A Deeper Understanding Of Joel Robuchon’s Mashed Potatoes
The reason our crew gets out of bed in the morning is to fulfill the eaters of New Orleans; y’all are our people.
Category: Recipes
When that cold nor’easter blew in from Lake Pontchartrain last night I got to thinking about chili.
Texas chili.
Texas Red to be precise.
I retired undefeated from the Texas chili wars over a decade ago. Back in the 90s, well before Top Chef became a thing, I organized a series of cooking competitions called Texas Top Cook. I would visit the best restaurants in Austin with an open letter to the cooks in the kitchen.
A recipe for York Peppermint Patty cookies
You can’t freestyle if you want to achieve consistency in your baked goods.
There are rules and precepts that must be adhered to if you’re going to be successful.
The backbone of my kitchen is homemade stock. It’s what makes the difference between a decent enough cook and a deadly serious one. If you’re willing to take the time to make homemade stock you can seriously up your game in the kitchen.
I make two basic stocks: Chicken and Pork. Beef stock is another beast entirely. Easy enough to make in a professional kitchen but quite a difficult road to walk down in a normal home kitchen.
While I also enjoy making chicken stock from time to time, this formula relates to pork stock.
Louisiana is gravy country
Kentucky is gravy country.
Texas is gravy country.
As you traverse the upper end of the South, make your way down into Dixie and then head out west to the Great State, you’ll find dozens of regional variations on this simple, humble sauce. We pour it over our chicken fried steak, we fry up Jimmy Dean sausage and make a gravy that’s perfect for our biscuits; and a bowl of mashed potatoes served without gravy? That might just find the cook on the business end of a rusty shank. Gravy is serious business.
editor’s note: this is an article I posted in the early days of the Scrumptious Chef site]
Out here in Austin, Texas it’s getting hard to find a good bowl of chili.
How can that be?
Well I can tell you, your prospects of sitting down to a big bowl of pho are decidedly more rosy than finding a competent bowl of Texas-style chili.