Coming Soon will be Chef Emeril’s Magic Pot by T-fal and we have been cooking away with him to get a great idea of all it can do.  This Rack of Lamb with a Shallot Balsamic Reduction is killer.  Since you don’t have the MagicPot yet, you can still make this recipe in the oven.  Set it to 400 and you should have similar results.  The MagicPot, though, is this electric combo pot and oven.  You can take the heavy pot off of its stand and set it over the stove top and cook traditionally, but, you can also cook with the pot set in its stand.  You have a pot and oven all-in-one.  The heating element is in the top.  So either you can put all your ingredients in, turn on, and walk away.  Or you can start your dish on the stove (cooking from the bottom-saute your onions, for insance) then finish cooking when you add the top and the heat radiates from above.  Amazing.  A reverse Slow Cooker if you will.  So let me show you how it’s done.

This is what the MagicPot will look like.  Inside right now is a potato gratin (I’ll show you that next time) … pretend it’s the lamb rack.

First, you make the herb garlic marinade and slather it all over the rack of lamb.

Add the rack of lamb to the MagicPot and turn it on.

After only 20 minutes, a 2 pound rack of lamb is perfectly cooked.  Remove it from the MagicPot and set it aside.  Use the MagicPot on the stove to make the Rosemary Balsamic Butter Sauce.  It’s classic.  Reduce balsamic vinegar and redwine with shallots, peppercorns, and a sprig of rosemary.  Finish by whisking in some butter.

Pour the sauce over the rack of lamb.

Now that the rack has perfectly rested while you made the sauce, you can carve and enjoy!

Stay tuned for the release of this MagicPot.  Click here for the recipe.  Rack of Lamb with Rosemary Balsamic Butter Sauce

Pecan Crusted Duck Confit and Wilted Spinach Salad

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/pecan-crusted-duck-confit-and-wilted-spinach-salad-recipe2/index.html

Duck Confit and Fried Egg Pizza

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/duck-confit-and-fried-egg-pizza-recipe/index.html

Duck confit is one of the most amazing and most prized preparations of duck and can be used so many ways.  Though you can buy it to add that special something to your practiced repertoire, making it yourself will demystify the delicacy that appears on menus across the country and tune you in to an age old technique.  Developed to preserve the hunt so-to-speak, duck and goose were salted and cooked slowly in their own fat, cooled in their own fat, and then packed in a crock (again covered in their own fat).   Even without refrigeration it could be sealed and preserved this way for an extended period.  These days, confit duck can be refrigerated for months (though I know most of you wouldn’t dare…)

I probably don’t have to tell you that Chef Emeril loves Confit Duck.  You see it span the menus of his restaurants as well as his recipes.  Check out the links above for ways of using Duck Confit (the Pecan Crusted Duck Confit with Wilted Spinach Salad or the Duck Confit and Fried Egg Recipe that is featured on the NOLA restaurant menu).  Or let your imagination run wild.  Click here for do-it-yourself Duck Confit  and see below.

This a shallow pan filled with duck legs and duck breasts plus salt and aromatics (black peppercorns, thyme, bay leaves. garlic, and clove) also, you see here, there is cut up pork shoulder for Confit Pork if you are making Cassoulet.

Now, here pictured, the duck is submerged in melted duck fat plus there is congealed duck fat on top (that I added from the fridge).  Once you finish cooking the duck and refrigerate, this is how the fat will look when cooled.  It will make a thick opaque preservative/insulating covering.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees, sit this pan on a rimmed baking sheet (in case of fat bubbling over…), Cover it with a lid or heavy foil, and cook for several hours until tender.  Remove from the oven, let it cool in the fat, and then refrigerate.  When you are ready to serve the confit, remove the pieces from the pan, wipe away the fat, then brown in a pan on the stove (for the salad), or remove the skin, discard, and shred the confit duck meat (for the pizza).  If you are feeling more adventurous, make Cassoulet.  Tune in another day for that one…

If you want to make a show stopper cake, this is it.  And the recipe comes from an unlikely place…  Emeril Lagasse’s Emeril at the Grill.  How did it end up there you ask?  Originally Chef must have been thinking about great cakes for a picnic or cook-out.  But then, as you know, nothing that’s Chef Emeril can be so limited.  This cake is phenomenal and belongs not only on your back yard bash, but at your most festive party.  Think Holiday, think Have the Boss over, think Ladies Club Bash, think  Birthday, think Wedding (a small one of course, this feeds 12 not 200), think…  I read that for one person this was a hit at her Memorial Day Celebration.  You get the picture.  Most recently I made this cake for the Emeril’s Homebase Office Party.  And of course, you guessed, it was a hit.  Being the critic I am about what I do (we cooks do that a lot!) I must tweak this recipe one teeny, tiny bit the next time around and I am going to tell you quietly what I’m going to do.  Lean in… put your ear up close because I am going to whisper this.  I am heavy handed — I should have sifted the flour before measuring.

Okay.  There.  I said it.  I think this will make the slightest, yet important difference.  When I think back on making the cake, I measured too quickly.  My colleagues will tell you that I move too fast for my own good.  If I had sifted the flour, then measured the 4 1/2 cups I am sure the cake would be even better.  You wonder why all the professional bakers WEIGH everything!  It narrows down the margin of error.

We still though, have a lot to talk about as I take you through the steps of making this cake.  I read from one person that a heck of a time was had making it.  It took ALL DAY LONG.  Even you can see the frustration jumping off of the screen…  Well, that stinks…but for you reading right now, let me quietly write something.  That’s what the novice does.  Cooking tip #1 - be sure to read recipes all the way through before beginning so that you can get a real sense of what you are about to do.  This is an important lesson. 

 Yes, the filling really needs to chill several hours before using.  So though the cake can be made in one day, the work can easily be divided over two, or even three, if you’re that guy.  The first day you toast coconut and make filling, and if you want, bake the layers and wrap tightly in plastic until tomorrow.  The second day you assemble and frost the cake. 

Many coconut cakes are white-white so you can just add the coconut right from the bag, lovely.  This recipe uses toasted.  If you stir the coconut several times during baking, you will have even, light brown coconut, pretty.  If you don’t stir the coconut, you will get dynamic variations of brown as pictured above.   It is correct anyway you choose. 

This is the filling with the coconut stirred in.  Cover it with plastic and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Assemble your cake!  Put 3/4 cup filling over two layers and stack.

Crumb coating.  The Professional’s trick.  You will lightly frost your cake to envelop the crumbs (for smooth finish), and refrigerate your cake for 10 minutes or so.

  Frost again.  Voila, see the difference.  Then garnish with toasted coconut.  You can do it just over top or cover the entire cake.  You choose.

Click for the recipe Coconut Layer Cake

It’s holiday time and there seems to be “bark talk” at every turn.  Lots of folks are writing in for recipes, it’s in all the food magazines, all over the food web, and especially the catalogs.   “Buy me, buy me, buy me”, they all say.  It seems the entire world is thinking about bark!  Well, it’s the perfect, festive, yummy gift.  So yeah, let’s have a crack at it.  Come on, you can make it yourself!  Hmmmmm, but how?  There is recipe, upon recipe, upon recipe.  In the simplest description, you melt chocolate, or other candy, let it set, then make another layer.  Then break it apart when it cools.  Snap… like tree bark.  Is this related to Buche de Noel or the Yule log or a Christmas tree… why so many tree references during the Holiday?  Duh….  Well, what ever the case, chocolate bark is delicious isn’t it. Read more »

IDEA: 

What, what, what?  What is for dinner tonight?  This question, again.  Ate all the thanksgiving leftovers…  Had chili the week before… tacos not too soon before that…  What will the kids eat without complaint?  But I’m tired of making their old stand-bys.  Aka the before mentioned dishes…hmmmmm.  They love broccoli.  Do you think they’ll eat broccoli soup?  Because it just got cold outside down here in New Orleans….  I know, I know, woe is us right?  Well that’s what I want right now and that’s what I’m making.  What else.  Do you think they’ll go for fried chicken cutlets with tomato sauce and cheese over pasta?  I think we have a winner!

INGREDIENTS:

What do I know I have already?  Boxed broth of some sort, breadcrumbs, parmesan, onions, and garlic.  What I better have– olive oil, flour, milk and eggs.  So I need broccoli, chicken, tomato sauce, pasta, and mozzarella.  To the market somebody to go!  What a quick run…in and out, 10 minutes tops!  I bet some of you only need the broccoli (you have chicken in the freezer and you keep pasta and tomato sauce around, don’t you….)   Skip the store.  Go ask your neighbor, “Hey, neighbor, do you have some broccoli I can borrow?”

METHOD:

Big pot of water on the burner for pasta.  Check.  Medium pot on the burner for soup.  Check.  Roughly chop two onions and smash a clove of garlic (remember, you are going to blend anyway).  Add some oil to that soup pot then fire it up.  Add the onions, garlic, some salt, and pepper and after cooking for a few minutes, pour in your broth.  Let this simmer for 15 minutes while you get going on other things.  Cut 2 large heads of broccoli into florets.  Two things going.  One more to go.

Set out three containers for dredging the chicken.  Flour in one.  Egg and milk in another.  Mix breadcrumbs and parmesan in a third.  Season them all with Essence.  Take boneless skinless chicken (breasts or thighs about 2 at a time), and put between plastic and pound until about 1/4-inch thick.  Set on a plate and repeat with the rest.  Season the chicken with salt and pepper.  Dip the pieces in the flour, egg, then the crumbs and put on a small tray.  Once finished, wrap and refrigerate. 

Is the pasta water boiling yet?  Add salt and pasta.  Don’t forget to stir it.  Has the soup broth been simmering for 15 minutes?  Add the florets and cook until tender, you know, six minutes or so.  Turn off the heat and let sit for a minute.  Tend to the pasta i.e. drain it.  Toss with olive oil.  Add a bit of salt and pepper.  Set aside.  Check.

Blend the broccoli soup.  Taste it.  Add salt and pepper.  Is it too broccoliky?  Pour in a bit of cream.  Wait, I could have sworn we had some cream in this fridge.  Who’s running this household!  Ok, milk it is.

NOTE:

Guess what folks… you can do all of the above a day or so ahead, but if you do it all at once, you’re looking at just under an hour. 

Once you’re ready to serve, in this case, after work and after running the kids to piano and they are howling about how hungry they are in the car….  “HOW LONG UNTIL DINNER????”  Get home, turn on the broiler.  Shout, “Fifteen minutes until dinnertime, guys”.

ASSEMBLE:

Fry the breaded chicken on the stove top in an inch of oil them put them on a baking sheet.  Spoon on some tomato sauce and top with mozzarella.

 Don’t use parchment paper under the broiler like I did here.  Almost burned down the house!

Broil for 2 minutes or so (depending on how close you are to the element).  Meanwhile, heat the soup, the noodles, and extra sauce in the microwave.  Don’t burn the chicken.

The soup… just enough to coax the kiddies into eating (sour cream never hurts).  It worked.

 Dinner has been served.  Complaints, anyone? 

Recipes:  Broccoli Soup and Boneless Pork Chops Parmigiana  (I made with chicken instead)

 Look at this!  You have got to see this Thanksgiving Leftover wonder that Chef Emeril made for Good Morning America, Friday………  Cook this for your family the day after and it might upstage the Thanksgiving meal itself.  Will you just look at it.  Stacey Meyer really outdid herself with this one.  And do you know what this idea this was born from?  I’ll tell you…”how about a leftover stuffing cake with egg….”  And look what Chef Emeril bangs out.

This is a griddled stuffing cake topped with sauteed spinach (you can use leftover greens if you want), warmed sliced turkey, a poached egg (improvise with fried or scrambled), and right over the top is turkey gravy and fresh herbs.  Ummmm, Ummmm, Ummm.  And if you really want to go crazy as some of the tasters here at Homebase suggested, spoon a little cranberry sauce somewhere in there.  Wow!

This is how it looks while testing… She’s really got all the pots going.

Eggs go in the empty pot…. Opps, Sorry.

Here is Chef Chris’ excited apporach to “tasting”.  Well, it was his lunchtime…. (and this is still after he ate a whole one…) and there is Chef Stacey.  You go girl!

So the trickiest part is how dry or wet your stuffing is.   You want to make a mold of it in a greased ramekin.  Really press it down in there.  Then flip over to unmold.  And of course, pat it lovingly with your hands so it behaves.  Then, griddle it. Don’t worry about it cracking.  Once you get all the other goodness on top, it’ll still be a showstopper.

Happy Cooking!  and check out Chef Emeril on Friday, November 25st, in the 8:30am half hour on ABC’s Good Morning America.