Creole Shrimp and Mussels

I have to admit it.... I'm an addict and I'm addicted to steamed mussels.

No matter what restaurant I go to, I always seem to order it. As this dish is typically served with french bread, for this reason, it becomes even more addicting. As bread is the perfect ingredient to soak up the delicious creole sauce. As a matter of fact, the sauce is probably the star of this dish. Everyone that knows me, knows that I've been struggling to master the art of bread making. Well, I think I finally found the right formula to make french bread. If you have the time you might want to try it out, but I'm going to warn you now, it takes a lot of patience.

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh or frozen mussels
1 pound shrimp
1/2 can Cento Whole San Marzano Tomatoes (14 oz)
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 stick unsalted butter
Several sprigs of cilantro or parsley for garnish (roughly chopped)
5-6 garlic cloves (minced)
1 large shallot (diced)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

In a deep pan or pot on medium-high heat toast the dried basil, oregano, paprika, and cayenne pepper for about 4-5 minutes. This will cause it to smoke a little bit but, this is okay, continue stirring but do not let it burn. Add the oil to the toasted herbs and continue stirring. Add the shallots and garlic and stir for another minute or so. Add the tomatoes, salt, and pepper. With a wooden spoon or whatever utensil your prefer, begin crushing the tomatoes and let this cook for an additional 2 minutes before adding the chicken stock. Once the chicken stock has been added, while stirring consistently, begin adding the heavy cream and butter. Allow this simmer for at least 15 minutes. As you will want to serve this dish hot and fresh, add the shrimp and mussels to the sauce 5 minutes before serving so you don't over cook it. Cover with a lid to allow the steam to cook the mussels and shrimp. Check after 5 minutes. Shrimp are ready when they have a pink color while the mussels shell will be opened. Garnish with cilantro or parsley before serving.

French Bread:

1 cup cake flour
2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (for the bowl)
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 packet active yeast
1 large egg
1 small egg (for the egg wash to brush on the bread)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Directions:

Add yeast to 1/2 cup warm water and let the yeast activate for about 5 minutes or until it begins to foam. In a mixing bowl add both types of flour, sea salt, and sugar and mix well. Add the oil and continue kneading the dough. Next add the egg into the flour mixture and continue kneading. Add the 1/2 cup of water containing the yeast to the dough and continue kneading. Slowly add the last 1 cup of water to the dough mixture while kneading at the same time. By the time all ingredients have been added, the dough will be elastic that's on the slightly sticky side. However, if the dough is too sticky dust it with flour and continue kneading or if it's to dry the add a little more water.

Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rest and rise for approximately 4 hours. After the 4 hours, divide the dough in half and begin shaping your bread. Place the dough on to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and cover again with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise again for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove the plastic wrap from the sheet pans and brush the bread with the egg wash. Bake for approximately 25 minutes and brush again with egg wash. Bake for an additional 5-8 minutes. Remove the bread and place on a cooling rack.

Pad Kapow Gai (Thai Chicken Basil)

This past weekend I attended the Gypsy Picnic here in Austin, Texas. This was a celebration of the Austin food culture – the growing popularity of food trucks and carts.

If you've been to downtown Austin lately you'll know what I'm talking about. I’m assuming the event turned out better than expected and caught the promoters and vendors off guard; as it was one of the most chaotic things I've ever witness. Vendors were running out of food and there were no formal lines to visit each vendor; as they zig zagged and crossed each other throughout all of Auditorium Shores. However, we were able to visit a few vendors and sample what they had to offer but my group grew tired of waiting in the lines and the food running out.

So we thought the best option was to go across the street to other food vendors that weren't part of the festival. Smart plan right? WRONG! When we showed up we thought we did the right thing - until we placed our order. The Thai food vendor we ordered from stated that our food would be ready in 20 - 25 minutes from the time we ordered. That's quite a long time to wait for Thai food but we decided to do so. One person from my group ordered the Pad Kapow and I ordered the spicy beef tacos. I was really excited to see what was in the tacos. About an hour later, the vendor never called my name to pick up the food and when I approached the vendor, he stated that they haven't even started on our order yet. Mind you, we’ve already waited an hour. To put an end to this story, we didn't get our food. I was both disappointed and hungry.

Since I paid a visit to the Asian grocery store this past weekend I decided that I would make the Pad Kapow dish that we didn't get to sample. Also, an old college buddy has been harassing me to post this recipe since I prepared it for her the last time she was over for dinner.

Ingredients:

1 to 1 1/2 pounds chicken (breast and/or boneless thighs) cut into 2 x 1/8 inch pieces
Ginger that has been cut to 1 x 2 x 3 inch piece (julienne cut)
2 scallions (roughly chopped)
6-8 kaffir lime leaves
6-8 sprigs Thai basil (leaves only)
3-4 garlic cloves (roughly chopped)
1 medium shallot (thinly sliced)
4 Thai chili peppers (roughly chopped)
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 tablespoon oyster sauce
3 tablespoon soy sauce (soy sauce with mushroom is even better)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Directions:

Add oil to wok or deep pan and set to high heat. When oil is ready, add garlic and shallots. As soon as the shallots become translucent, toss in all of the chicken. Cook for approximately 2 minutes then add: the hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar and cook for another 2 minutes. Next, add the ginger, kaffir lime leaves, and chili peppers and cook for another 2 minutes. Finally, turn off the heat and add the basil and scallions and toss well in the wok/pan. Serve with steamed Jasmine rice or pan fried noodles.

Baked Shumai Stuffed Mushrooms in Tomato Sauce

As you can probably tell by the title, this dish has a Chinese and Italian inspiration. Shumai is one of my favorite dim sum dishes and how can you ever go wrong with Italian style tomato sauce. The mushrooms are a perfect vessel to bridge the two dishes together. This shumai is made of ground pork and shrimp and the tomato sauce has a hint of cream to help balance out the natural acidic flavor of the tomatoes.

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:

1 can San Marzano tomatoes (28 oz)
4 garlic gloves (minced)
1 large shallot (minced)
5 sprigs fresh basil (finely chopped)
1 tablespoon olive oil
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme
2 tablespoon dry oregano
1 teaspoon dry crushed chili peppers
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces mozzarella cheese (thinly sliced or grated to spread on top of dish)

Preheat a stock pot with olive oil on medium high heat for 1-2 minutes. Then add the garlic and shallots, cook until shallots are translucent (about 3 minutes). Add the tomatoes with the sauce from the can and begin crushing the tomatoes with a wooden spoon in the pot. Add the basil, thyme, oregano, chili peppers, salt, black pepper and bay leaves. Bring the heat down to a simmer and cover the pot. Let this continue cooking while creating the shumai stuffed mushrooms and stir every 5 minutes. Stir in the cream in the last 5 minutes before adding to the mushrooms.

Shumai Ingredients:

9-10 large button mushrooms (stem removed and saved for stuffing)
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound shrimp (finely chopped)
2 scallions (finely chopped)
1 teaspoon grated ginger
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Accompaniments:

Pasta (Spaghetti or Angel Hair is perfect for this)
Garlic bread

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Finely chopped the stems of the mushrooms and add to a mixing bowl. Then add the pork, shrimp, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, salt, and black pepper. Gently mix all the ingredients in the bowl. Take the mixture and stuff the hollow area of the mushrooms, I like to over stuff mine and have quite a bit of the stuffing stick out from the mushrooms.

Place the mushrooms in a cast iron skillet (I like using a cast iron skillet because it retains heat and keeps the food nice and hot while serving) or casserole dish with the stuffing side up. Add the tomato sauce and cover entire contents. Bake for 30 minutes and then add the mozzarella cheese on top of each of the mushrooms. Continue baking for another 20 minutes to allow the cheese to melt into the dish. Carefully remove the dish with oven mits and serve with pasta and garlic bread.

Chicken en Papillote

Initially, I was just going to stir fry the chicken but I thought I would showcase another method of cooking. This dish is also call "mok gai" in Laotian cuisine. It is made by using an "en papillote" technique is which basically cooking your food by wrapping it in paper, leaves, foil, etc. I chose to steam the chicken so I chose foil since I forgot to get the banana leaves from my sister's house. This was served with a refreshing papaya salad (no not the super spicy Laotian style).

Ingredients:

3 chicken thighs (bone removed and discarded, meat sliced into 1/2 inch cuts)
1 pound Thai eggplants
1 cup fresh shiitake mushrooms (stems removed and discarded, tops sliced 1/4 inch)
1 cup fresh Thai basil (tightly packed)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon fish sauce
5 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 kaffir lime leaf per package
4 garlic cloves (minced)
1 shallot (thinly sliced)
4 Thai chili peppers (roughly chopped)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients except kaffir lime leaves in a large bowl and set aside to let it marinade for at least 10 minutes. Tear off a piece of foil paper about a foot long. Add about a cup of the chicken mixture to the bottom end of the foil and place 1 kaffir lime leaf on top. Starting from the bottom lift and fold the foil to cover the mixture. Then fold the sides in and continue folding the foil upwards to the top end of the foil. You're going to want to make sure it has a good seal so that all the juices stay in tack during steaming.

You are also going to need a steamer to complete cooking this dish. On high heat bring the water to a boil. Place each package in the steamer basket and cover. Cook for about 30 minutes.

To serve simply cut the top of the package diagonally from both ends (X marks the spot!). Open from the center and enjoy.

Serve with a bowl of steamed rice or a handful of sticky rice. As I mentioned earlier, I also served this dish with a refreshing papaya salad (See previous entry on making this).

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Trio of Pizza Dough and Waffle Cut Parmesan Fries with Kaffir Lime Aioli

I'm heading Houston this weekend and still refuse to do any grocery shopping. I was going to just make pizza but that was too simple so I decided to utilize the pizza dough in 3 different ways. From left to right there's your standard margarita pizza with fresh tomatoes and basil, calzone stuff with mozzarella and pepperoni, and an open pizza roll stuffed with pineapples, mushrooms, basil, tomatoes, and tomato sauce. For an appetizer I made waffle cut fries topped with Parmesan cheese and fresh parsley.

Pizza dough ingredients:

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup warm water

Directions:

Add yeast to warm water and let it rest for 5 minutes. Then add yeast and water mixture along with salt, sugar, and olive oil to flour. Knead dough well and let it rest for an hour.

Pizza sauce ingredients:

14 ounce San Marzano tomatoes

1 large shallot diced
2 garlic cloves diced
2 sprigs fresh basil
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a sauce pan and cook on medium high heat. With an immersion blender blend mixture until it is all the same consistency. Set aside and keep on simmer until ready to use.

Margarita pizza ingredients:

1/3 of pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Roma tomatoes sliced

Fresh basil
Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Cut 1/3 of pizza dough, create a ball and begin rolling out the dough into a circular shape (you can make it as thin as you like it). Add pizza sauce with a ladle on top of the pizza in a circular motion. Then add your toppings, for this application simply add mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and basil. Bake for approximately 10 minutes at super high heat (500 plus degrees).

Calzone ingredients:

1/3 of the pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Pepperoni

Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Roll out pizza dough into a circle. On one half of the dough add, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. Fold the empty side of the dough over the top of the filled side. With a fork seal the edges of the dough and brush with olive oil. Cook at 500 degrees for 10 minutes. Serve with a side of pizza sauce.

Open pizza roll ingredients:

1/3 pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Pineapples

Mushrooms

Basil

Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

This one is a little tricky. I was trying to find a way to roll the pizza dough into a cone shape and the only thing I could find was an empty tomato sauce can that I split in half and roll into a cone. Roll out the pizza dough and then cut it in half. Then wrap the dough around the metal cone and brush with olive oil. Cook in a 500 degree oven for 5 minutes. Retrieve the crust and let it cool down before pulling it off of the metal cone. Stuff crust with ingredients other than the pizza sauce and place in oven for another 3 minutes. Add pizza sauce into the roll prior to serving.

Waffle Cut Parmesan Fries:

1 russet potato

Grated Parmesan cheese
Parsley finely chopped
Canola oil

Directions:

Cut your potatoes with the waffle fry insert into a bowl of cold water. Heat oil to 375 degrees while drying potatoes on a towel; when oil is ready, cook potatoes for approximately 5 minutes. Immediately after you pull fries out of the oil add cheese and parsley and mix well.

Kaffir lime aioli ingredients:

1 cup mayonnaise (store bought or homemade)
7 large kaffir lime leaves (spine removed)
2 garlic cloves

Directions:

In a food processor add garlic and kaffir lime leaves. Blend to very fine consistency and add mayonnaise. Continue blending until all ingredients are incorporated.

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Parfait of Strawberries and Blackberries with Homemade Whipped Cream and Zabayon Sauce

Tonight was the first official night that Bistro 331 hosted a dinner party, I think I'm going to make this a ritual (attendees must be a follower of the blog). I personally would like to thank all my guests, especially the one that did the dishes, for coming over and hanging out. I prepared a 4 course meal that included spicy cucumber salad, tom yum soup with shrimp and scallops, pad kapow gai (basil chicken), and a parfait of strawberries and blackberries. Unfortunately I was so busy cooking and hosting that I was unable to photograph and therefore write any recipes down. However, if you're interested in any of these recipes feel free to write a comment or send me an email and I'll be more than happy to send you the recipes. Actually, I was fortunate enough to capture a photograph of our dessert and the recipe is pretty simple.

Parfait of strawberries and blackberries

Ingredients:

1 pint strawberries (cut into small 1/4 inch pieces)
1 pint blackberries
4 sprigs basil (finely chopped)
1 pint heavy cream (for whipped cream)
1/2 cup heavy cream (for zabayon)
4 egg yokes
3 tablespoon powdered sugar (for the whipped cream)
2 tablespoon powdered sugar (for the zabayon)

Directions:

Whipped cream -

Add heavy whipping cream to a large bowl, preferably stainless steel. Add 3 tablespoons (or more) confectionist/powdered sugar and whisk until stiff peaks are formed.

Zabayon -

Over a double boiler add egg yokes and 2 tablespoons (or more) confectionist/powdered sugar and whisk until mixture becomes frothy. Slowly add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and continue whisking over double boiler (never stop whisking otherwise you might end up with scramble eggs). Continue whisking entire mixture until it thickens (the mixture is ready when you can create ribbon drippings).

Creating the parfait -

You can layer the parfait anyway you like to. I like to add a layer of whipped cream or zabayon between the fruits. For the one picture above I started with strawberries, then I added the whipped cream (for easier application, use a piping bag or zip lock bag with the tip of one corner cut) then basil, and then a layer of blackberries. I continued this process until I got to the middle of the parfait, instead of adding whipped cream I added the zabayon instead (I tried not to use too much of this because it's really rich and a little heavy).

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Tomato Basil Soup and Black Truffle Buttered Grilled Cheese Sandwich

So I'm still trying to clean out my refrigerator and pantry before I go on vacation. That means the tomatoes have to go, the cream had to go and the bread has to go. The soup was inspired by La Madeleine and anytime you have any type of tomato soup you have to have a grilled cheese to dip it with.

Soup ingredients:

1 whole can of Cento Italian style whole tomatoes peeled
1 stick of unsalted butter
2 teaspoon kosher salt
3-4 sprigs fresh basil
1 cup chicken broth
Freshly cracked pepper

Directions:

In a sauce pan, add tomatoes and cook on medium high heat. Add chicken broth, salt and butter. With an immersion blender, blend all ingredients until tomatoes are no longer chunky. Roughly chop the basil and add to soup. Continue to blend again until basil is in very tiny pieces. Give it a taste and add salt as needed. Top off with freshly cracked black pepper before serving.

Grilled cheese ingredients:

4 slices Texas toast
2 slices sharp cheddar cheese
2 tablespoon black truffle butter melted (or regular unsalted butter)

Directions:

Brush butter on bread and place on sheet pan, add cheese and another slice of bread. Brush top of bread with more butter. Place sheet pan in a 475° oven and bake for about 5 minutes. Flip sandwich and cook for another 4 minutes. Slice sandwich diagonally and serve.

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Bruschetta - Zesty Tomato and Mozzarella

I've prepared this dish for a friend's birthday party tonight. Of course there was a lot more of it. I also made papaya salad, which I will be posting later. The initial reason why I came up with this recipe was because I had half a can of Cento Whole Peeled Italian Tomatoes and some bread endangered of going stale. Actually, a lot of my recipes come together at the very last minute just because I try not to let anything go bad or spoil.

Classic bruschetta

Ingredients:

1 medium can cento whole tomatoes
4-5 garlic cloves
2 small shallots
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
6 sprigs fresh basil (chiffonade)
3 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed Thai chili pepper
1 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
1 loaf french baguette
Several thinly sliced mozzarella cheese
Several pepperoni (julienne)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

In saucepan saute shallots and garlic in olive oil. Add tomatoes and with scissors cut tomatoes into small bite size chunks. Add salt, oregano, bay leaves, chili peppers and black pepper. Let simmer for 15 minutes then add most of the fresh basil (save some for garnish). Slice bread on bias about 1/2 inch thick. Add tomato sauce on top of bread, then add cheese and pepperoni. Place bruschetta under broiler until cheese melts. Finish off by topping it with fresh basil, dried oregano and Parmesan cheese.

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