It’s not uncommon for cooks and chefs to be obsessed with condiments. One of my cook friends who lives alone keeps nothing at all in her fridge except for a myriad of condiments, milk for coffee, and a bottle of wine. When I was working in NYC as a private chef and lived alone, that is what my fridge looked like, too. Now that I have a family, I actually do much more cooking at home than I ever did when I was single, so the contents of my fridge has become a bit more…rubenesque, if you will. There’s Lily’s personal cheese drawer as well as a continually rotating stock of proteins that we keep on hand for quick weeknight meals. There is a sourdough starter that takes up way too much room for its own good, but from where I stand is worth its weight in gold.  And of course we’re never without milk, juice, wine, or beer. But it’s our condiment collection that is…well, let’s just say it’s getting expansive. My husband and I have dueling mustard shelves. We have at least 7 different hot sauces at all times and so many pickled things, it’s not even funny. The thing is, though, you just never know when you’re going to need any particular one of them and, well, they’re part of the family. And now I’ve gone and done it — I’ve fallen in love with yet one more condiment that I know I will have trouble living without going forward. I have made the acquaintance of lemon confit.

This is all due to my recent attempt to use up all the Meyer lemons from the garden. I had already made a big batch of Moroccan-style preserved lemons, (one of my favorite things to throw into a dish of chicken braised with green olives!) and I really wanted to try something new and different with the remaining lemons.  They looked so pretty sitting on my kitchen counter, but I knew I should preserve their beautiful flavor so that we could enjoy them for days to come.

Though the concept of  lemon confit seemed quite similar to the preserved lemons, the small taste I had recently enjoyed on a sandwich at a restaurant had resonated with me in a unique way; I just couldn’t get them out of my mind.

And so I made my first batch of lemon confit, based on an amalgamation of a few different recipes I’d saved over the years. It’s so simple to prepare, you really don’t even need a recipe. It’s nothing more than thinly sliced lemons (rind and all) layered with salt, sugar, minced shallots, and garlic. You let it marinate in the fridge for a few days (in its own juices, which is where the “confit” part comes in), and then you strain off the juices, place the now very pliable lemon slices in nonreactive containers, and top them off with olive oil. That’s it! I am told it should keep in the fridge for about 1 1/2 months, but I doubt mine will last that long. I had two nice size jars a week ago and one is nearly already gone. I have put the slices on sandwiches with roast chicken breast, roasted red bell peppers, avocado and shaved red onion and, oh my. It was one of the quietest lunches my husband and I ever shared together. I also finely chopped a couple of the slices and used that as the basis of a lemon vinaigrette; it was delicious over simple salad greens with roasted beets and crumbled feta. I doubt I’ll have any trouble figuring out what to do with the remaining confit. The taste is so fresh, so subtle, and yet so in-your-face at the same time, it’s hard to describe. The texture is firm and yet velvety. If you love the bright flavor of lemons and the briny quality of olives and capers, I suspect you might like to try lemon confit, too.

In hindsight, I think slicing the lemons on a mandolin or an electric slicer, if available, would give you the best results. Slicing whole lemons by hand using a regular knife produces somewhat irregular slices, even though they are forgiving and still worked just fine.

The Superbowl is just around the corner and the big question is “Are you going to have a big party, a little party or are you going to go to a party?” The Superbowl is one of the number one party events of the year.

Here are a few things to think about if you are going to a Superbowl party. Ask your host or hostess if you can bring anything. It is always nice to show up with a little extra somethin’ somethin’. Maybe you can bring extra beer or wine or how about an h’or d’oeuvre or appetizer. You could also show up ahead of time to help set up or stay a little later to clean up. Make sure you have a designated driver if you need one. Don’t be a sore loser or winner.

If you are hosting a Superbowl party, you should be sure the television is in a good location for everyone, if possible. Be an equal opportunity host, be sure to let all of your guests know that no matter which team wins there will be no hard feelings. Nothing like a house divided. Make sure there is enough food and drinks for the stragglers that show up for the second half. If you are having a potluck, let everyone know the theme of the party. Perhaps you can suggest specific dishes for people to bring. Have everything set up before your guests arrive. You don’t want to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off while trying to greet guests, take coats and make cocktails. And of course, have the phone number of a reliable taxi service on hand for anyone who gets out of hand.

Here is a quick list of fun h’or d’oeuvres and appetizers or desserts to bring to a party:

• Charlotte’s Hot Shrimp Dip
• Spinach and Artichoke Dip
• Hot Crab Dip
• Kicked Up Chicken Wings
• Andouille Stuffed Jalapenos
• Emeril’s Fudgy  Brownies
• Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you are having your own party:

• Emeril’s Fierce and Fresh Margaritas
• Grilled Shrimp with Mango Salsa and Guacamole
• Grilled Flank Steak with Cebolitas
• Rockfish Tacos
• Tomatilla Salsa
• Black Bean Relish
• Tres Leches Cake

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)

Finally! One of the first copies of Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders has landed on my desk! This long awaited arrival of our latest cookbook project has me and my team reminiscing over some of our favorite dishes from the book. We couldn’t wait to try some of them again:  congee, kimchi-fried rice, jap chae, only to name a few. With the One Pot, Three Weeks promotional blogger party going on, we felt we had to join in on the cooking fun. Stacey has plans to make kimchi-fried rice tomorrow, but I happily spent time in the test kitchen today making our beloved congee.

A friend of mine turned me on to the Chinese rice soup known as congee (a.k.a. jook) several years ago. After introducing it to my colleagues here in the test kitchen, it quickly became one of the Emeril’s Culinary Team’s favorite go-to dishes. It is a comforting dish that is always well-received, especially when rainy and cool outside. In the simplest terms, it’s a thick rice soup made from long, slow simmering of rice in broth. We usually make a stock with pork and chicken, with hints of aromatic ginger, garlic, scallions, and cilantro. Here it is simmering away!

Once the broth is just right, it is strained, the meats are shredded for garnish, and then the rice is cooked low and slow in the broth until it literally falls apart. Here is the strained broth simmering with the rice. Sometimes I can’t resist adding a few additional pieces of ginger and scallions to make sure it’s extra flavorful. (Just make sure you remove these before serving.)

The finished soup is then garnished with the shredded meats, cilantro leaves, crispy garlic, crispy shallots, sliced scallions, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, and spicy sesame oil – all to taste. It’s one of those dishes that you can easily tailor to use what’s available. Today I used an already made pork stock and so the soup turned out a bit darker in color than the recipe created for Sizzling Skillets…but boy, was it good. The crispy shallots and crispy garlic can be purchased in Asian markets already prepared if you’re not up to frying at home. Friends and family love garnishing their own bowls to taste with just the right amounts of stuff so please, don’t even think of skipping the garnishes – they elevate this soup to something truly special.

Kitchen tip: The small Japanese mandolines work well for slicing the garlic and shallots to the same thickness, which makes a big difference when frying. This way all the pieces end up done more or less at the same time. Once you’ve done this a few times you’ll see how important this is!

This is just one of the test kitchen’s favorites from Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders…on sale in bookstores next Tuesday or order online at emerils.com by clicking on https://www.emerilstore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=10CB116! If you want to see what some of the other bloggers have been cooking, check out my latest favorite blogger/photographer partnership at http://freshlybakedbyphotokitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/emeril-lagasses-cookbook-sneak-peak_19.html and http://mangesmangi.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-pot-wonder-collaboration-with.html The photos are amazing!

A team of culinary enthusiasts (ok, fine, we just like to eat) from MSL and Emeril’s have been hosting monthly cook-off competitions — the theme of the first was chili, and for the second, everyone was asked to bring their signature dish. The competition has been heating up at these events, so when a Taco Cook-Off was announced, I knew I had to pull out all the stops. I began researching taco recipes (more on that later) but I knew that whatever I made HAD to be served in a homemade tortilla. I might have been intimidated by the thought of making my own tortillas, but I was emboldened by a recent tortilla-making how-to that Marc Matsumoto posted on twitter, and of course, motivated by the thought of taking the taco crown.

TJ Pitre, my friend, colleague, and cook-off cohort happened to have a near-full bag of masa harina, which is pretty much the only ingredient in tortillas, and I happen to have a brand-new tortilla press, so we teamed up to make a large batch. 7 large batches, in fact. The results were incredible in every way. I couldn’t believe how easy the tortillas were to make; we were adventurous enough to tackle both hard and soft shells. The hard shells were a little trickier, but after our 30th or so, we had all of the bugs worked out. They were so delicious and fresh, that I may not ever purchase packaged tortillas again.

 

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Picture 1 from 11: Masa harina and my new tortilla press.

Get the recipe after the break:

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Emeril describes an easy sauce to accompany grilled fish, vegetables and more during a live on-air cooking demonstration in the SIRIUS XM Studios.

If you are ever in a pinch and don’t have a rolling pin, try using an empty wine bottle instead!  It works perfectly!   I picked this tip up from Emeril at a demo a couple of years ago.  One of his assistant’s forgot to pack a rolling pin along.  While we all scrambled around to find a rolling pin, he suggested using a wine bottle and saved the day (and his pastry)!

To easily give your home-cooked meals a new twist, try making your own citrus-flavored sea salt!

Simply mix about a dozen or so pieces of citrus peel (pith removed and cut into 1/4” squares) along with about two tablespoons of course sea salt into a salt mill (my favorite being made by Peugeot) and use in place of plain salt. The freshly ground zest and will add a nice kick to broiled or grilled fish, steamed veggies and even make a great garnish to a bowl of chocolate pudding!

You can use a single variety of citrus—like orange or meyer lemon, or you can mix your favorite citruses together.  And if you really want to get creative, you could even add some black peppercorns, whole coriander or other dried spices and come up with your own spice blend!