Meats | Gourmandistan

Pork, potatoes and kale stage a battle between tacos and pizza

January 16, 2016 by Steve

The principal duelists: simple roast pork carnitas and a pan of sautéed kale and potatoes (both by way of Rick Bayless), a bag of corn tortillas and a ball of pizza dough. Seconds: tomatillo salsa, basic white sauce and some grated habanero Monterey Jack cheese. Winners? Michelle and Steve. We started with the idea of carnitas tacos, as Steve had bought a piece of locally-raised pork shoulder that was a bit too gnarly to simply roast. As potatoes and kale are some of our main […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Kale, Mexico, Pizza, Pork, Potatoes, Recipes

Bringing out the old to ring in the new with rabbit and some colored-eye soup

December 31, 2015 by Steve

Our version did not use black-eyed peas (instead it used yellow eyes), which we feel is OK because this post is not really about New Year’s. But, if you happen to have some dried beans, rabbit and bacon around when the calendar turns to 2016, we certainly think you’ll enjoy this dish. This “hearty and hospitable” soup was featured in a mid- to late-1980s food magazine, unnamed in the photocopied page contained in Michelle’s old three-ring binder that Steve found while recently cleaning […]

Categories: Beans, Christmas, Cooking, Food, New Year, Old cookbooks, Rabbit, Recipes, Restaurants, Soups & Stews

Merguez stew somewhat reduces bean surplus

November 17, 2015 by Michelle

Having snapped up quite a few containers at a recent farmers’ market, Gourmandistan currently has a surfeit of dried beans. Trying to decide what to do with some of them, Michelle came across a recipe from Steve Sando, founder of the Rancho Gordo heirloom bean company patronized by chefs such as Thomas Keller. Sando’s recipe called for marrow beans, which are white. Since we had made white chili not long ago (reminder: buy our book!), Michelle went with a different hue, choosing instead red kidney […]

Categories: Beans, Cooking, Food, Lamb, Recipes, Soups & Stews, Spinach

White chili, because we have a book to sell

November 9, 2015 by Steve

White chili has run wild on the Internet. But back in the 1980s, before everyone was connected, few people had heard of the idea. That was how Tim Barnes, a restaurateur featured in our just-released book, Lost Restaurants of Louisville, was able to convince many people that he had invented it. The recipe, using white beans instead of traditional red kidney beans and chicken instead of beef, was sometimes credited to Barnes and sometimes to his chef James Aydlett. The dish became so popular […]

Categories: Beans, Chicken, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Restaurants, Soups & Stews

Lack of grater leads to greatness with ham, celeriac and leek pie

October 18, 2015 by Steve

What started as an additional reason to resent holiday cottage kitchens turned into another success thanks to Michelle, with a bit of an assist from Nigel Slater. We had originally purchased a large knob of celeriac at a farmers’ market on our recent trip to Britain, imagining a picnic somewhere moor-ish where a bit of remoulade would accompany a leftover gammon (ham, to those non-English among us) sandwich and perhaps some crisps. Unfortunately, our rental was without a grater (or, at least we thought at the […]

Categories: Celery root, Cooking, Cured meats, England, Food, Pork, Recipes

Easy lamb chops with onion and rosemary, a holiday cottage hero

October 6, 2015 by Michelle

Gourmandistan is back from its month in England and Scotland. (It was 28 days to be exact, as a somewhat-still-bitter-at-United Airlines Michelle will tell you.) While we were thrilled to swap our American domain for dramatic geography, history and much better social infrastructure, we once again had a beautiful house but were not that taken with our kitchen. Over the years we have been fortunate enough to enjoy month-long travel, we have found ourselves in many challenging cooking environments. There have been a few notable exceptions. […]

Categories: England, Food, Lamb, Recipes, Vacation

Kentuckifying pasta with corn, country ham, butter and peppers

August 14, 2015 by Michelle

We are big fans of the late Judy Rodgers, even though we find some of the recipes in her fabulous Zuni Cafe Cookbook a bit confusing. However, Rodgers’ delicious “Pasta with Corn, Pancetta, Butter & Sage” isn’t one of them. We’ve enjoyed this simple-to-prepare dish many times. But, at this point of our summer season, we decided to vary it a bit. (This decision may have been influenced by our lack of sage plants, which drowned during our recent unseasonably heavy rains.) Instead […]

Categories: Cooking, Corn, Cured meats, Food, Pasta, Peppers, Pork, Recipes

Easy guinea hen gets less greasy

August 7, 2015 by Michelle

Gourmandistan was happy to learn that our favorite baker and pork supplier had decided to raise a flock of guineas and offer them for sale at our local market. We’re fans of the better-than-chicken flavor of guineas, but worried our favorite way to cook poultry would result in a too-dry dinner. Looking for an alternative, Steve vetoed any recipe that called for quartering or deboning, and pointed out that our purchase contained neither liver nor giblets, which some other ideas called for. We found a simple-looking one-pot recipe […]

Categories: Cabbage, Carrots, Cooking, Food, France, Guinea, Leeks, Potatoes, Recipes

A bourbon-peach brisket blog for the 4th of July

July 4, 2015 by Steve

This particular Independence Day finds Gourmandistan a bit book-busy, a bit American-lazy and, in most ways, not particularly suited to a long, involved blog post. We’re having an almost blog-standard July 4th dinner of ribs, slaw and potato salad, but yesterday’s lunch (3-day weekend!) was the last bit of this lovely brisket. We changed virtually nothing in Louisville chef Edward Lee’s recipe from Bon Appétit. The combination of stout, bourbon, soy sauce and peach jam absolutely blew Michelle away, and she’s declared this the best brisket she’s ever […]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Food, Independence Day, Recipes