It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally perfected gumbo. I’ve gone through countless over-complicated recipes over the years and have systematically thrown out the steps and ingredients that were superfluous. This recipe is what remained. It’s the best gumbo I’ve ever had.
I have a bunch of recipes that I’ve been meaning to blog for a while, and this is one of the better ones. I can’t remember where I originally got this idea; I think it was from some blogger’s variation that was a few degrees removed from an Ina Garten concoction. I’ve been roasting cauliflower for years, and I grill a lot of vegetables, but I think the best way to cook broccoli (and keep the meal healthy) is under the broiler.
This spice rub is a based on a recipe developed by America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated to mimic the taste of the ribs at Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous in Memphis, TN.
When I was right out of college and teaching myself to cook, I tried to reverse-engineer Ruby Tuesday’s Sonora Chicken Pasta. I hate to date myself, but this was back in the days of Web 1.0 before seemingly everything was posted online. I didn’t want to literally recreate the dish, as I found the sauce too rich. I just wanted to perfect that creamy taste and texture that coated the noodles and tickled the back of your throat with a slight hint of spiciness. I never wrote down the recipe I eventually worked out, and it’s been at least five years since I last made it. The wife has been requesting it for months, so I thought I’d finally perfect the dish and record the recipe for posterity.
I like a plump, rare hamburger as much as the next guy, but sometimes I’m in the mood for a well-browned griddle burger. As regular readers know, I occasionally grind my own meat for sausages, shepherd’s pie and meatloaf. A lot of hamburger lovers insist that you need to grind your own beef for burgers to ensure that the patty doesn’t become too compressed. I’ve never really found that to be the necessary for traditional, grilled hamburgers. But when it comes to griddle burgers, it’s an essential step.
This is the best time of year to make Caprese salad. I have a farmers’ market a half-mile from my house and they have so many varieties of tomatoes in varying stages of ripeness right now. I always hate how the oil and vinegar in Caprese salad drips below the sliced tomatoes, so I make a chopped version that can be tossed to coat the tomatoes.
As I’ve mentioned before, the wife doesn’t like hard-boiled eggs. Since the standard Southern recipe for chicken salad is swimming in chopped eggs and mustard, I’ve had to develop another recipe. This one comes out so creamy and mild that we usually eat it on crackers like a dip instead of spread over white bread.
Exactly what it sounds like – flowers that have been cleaned, stuffed, breaded, and fried.
I’ve been trying to get the wife to eat more meat on the bone. I’m convinced that bone-in fare is simple more flavorful than its boneless counterparts. She’s okay with barbecued ribs, because the bone is so big, but she gets squeamish when the bones are small. I’ve been making lots of bone-in pork chops lately and she’s gotten more accustomed to eating that way. I figured it was finally time to go for the gold and cook a whole chicken. It resulted in the best roasted/grilled chicken I’ve ever eaten.
