Red Hot Jambalaya

Jambalaya is a classic Creole dish of New Orleans. As most people know, it is rice-based, and it incorporates lots of ingredients. It is related to paella, but it lacks the saffron that defines its Spanish cousin. The recipe that I'm going to share with you is known as a "red" jambalaya, so-called because of the extensive use of tomatoes. While I'm going to put some twists on it (including using inspiration from Bobby Flay's Fra Diavolo Jambalaya  and my own use of Indian spices), my recipe here incorporates many classic aspects of jambalaya, including the use of both meat (andouille sausage and chicken) and seafood (mussels and shrimp), the inclusion of the "trinity" base (peppers, onions, and celery), and the cooking of rice in the same pot as the meat. It takes time to prepare, but it's hearty and leaves plenty of leftovers!

Got berries? Make a crumble!

It's still summer and you've probably been buying pints and pints of berries because they are still in season. But what happens if you can't eat them all in time and the berries get all wrinkle-y and not bright in color anymore? Well here is a simple recipe that you can try. It's probably the easiest summer dessert you can remember, just remember the number 4 because every measured quantity is a multiple of 4.

Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins

Who doesn't love cornbread? And who would have thought to make corn muffins with cornmeal? These muffins have the same texture as corn bread but it has a coffeecake crumble crust that is absolutely delicious, especially from the sweetness of the berries and the extra honey. This recipe calls for cornmeal which is readily available in your cereal/baking goods aisle.

This recipe is easy as pie and with summer season coming along, we all have access to the best berries of the season. I chose blueberries because they are everywhere and Siddharth loves blueberries. I adapted this recipe from Martha Stewart, and you must check it out. Here is the recipe. 

Sichuan-style Cashew Chicken

I love spicy Chinese food. Chilies and typical Asian flavors mingle so well, and this dish really exemplifies that. Plus it involves cashews as an added bonus! It kind of resembles what is often called "Kung Pao Chicken" in American Chinese places, but I've tried to use ingredients more representative of authentic Sichuan cuisine. Of course, I am missing the famous Sichuan peppercorns (which are not readily available in the US), but I did my best!

In this recipe, peanuts can easily be interchanged with cashews. In either case, the best results will be found by starting with fresh, raw nuts (not pre-roasted). Of all the ingredients that I employ, the two that are most important in generating the distinctive flavors of Kung Pao are the black vinegar and the Shaoxing wine. Black vinegar is a rice vinegar that is popular in many parts of China - it is made from fermented black glutinous rice. It has a sweet and smoky flavor, but if you can't find it, balsamic vinegar is a reasonable approximation (in my estimation). Shaoxing wine is a rice wine that is used widely in Chinese cooking, especially in many of the famous dishes termed "drunken."

The recipe follows:

Praline Pound Cake

Greetings fellow bakers! I apologize for the lack of communication for the past months, but no worries, I am posting some recipes that you will love. 

First off, for the Heat vs. Mavericks game, I wanted to do a southern dessert for the party, to go along with our "Go Mavs, boo Heat" theme. After browsing through Paula Deen's repertoire of southern baking, I was inspired to make a praline pound cake. Pralines are a big thing in Texas, so I thought this dessert will suit our Texas-themed party quite well. This dessert ended up being the biggest hit of the night, bigger than the Mavs beating the Heat.

For the recipe, I used a bundt pan but I'm sure you can substitute with a regular cake pan, just adjust the baking times. Make the cake first, then the praline sauce. Read on for the recipe!

Schmap London Restaurant Guide

Tricia and I are happy to announce that one of our many food pictures has been included in the newest Schmap London Restaurant Guide. Schmap is an online map and guide for eating in London, and is a very cool site for anyone who may be taking a trip there. We posted our trip to London a while back, and one of our favorite restaurants was Dehesa, a Spanish Tapas restaurant in the Carnaby area. We took pictures of their beautiful charcuterie selection (delicious!), and one of our photos has been selected to highlight the restaurant's latest entry in Schmap (check it out).

Thanks to Schmap for our inclusion!

Crispy Fried Pork Bites

This is a very simple dish that serves as great party food. It also has the ability to satisfy many of those cravings (for something crispy, for something salty, for something a little spicy, and of course for meat)! I used pork tenderloin here because of its great flavor and texture - it's a very lean cut of meat, but it is not tough at all (if cooked properly). The special touch that I added was a marination step. The result was a super crispy and flavorful bite-sized creation that quickly disappeared from the serving platters!

Sorry for our absence!

The past month has been a little chaotic for Tricia and I, so we have not posted any updates to our blog. The main thing that took up our time involved Tricia getting a new job just in Radnor, Pennsylvania (a little bit outside of Philadelphia). So, we were busy moving her out of Ithaca and into her new place. And of course, she has been taking a good amount of time to get acclimated to her new settings and job. Unfortunately, this left us a bit too distracted to post recipes!

However, we are eager to share new food experiences with everyone, and we plan on putting some stuff up very soon (today or tomorrow)! Tricia has a beautiful kitchen in her new apartment in Pennsylvania, and a wonderfully new oven that she has already started baking up some delicious eats in. Meanwhile, I have continued to put together some great dinner items that I'd like to share. Sadly, because of Tricia's move, we will no longer be able to frequent the Ithaca dining seen on a regular basis, so the restaurant reviews may not be as consistent (though we do promise to share details from when she visits me). On the flipside though, when I go to visit her, we'll be sharing many of the great foods that we are now able to try in the Philadelphia area.

Thanks to those who continue to check out our site! Look for updates soon!

Cowboy Beans and Texas Chipotle Slaw

As many of you know, the NBA Finals concluded two nights ago with the Dallas Mavericks beating the Miami Heat 4-2. As someone who spent their formative years in Ohio, I grew a fan of all things Cleveland (Cavs, Browns, Indians), and with the LeBron saga ending with him losing, I couldn't be more thrilled (unless the Cavs themselves had won a title). For those of you looking for a food blog, I promise, this back-story has a point. About a week ago, while the series was still going on, Tricia and I hosted a party to watch the game and root for Dallas. We tried to throw in some Texas flavor to some of the food items as a sign of our support! As a disclaimer, we're not from Texas, and we have never been to Texas, so this is not necessarily "authentic." (in case anyone from Texas is reading this blog!) However, we were inspired by Texas to create some the dishes, and here are two of the recipes we used. Both are great side items for any get-together.

First, we made "Cowboy Beans." My recipe here is slightly modified from other versions that I have seen in the past. Basically, for those not familiar, cowboy beans are really smoky, stewed beans. Almost like a cross between a good bean chili and baked beans. This is actually very easy to make. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

½ cup Diced Bacon

½ onion diced (any color is fine, to your taste)

5 cloves garlic minced

1.5 cups stock (chicken or beef)

2 cups black beans (divide into 2 batches of 1 cup each)

2 cups red kidney beans

1 cup white beans

1 cup fresh diced tomatoes

½ cup Spanish cured chorizo, sliced

2 sliced jalapenos

1 whole jalapeno, chunked for pureeing

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp paprika

Cilantro

Thyme and oregano

Cured chorizo is increasingly available at most grocery stores. Make sure to get the cured Spanish kind, not the fresh Mexican kind. The Spanish chorizo is actually ready to eat without cooking, but cooking actually does wonders for it. Spanish chorizo often comes as a u-shaped sausage (see left), and I cut mine into small discs. Have the onions, garlic, and jalapeno chopped and ready also when you start cooking.

 

First, render bacon and chorizo. The rendered fat from the chorizo is a beautiful red color, and it makes the final dish look great.

Once the fat is rendered, add onion/garlic and the sliced jalapenos. Allow these to become fragrant, and let the onions sweat but not caramelize. You can see how the beautiful colors of this dish begin to develop in this step.

 

While the onions are sweating, puree 1 cup of black beans with the chunked jalapeno plus the chili powder, paprika, and chipotle peppers. Depending on what your using for pureeing (blender vs. food processor), you may need to add some stock to get this mixture to be smooth. Use stock out of the 1.5 cups that you've set aside - all of that liquid is going into the dish, so as long as you use 1.5 cups total, it doesn't matter which step it is added in. Set the puree aside. Now that the onions/garlic are fragrant, it is time to add the thyme, the stock, and the rest of the beans. Just estimate how much thyme to put in - the leaves from a few sprigs really enlivens the dish.

Let the beans cook a little bit (2-4 minutes) to absorb the flavors already in the dish. Then, add the puree back to the dish. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. The dish is ready to serve at this point, but as with any stewed dish, the longer it simmers, the more the flavors meld. When you are ready to eat, uncover, add some chopped cilantro and oregano as well as salt and pepper to taste.

This is an attractive and delicious dish. It's substantive enough to eat as a stew, but it's also bright and colorful and serves as a great side dish to a steak or some other meat.  

In addition to the Cowboy Beans, I also made a Texas Chipotle Slaw. This is a vinegar-based cole slaw with a bit of a kick. It's incredibly easy to make, and the only key is to allow enough time for the flavors to develop (a simple matter of leaving it in the fridge for ~4 hours).  Here are the ingredients:

1 medium head of green cabbage, shredded

¼ medium head of red cabbage, shredded

2 jalapenos, finely diced

4 shredded carrots

½ cup sugar

½ cup white vinegar

¼ cup oil (canola is good)

2 chipotles chopped with adobo sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

The amount of cabbage is obviously sort of approximate, but is roughly 10 cups all together. Simply combine everything and mix really well. Then give it 4 hours in the fridge. The result is a bright, sweet and spicy slaw that we all really enjoyed. The freshness and coolness of the slaw play really well with the heartiness of the beans for the record.

La Luce, By Donna Scala, Orlando, Florida

Restaurant Info:
La Luce by Donna Scala
14100 Bonnet Creek Resort Lane
Orlando, FL 32821
407-597-3600

What surprised us the most about Orlando was how early a lot restaurants closed especially for the young crowd (young as in 18-32!) in Orlando. We returned to our hotel around 8pm after a whole day at Sea World and found ourselves very hungry, but very dirty as well. After showering and dolling up for dinner, we came across a dilemma, where can we go and enjoy a nice dinner at 9:30pm? Better yet, what is still open? Despite the fact that we were in Orlando, a drive to any of the Disney resorts would have taken 15-20 minutes and a drive to the other parts of the city would take even longer. As we flipped through a coupon book and called several restaurants to see if they were still open, most of them said they were closing in 30 minutes for last seating. For such a tourist city, we were disappointed that Orlando didn't accommodate late night dining (like Las Vegas, NYC, Miami).

After calling about 5 restaurants and learning everything was closing in 30 minutes, we resorted to eating in the hotel we were staying at, the Hilton at Bonnet Creek. We had reservations about eating in our hotel because we knew it would be expensive and maybe too pretentious. However, we were down to our last resort (pun?) Our hotel had 2 very upscale restaurants that were opened until 11pm; one was Bull and Bear, a steakhouse, the other was La Luce, an Italian restaurant by Donna Scala featuring traditional Italian food with Napa influences. Donna Scala has several restaurants in northern California and Florida, both featuring local and fresh ingredients and grass-fed beef. She and her family also own an olive farm to make their own olive oil in Napa Valley. We chose La Luce after seeing their delicious appetizer menu.

The restaurant decor is beautiful and comfortable. La Luce was going for traditional Italian food with a familial atmosphere with long dinner tables, leather chairs and benches with large pillows. And for those who are going for an intimate setting, there are also booths. No matter where you sit, you will have a view of the pool, the wine bar, the in-house pizza oven or one of the many modern Italian artwork.

We were starving when we got to La Luce, so the fresh bread the brought out was especially enticing to us at first sight.  Upon tasting the bread offerings (fresh focaccia, peasant bread, and a crispy Italian flatbread), we were wowed and pretty sure that we were in the right place. We ordered a bottle of chianti to go with this delicious bread as you can see below (in stylish black and white!).

Our waiter was very knowledgeable about the restaurant/menu and recommended several of his favorite appetizers. For starters, we ordered their fried Spanish olives with almonds, an appetizer we wished that we had come up with ourselves. They were absolutely excellent. The salty Spanish olives were lightly coated with a flakey batter and deep fried, giving them some softness in the middle but a crunchiness from the batter. An interesting addition to this appetizer were the pan-fried Marcona almonds (sauteed in rosemary and garlic) that helped cut the saltiness of the olives.

For our entrees, we ordered the duck confit with Andouille sausage and white beans. We love duck and you can never go wrong with confit. The meat was tender and fell off the bone. The sausage was crispy on the outside and made from scratch packed with a delicious smokey paprika. The white beans were incredible and had a very balanced make-up: they were smokey and sweet and didn't have that starchiness that you would normally get with improperly cooked beans.

 In addition to our duck confit, we ordered agnolotti pasta, resembling of little pillows stuffed with a creamy cheese. Agnolotti is a really rustic and simple ravioli that really evokes images of Tuscany and hearty Italian cooking. The pasta was elegantly served with a simple white truffle and cheese sauce that stuck to the pasta beautifully, really imparting the dish with strong and beautiful flavor.

With all the entrees, appetizer and the rustic bread, we were looking at an Italian feast for 2. Everything had fresh flavors and kept the simple spirit of Italian cuisine, while still giving off a distinctive modern and creative flare. To end our special feast, we tried some of their desserts (all fresh made in-house, except for gelato which is from a local creamery). Tricia had two flavors of gelato: pistachio and hazelnut. The ice cream came accompanied with freshly made biscotti and a pine nut cookie. The gelato was phenomenal- smooth and very flavorful. The biscotti was good too, but the showstopper was the pine nut cookie. It must have been loaded with butter, because it literally melted upon first bite. The cookie was so good that there has been a serious push to get Tricia to make something comparable since the return to Ithaca!

Siddharth had butterscotch pudding. Sounds tame, right? Definitely wrong. Firstly, the "scotch" aspect of the butterscotch was real - an 18-year old Macallan, to be exact, was used to put this pudding together. The pudding was served with shaved chocolate and fresh cream on top, along with homemade English Toffee (covered in sea salt) on the side. Everything in this dish was perfect. This is flat out one of the best desserts we've had in a restaurant. We're not the only ones that think so either!

La Luce was a ritzy place, but one that we found was well worth it. From beginning (bread) to end (gelato and the best butterscotch pudding in America), the meal was outstanding. Though, we were only in Orland for one week and have not sampled all of the cuisine that is present in central Florida, we feel safe in saying that La Luce offers one of the best dining experiences in the area (in expounding on all the great food, we feel almost remiss to have not mentioned until now that the service was excellent - our server was friendly, knowledgeable, and he even gave us recommendations about the other great places to eat in town!).