Charles

Bananas Foster Soufflé

December 14, 2008 by Charles 2 Comments

Bananas Foster is a New Orleans original.

The dish was originally created in 1951, by Chef Paul Blangé of Brennan’s Restaurant. Owen Edward Brennan, the owner, had challenged his chef to create a dish that would highlight bananas. At the time, New Orleans was the principal port of entry for Latin America’s banana crop. The recipe also served as the feature article for Holiday Magazine, which had asked Brennan for a recipe to accompany an article about the restaurant.

Bananas Foster is named for Richard Foster, who …

Cheese Grits

December 9, 2008 by Charles 2 Comments

Not every great recipe requires seven steps and several stopwatches. Cheese grits are one such example.

Grits are crushed kernels of dried corn. The dried kernels are crushed between millstones and the resulting fragments are sorted according to density. The dense shards are grits, and the lighter shards are cornmeal. Polenta is an even finer grind of yellow corn, with all the particles of flour later removed. These stone-ground grits can be made from either white corn or yellow corn, with little difference in taste between the respective varieties.

Stone-grounds grits are coarser than …

White Chocolate Soufflé with Pistachios and Raspberry Purée

December 2, 2008 by Charles 4 Comments

To create the perfect soufflé, it helps to understand the science behind it.

Egg whites are made entirely of protein, while egg yolks contain a mixture of both protein and fat. When you beat egg whites, you are mixing air into the mixture, and the protein from the egg whites forms a skin around the air bubbles. As the soufflé bakes, the heat causes the air captured in the egg whites to expand, creating the puff. When the soufflé comes out of the oven and begins to cool, the air contracts and the soufflé begins to deflate.

Simply put, the rise and fall of your soufflé comes down to the egg whites.

With this in mind,…

Chicken Stock

December 1, 2008 by Charles Leave a Comment

Homemade chicken stock is so much better than anything you might buy in the store. Use it for making couscous, rice, risotto, and …

Roast Chicken

November 30, 2008 by Charles Leave a Comment

I started this food blog nearly a month and a half ago. Yet, in all that time, I never made anything for dinner. That is, there no were entrée posts. Until now.

A whole roasted chicken offers something for everyone. There’s a beautiful center item for the table, …