. Add the sherry and bring to a boil for about one minute.
3. Add the shrimp, bacon, and green onions. Cook for another minute, then add the oyster water. Bring it to a boil and cook for about two minutes. The sauce should be wet but not sloshy. Remove from heat.
4. Heat the remaining butter over medium-low heat in a saucepan. Stir in the flour to make a blond roux. When you see the first hints of browning, remove from the heat and whisk in the hot milk to form a béchamel. (It will have the texture of mashed potatoes.)
5. Add the egg yolks to the béchamel, stirring quickly to combine it before the eggs have a chance to set. Whisk the mozzarella slowly into the béchamel.
6. Add the béchamel to the pan with the shrimp mixture. Stir to into combine completely.
7. Combine the Creole seasoning, salt, bread crumbs, and cheeses. Blend two-thirds of this mixture into the sauce.
8. Cover the bottom of a shallow baking dish with oysters, leaving just a little space between them. Top with the Bienville sauce. Sprinkle the top with the remaining bread crumb mixture. Bake in a preheated 450-degree oven for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the size of the baking dish). The dish is done when it's bubbling and the top is browned.
Serves eight to twelve.
[divider type=""]
Cane-Smoked Turkey
I cook my turkey in a big barbecue pit. It gets hotter than a smoker, but because I keep the turkey away from direct heat, it cooks slowly and absorbs a lot of smoky flavor. It comes out with a crisp skin with a beautiful orange-bronze color. It also smells wonderful, and retains more moisture than it would if it were cooked any other way. I get the sugar cane that I use with the charcoal from a friend's sugar plantation. It's worth the trip upriver to St. James Parish for that. During the harvest (which takes place right before Thanksgiving most years), most growers will let you take as much of their scrap as you want. If you can't get sugar cane, standard smoking woods like pecan, oak, hickory, or mesquite will do the job.
- 1 turkey, about 12-15 pounds
- Salt and pepper
- 2 ribs celery, cut up
- 1 onion, cut up
- 1 orange, cut into eighths
- 1 lemon, cut into quarters
- A shake of tarragon
- A stem of fresh rosemary
1. Thaw the turkey if frozen. This takes at least four days, and should be done in the refrigerator. Put it into the pan you'll roast it in to catch any leaks. After it thaws, remove that metal or plastic thing holding the legs together (a pair of pliers is essential, I find). Remove the giblets and neck from the cavity, and clip off the wing tips. (You can use these parts for making stock for the gravy.)
2. The day before, marinate the turkey in a brine. The standard proportion is one cup of salt to one gallon of water. Make enough of this to completely cover the turkey in an ice chest with an unopened (so as not to dilute the brine) bag of ice to keep everything cold. The brining process takes twelve to eighteen hours for a fifteen-pound turkey. Another method is to put the turkey and the brine solution inside a leakproof plastic bag, and put it into the refrigerator.
3. The morning of the day you want to serve the turkey, dump the brine and rinse the bird very well inside and out with cold water. Season it with salt (yes!) and pepper. Stuff the cavity with all the other ingredients, and tie the legs just tightly enough to keep everything inside.
4. Fire up the grill with charcoal and sugar cane or smoking wood, soaked in water and then shaken dry. Put the turkey into an aluminum pan with a loose tent of foil over the top. Place the turkeys as far as possible away from the fire, and hang a curtain of foil down to ward off direct heat. Any heat that gets to the turkey should arrive in smoke.
5. Close the cover. Add coals and cane at intervals to maintain a temperature of 200 to 250 degrees inside the pit. It takes six to seven hours for the internal temperature of the turkey to reach about 180 degrees. Use a meat thermometer for this; the useless pop-up plastic indicator will pop only when the turkey is overcooked.
6. Take the turkey out and put it on the table to rest and cool before carving. Although it may be tempting, don't use the drippings for the gravy. They reduce so much during the long cooking time that they become impossibly salty.
Serves 8-12.
[divider type=""]
Turkey Giblet Gravy
The first year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my extended family, I got more compliments than I thought I would for my sugar-cane-smoked turkey, cooked on the outdoor grill. Then my balloon was burst when my wife looked at me and said, "Where's the gravy?" Well. . . I got right to work with the few resources at hand and made a bad one that I caught grief for for the next year. After that, I was ready with this.
- Turkey neck, wing tips, and whatever else you can trim from the turkey that people won't miss
- Giblets other than liver
- 1 onion, cut up
- 1 rib celery, cut up
- Stems from a bunch of parsley
- 1 small carrot, cut up
- 1/4 tsp. leaf thyme
- 1/4 tsp. marjoram
- 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- Pan juices and drippings from turkey (if available)
- 1/2 stick butter
- 2 Tbs. flour
- 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
- Dash Worcestershire sauce
1. Bring a quart of water to a boil and add the turkey pieces, giblets, onion, celery, parsley, and carrot. Put the thyme, marjoram, peppercorns, and bay leaf into an herb infuser or cheesecloth pouch and add to the pot. Keep at a simmer boil for about an hour.
2. Strain the stock, and return to a simmer. Reduce to about two cups of liquid.
3. After removing the turkey from the roasting pan, pour the drippings into a gravy separator or small bowl and let stand to allow the fat to rise to the top. Meanwhile, add a little water to the pan and scrape up the browned bits on the inside bottom. Add this to the drippings. Remove all the fat you can from the drippings.
4. Make a light brown roux with the butter and flour.
5. Combine the stock, the defatted drippings and the roux in a saucepan over low heat. Whisk as it comes to a boil to get a smooth texture. Add Worcestershire, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
Makes about two cups of gravy.
[divider type=""]
Root Beer-Glazed Ham
This is without a doubt the most asked-for recipe in the seventeen-year history of my radio show. Demand for it rises during the holidays, but never goes away completely. The root beer-glazed ham is a fixture on my table on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. It's in the oven all morning (good thing my turkey is usually out on the grill!), and it makes the whole house smell good. You'll find that lots of your guests will fight over the black crusty parts of the ham. (And all the rest of it, too.) If you live in New Orleans, I strongly urge you to buy the superb locally-produced Chisesi ham for this. It's widely available at supermarkets, usually in the deli department. Otherwise, a top-quality, lean, naturally-smoked boneless ham is what you want. One more thing: The drippings get so crusty in the pan that you'll want to use a disposable pan to bake the ham. The stuff is very hard to dislodge.
- Glaze:
- 24 oz. (two cans) Barq's root beer
- 1 1/2 Tbs. pepper jelly
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 1/2 Tbs. Tabasco Caribbean style steak sauce (or Pickapeppa)
- 6 cloves
- 1 stick cinnamon
- Peel and juice of one-half an orange
- Peel of half a lemon
- ~
- 1 cured, smoked ham, about 8-10 pounds
- ~
- 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1. I usually make the glaze the night before, so I can get the ham right into the oven in the morning. Combine all the glaze ingredients in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower to a simmer, and cook for about a half-hour. Strain the pan contents and discard the solids. Reduce the liquid to about a half-cup. Refrigerate if you do this in advance.
2. Place the ham on a rack in a disposable aluminum pan. Cut shallow gashes in a criss-cross pattern across the top half. Spoon the glaze over the ham to completely wet the surface.
3. Combine the brown sugar and the dry mustard and pat it all over the ham. Pour a half-cup of water into the pan. Put the ham in the oven at 350 degrees.
4. Spoon some of the glaze over the top of the ham at 15-minute intervals until it's all used up. Try to get some glaze on all parts of the ham. Add more water to the pan when it dries up.
5. Continue baking until the ham reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees on a meat thermometer. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for a half-hour before carving.
Serves about twenty.
[divider type=""]
Fennel, Italian Sausage, and Cornbread Stuffing
When we started smoking our Thanksgiving turkey, the cornbread-andouille stuffing we used to do became one smoky thing too many. So I changed the recipe to use Italian sausage. Since that already had an anise flavor, I thought I'd take it one step further with fennel. This is also pretty good baked over oysters. If you have fresh herbs available for the thyme, tarragon, or chervil, use twice the amounts shown here.
- 3 cups chicken or turkey stock
- 1 1/2 pounds spicy Italian sausage
- 1 stick butter
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 2 bunches fennel (all parts, not just the bulbs), chopped
- 2 ribs celery, chopped
- 1 bunch green onions, tender parts only, chopped
- 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, bottom stems removed, chopped
- 1 10-oz. bag fresh spinach, well washed and picked of big stems
- 1 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1 tsp. thyme
- 1 tsp. tarragon
- 1 tsp. chervil
- 2 oz. Herbsaint or Pernod
- Stuffing Cornbread (see recipe below)
- 2 eggs
- 1 pint half-and-half
1. In a large saucepan, bring one cup of the stock to a boil. Break the sausage into the pan and cook, stirring with a fork to break it up, until it no longer looks raw--about six minutes. Transfer the sausage to a bowl.
2. Heat the butter in the saucepan until it bubbles. Add the chopped onion, fennel, celery, and green onions. Sauté until tender. (Note: It might be easier to do this in two batches, starting with half the butter for each batch.) When finished, transfer the chopped vegetables to the bowl with the sausage.
3. Add a half-cup of stock to the pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the spinach, parsley, salt, pepper, thyme, tarragon, and sage. Cook until the spinach and parsley wilt, then add the Herbsaint. Cook another minute, then turn off the heat.
4. Remove the spinach mixture and chop. Add the chopped spinach mixture to the sausage bowl. Toss all the contents of the bowl to mix well.
5. In another bowl, beat the eggs, then whisk in the half-and-half and the remaining chicken stock.
6. Break up the cornbread into morsels (not quite crumbs). Put the cornbread into a large bowl and add the milk-egg mixture. Stir lightly to combine.
7. Add the sausage mixture to the cornbread, and toss to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper.
8. Load into a baking dish or two. Press down the top of the stuffing to flatten it out. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes (longer for larger baking dishes), until the top has browned nicely.
Serves about fifteen.
[divider type=""]
Pricklypear Jelly
At the Cool Water Ranch, the only crops we've ever succeeded in growing are those that need zero help from humans. One of these is the purple fruits (called "tunas" in Spanish) that grow on an enormous pricklypear cactus at one corner of the house. The cactus blooms with beautiful yellow flowers every Mother's Day, and produces a few buckets of fruit in time for Thanksgiving. I found that running the fruits through a juice extractor removes all the seeds and spines. And these spines are no fun to get caught in your finger.I make a batch of jelly with the pricklypears some years, and syrup in others. I never know which it will be until after it's in the jar. The recipe is the same. Sometimes it sets, sometimes it doesn't. I think it has something to do with taking it off the heat at exactly the right time. But since I only get one shot a year at making this, I can't claim great skill. Fortunately, both the jelly and the syrup are good, and I go through all of it in a year.
- 5 cups pricklypear juice
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup apple juice
- 3 boxes pectin
- 9 cups granulated sugar
1. Blend the pricklypear juice, lemon juice, apple juice and pectin together in a saucepan. Heat to a light boil, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Add the sugar and bring to another full rolling boil, then boil for two more minutes. Do not go past that time, or the jelly won't set.
2. Fill the sterilized canning jars almost to the top with the liquid. Seal with new caps and process according to standard canning procedure.
Makes about a dozen six-ounce jars.
[divider type=""]
Savory Bread Pudding with Mushrooms
In New Orleans, bread pudding is usually a dessert. But not this one. Out come the sweet ingredients, replaced by mushrooms, onions, and cheese. It's my wife Mary Ann's idea, and we often use it as side dish. It's a Thanksgiving fixture now. This is at its best with meaty, wild-tasting mushrooms: portobellos, criminis, shiitakes, chanterelles, porcinis, etc. The best cheeses are the ones that melt well and have an interesting tang: Gruyere, Fontina, Swiss, Provolone, mozzarella. (If you use the latter two, use a little Parmesan, too.)
- 3 cups half-and-half
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 1 tsp. Worcestershire
- 1/4 tsp. Tabasco
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 Tbs. butter
- 18 inches of a loaf of stale poor boy bread or French bread
- 1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
- 3/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
- 1 1/2 cup shredded Gruyere, Fontina, or other easy-melting white cheese
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
1. Combine the half-and-half, eggs, Worcestershire, Tabasco, and salt in a bowl and blend well.
2. Slice the bread into thin (about 1/4 inch) slices. Butter the inside of a 9"x5"x4" baking dish or casserole. Place a layer of bread along the bottom. Sprinkle one-third each of the cheese, mushrooms, and green onions over the bread. Pour one-fourth of the milk-egg mixture over this, enough to soak it well. Push down gently until the bread is soaked.
3. Repeat the layers in the same order as above, following with a dousing of liquid. Finish with a layer of bread and the last of the liquid.
4. Place the baking dish in a pan of warm water and put the entire assembly into the preheated oven. Bake for an hour and 15 minutes at 300 degrees. Let it cool for at least a half-hour before serving. It can be sliced, but it’s perfectly fine to spoon it right out of the dish at the table.
Serves eight.
[divider type=""]
Lyonnaise Potatoes
The classic potato side dish in New Orleans steakhouses, this is a simple combination of potatoes and onions.
- 3 lbs. white potatoes
- 1 stick butter
- 1 large onion, cut and separated into slices about an inch square
- 1 green onion, finely sliced
- 1 Tbs. Creole seasoning
1. Boil the potatoes for about ten minutes, or until a kitchen fork jabbed into the biggest potato slips out when you lift the potato out of the water. Rinse the potatoes in cool water to stop further cooking.
2. Slice the potatoes first from end to end, then into half-discs about a half-inch thick.
3. Heat half the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat until it bubbles, and sauté the onions until they just begin to brown at the edges.
4. Add the potatoes, green onions, and the remaining butter to the pan and cook, without stirring, until the potatoes have browned on the bottom. Turn the potatoes over and brown the other side. Add Creole seasoning to taste.
Serves six.
[divider type=""]
Mirliton and Root Vegetable Gratin
I originally served this dish at one of my Christmas dinners, and it was so well received that I've made it often since. It's a variation on the French classic gratin Savoyard, with other root vegetables instead of the usual potatoes. It uses mirlitons, a favorite vegetable around New Orleans. It's called chayote elsewhere.
- 2 slices lemon
- 2 whole cloves
- 1 tsp. black peppercorns
- 1 rutabagas, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch-thick slices
- 2 lbs. carrots, peeled and cut on the bias into 1/4-inch-thick coins
- 2 lbs. parsnips, prepared the same way as the carrots (substitute: turnips)
- 4 mirlitons, halved, seed removed, sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese
- 1 1/2 cups finely grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 pint whipping cream
- 2 egg yolks, beaten
- Pinch nutmeg
- 1 tsp, white pepper
- 1 cup bread crumbs
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
1. Bring a large saucepan of water to a rolling boil with the lemon, cloves, and peppercorns. Add the rutabagas (it helps to do this in a large sieve or a chinoise), boil for about two minutes, remove and drain. Repeat with the carrots, parsnips, and mirlitons. (The mirlitons will only require about one minute.
2. Crush the garlic cloves, and use them to wipe the inside of a two-inch-deep, 12-by-9-inch glass baking dish. Discard what's left of the garlic.
3. Layer the vegetables in the baking dish, in the order listed. Sprinkle a mixture of the cheeses between the layers. Season with white pepper and (sparingly) nutmeg. The cheeses will provide all the salt this needs.
4. Combine the whipping cream and the egg yolks thoroughly. Pour the mixture over the vegetables. Cover with aluminum foil, and bake in the preheated 400-degree oven for one hour.
5. Remove the foil, sprinkle bread crumbs in a thin layer over the top, and return to the oven. Continue baking until the crust browns.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to rest and cool for at least ten minutes before serving. This is better warm than hot.
Makes about 12 side portions.
[divider type=""]
Sweet Potato Casserole
This holiday side dish came to me from a radio listener who said she got it from Ruth's Chris Steak House. I question that--Ruth's has been reluctant to let its recipes out of its vaults. Regardless of that, this is a very good recipe for Thanksgiving (or any other time, really), with just the right touch of sweetness and spice and a fine contrast in texture from the pecan crust that covers the top, almost like a gratin.
- Crust:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1 1/2 cups whole pecans
- 1/3 stick butter, melted
- Filling:
- 3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 2 eggs, well beaten
- 1 stick butter, softened but not melted
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat the inside of a two-inch-deep casserole dish with butter and set aside.
2. Combine all the crust ingredients in a food processor until the pecans are ground to pieces about the size of small peas. Set aside.
3. Put the sweet potatoes into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until they get fluffy. Add the sugar, salt, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. Beat until no gritty sugar remains undissolved.
4. Add the eggs and beat for several minutes, until it is visibly much fluffier. Add the butter two tablespoons at a time until it's completely blended in.
5. With a rubber spatula, move the filling into the baking dish and spread the top evenly. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
6. Pour the crust mixture over the top of the casserole, and return the casserole to the oven. Raise the temperature to 375 degrees and bake 10 minutes, or until the topping is bubbling a little. Remove from the oven and let the casserole cool and rest for at least 30 minutes, uncovered.
Serves 10-12.
[divider type=""]
Turkey And Sausage Gumbo
We smoke two turkeys every year for our Thanksgiving dinner, and that leaves behind a large quantity of secondary parts--the backbone, the wing, that kind of stuff. Those carry much of the perfect meat for making gumbo. And since the turkey is already smoky, the flavor of the soup has a head start on lustiness.I usually prepare the stock while I'm cleaning up the kitchen Thanksgiving night. Then I let it cool, and put the stock and the turkey meat into the refrigerator for a day or two before I finish the gumbo.
- Stock:
- One or two cooked turkey carcasses, with all available scraps
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 medium onion, cut up
- 2 ribs celery, cut up
- 1 tsp. thyme
- 1 Tbs. black peppercorns
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 2 ribs celery, chopped
- 3 quarts chicken stock (or water)
- 1 Tbs. salt
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- 1/4 tsp. Tabasco
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
- 1 lb. andouille or smoked sausage
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 2-3 cups cooked rice
- Filé powder (available from stores with New Orleans products)
1. Collect all the leftover turkey bones and meat, omitting the skin. Put them into a big enough stockpot that you can add at least two gallons of water. Add the bay leaves, cut-up onion, celery, thyme, and peppercorns. Bring to a light boil, then reduce heat to lowest setting. Simmer for and hour or two
2. Strain the stock. Set the bones and the meat aside; discard the vegetables. If you like, you can put the process on hold at this point by letting the stock cool and refrigerating it, along with the turkey bones and meat
3. To complete the gumbo, blend the flour and the oil in a saucepan and make as dark a roux as you can, stirring constantly to avoid burning it. (The higher the heat, the more assiduously you must stir.)
4. When the roux is medium-dark, turn down the heat and add the onion, bell pepper, celery and parsley. Sauté them in the roux until the onions are clear and have begun to brown a little.
5. Skim the fat off the top of the stock, and add it to the roux. Bring to a light boil.
6. While that's happening, pick the meat from the turkey bones and set aside. Slice the andouille into one-inch-thick discs. Wrap them in paper towels and microwave them on medium power for about three minutes, to remove excess fat. Add the turkey meat and the sausage to the gumbo pot.
7. Lower to a simmer and cook the gumbo for one to two hours. Stir every now and then.
8. Serve over cooked long-grain rice. Scatter some green onions over the top, and a pinch or two of filé at the table.
Serves six to ten.
[divider type=""]
Popovers
Popovers are so wonderful to eat and so simple to make that, if you were the eater, you'd wonder why the baker didn't make them more often. The answer is that you need a few items that are uncommonly used in baking: 1. A popover tin, which has deeper wells than a muffin tin (although muffin tins can work). This is one of the few utensils in your kitchen that is preferably made with a non-stick coating. 2. Faith, hope and prayer. You have to follow the recipe exactly, and restrain yourself from opening the oven to check the baking progress of the popovers.
3. The ability to get everybody into the kitchen when they're ready, because they're at their best right out of the oven and go downhill quickly.
4. The persistence to keep trying this recipe until you finally get it perfect. As you will.
These may sound like great breakfast items, and they are. But they're also marvelous at the beginning of dinner.
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 generous tablespoon butter
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 1 prayer of your choice
Preheat the oven with a rack in the center to 450 degrees.
1. Remove and measure all the ingredients about a half-hour before you begin, so they can come to room temperature.
2. While waiting, coat the inside of the tins (one large tin or two small ones) with a thin film of shortening, then dust with flour.
3. Melt the butter. Combine the milk, butter, and flour in a bowl and whisk just until the flour is blended uniformly.
4. Whisk in half the beaten egg, then the other half after the first is blended in completely.
5. Pour the batter into the tins, filling each pocket about two-thirds full. Put the tins in the middle of the oven and reset the timer to 17 minutes. Say the prayer.
6. When the timer goes off, lower the heat to 325 degrees and set the timer to 18 minutes. Do not open the oven to check! When the timer goes off again, set it to two minutes and get everybody into the kitchen.
7. When the timer sounds a third time, open the oven, remove the tins, and poke a slit in the tops of all the popovers. Which, if all went well, popped over. Eat greedily and quickly.
Makes eight to twelve popovers.
[divider type=""]
Orange Cheesecake
I learned the basic recipe for this great cheesecake--one which I am forced to make and bring to every family function--from the late Lonnie Knisley. One of the best pastry chefs who ever worked in New Orleans, he made all the desserts at Andrea's for years. The orange aspect is my wrinkle on it; I have a personal passion for that flavor, and I think it's especially good in this.The most time-consuming part of making a cheesecake is cooling it. This must be done slowly and gently, or you'll have cracks in the top.
- Crust:
- 2 packages graham crackers (out of the standard three in the standard box)
- cinnamon graham crackers
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 stick butter, melted
- 4 8-oz. packages cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup sour cream
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 pint whipping cream
- 1 Tbs. vanilla
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- Zest (grated peel) of one orange
1. Put the cream cheese and the sugar into the bowl of a mixer and blend on medium-slow speed until completely blended and fluffy--about 10 minutes.
2. While that's going on, make the crust. Grind the graham crackers into small crumbs in a food processor. Add the sugar and the butter and process until the butter has soaked all the crumbs.
3. Line the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Dump the crust mixture in and press a wedge of crumbs into the bottom corner all the way around. Then make a bottom crust, and finally press the remaining crumbs up the sides of the pan. It is not necessary for the crust to come all the way to the top of the pan. Set aside.
4. Add the sour cream to the mixer bowl. With a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl after this and each other ingredient addition throughout the recipe.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, allowing them to blend in completely before adding the next one. (Break each egg into a cup first to make sure it's okay before you add it.)
6. Add the cream, the vanilla, the juices, and the zest. Mix for another five minutes or so.
7. Pour the filling into the crust. Place the springform pan in a shallow pan (i.e., a pizza pan), and place it in the center of the oven at 275 degrees (no convection). Pour warm water into the bottom pan. Bake for 90 minutes, until you see the cheesecake has just a hint of browning on top.
8. Turn the oven off, but leave the cheesecake inside. After an hour, open the door a crack and let the cheesecake cool in the oven another half-hour. Remove the cheesecake and let it finish cooling on a counter. After another hour, remove the sides of the springform pan and put the cheesecake into the refrigerator. Chill at least three hours before serving.
Makes one ten-inch cheesecake; serves twelve to sixteen[divider type=""]
