Recipes | Gourmandistan

The tallow of triple-cooked chips

June 15, 2014 by Steve

It is said that desire is the cause of all suffering. If that is indeed true, we must say Heston Blumenthal has not helped us as we work toward Buddhahood. But he did help us attain the best fries Gourmandistan has ever made. Steve obtained a bag of beef suet during the waning days of our nearby Foxhollow Farm store, with the specific intent of rendering it down for tallow, then forcing Michelle to make French fries with the stuff. Ever since McDonald’s abandoned its beef tallow, Gourmandistan has […]

Categories: Cooking, England, Food, Potatoes, Recipes

Design vs. function found in blanquette of pork

June 1, 2014 by Michelle

Phaidon Editorial Director Emilia Terragni was recently described as “Queen of Cookbooks” on the strength of the publishing house’s marvelous-looking books from such luminaries as Ferran Adrià and René Redzepi. Terragni first became known through the English language publication of The Silver Spoon, an Italian cookbook first published by the design and architecture magazine Domus. Gourmandistan owns this admittedly gorgeously-designed cookbook. It serves as a stand for Steve’s computer monitor. Phaidon’s beautiful books have often seduced us. But, while pretty, several painfully useless purchases have prevented […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, France, Pork, Recipes, Soups & Stews

While solitude wanes, we Frogmore Stew

May 24, 2014 by Michelle

After some years (and as some consolation for skipping this year’s trip to Europe), Gourmandistan has returned for the fourth time with Michelle’s family to Dewees Island, an eco-conscious community constructed on an old rice plantation slightly north of Charleston, South Carolina. Accessible only by ferry, Dewees allows no automobiles, has no golf courses, enforces strict building rules focused on maintaining the beach, wetlands and wildlife, bans wedding receptions and/or wild parties, and to our continuing enjoyment seems always mostly empty. […]

Categories: Cooking, Family, Food, Recipes, Seafood, Shrimp

Putting a little snap into scones with pear, ginger and rosemary

May 15, 2014 by Michelle

While we are not entirely captured by the concept of “cream tea,” Gourmandistan does like a scone now and again. But while there are many recipes, most are too sweet, too cake-like or too dry and crumbly for our tastes. After quite a bit of experimentation, we’ve (for now) settled on this version, which we’ve adapted from software engineer-turned-vegetarian-cookbook author Michael Natkin. We enjoyed winy pear flavor spiked with fresh ginger, but added a bit of dried for extra zing plus […]

Categories: Breads & Crackers, Breakfast, Cooking, Food, Muffins & quick breads, Pears, Recipes, Vegetarian

A pecan Patronus, surprisingly from the school of dark tarts

May 8, 2014 by Michelle

Before the Harry Potter police descend on Gourmandistan like a pack of Dementors at a Quidditch match, let it be said that Gourmandistan understands Patronus charms are not usually uttered by pecans. But we do feel pecans need some protection. Too often well-meaning kitchen wizards whip up pecan pies, imprisoning the nuts in sickly sweet sugar goo that sucks the soul from the nut. Especially if we’re shelling them ourselves, we Gourmandistanis want our pecans to be the star when we use them. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Nuts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Bettering beaten biscuits with lard and a little “Derb-kee” sauce

April 28, 2014 by Steve

It’s Kentucky Derby week again, and we were searching for seasonally appropriate (at least for the Louisville area) dishes to discuss. Michelle was disinclined to make beaten biscuits, though alternate Derby food ideas were not forthcoming. Even though Steve pointed out that Charles Patteson included a food processor version of the infamous long-kneaded dough in his cookbook (along with the pre-Emancipation slave labor and post-Civil War “biscuit brake” methods), Michelle resisted. She’d been subjected to far too many virtually tasteless, artificially white and […]

Categories: Appetizers, Biscuits, Cooking, Food, Kentucky Derby, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Sandwiches

Meet your new King, Chocolate Elvis Cake

April 19, 2014 by Michelle

Elvis Presley has many, many incarnations. Swivel-hipped Ed Sullivan-censored Elvis. Terrible movie star Elvis. Television-shooting, fried peanut butter and banana sandwich-eating Elvis. Black leather-clad Comeback Elvis. Sweaty sequined Vegas Elvis. Dead Elvis. Some see Elvis as a racist, others as a messiah. Gourmandistan saw Elvis as cake. Our story begins like so many in Gourmandistan, with a bit of food about to go off. In this case, it was bananas, which Michelle (as she often does) starting thinking about making into a […]

Categories: Bananas, Cake, Candy, Chocolate, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Guy Savoy, blood orange tart and the meal that almost wasn’t

March 31, 2014 by Michelle

We purchased our copy of Guy Savoy’s 120 recettes comme à la maison in January 2001, the day after we dined at his then-two-Michelin-starred restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe. The day before our cookbook purchase began with Steve learning (having slept through it) that Michelle had spent the night on our chic Paris hotel’s bathroom floor sick with food poisoning (oysters blamed), followed by her announcement that we should probably cancel our dinner reservation. Michelle was at that point refusing to put anything in […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Orange, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Restaurants, Vegetarian

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Cutting the fat (if you can believe it) in collards with bacon and cream

March 19, 2014 by Michelle

We know that spring must be near, because tender collard greens are starting to appear at our local markets. Southerner that she is, Michelle immediately began to think of collards and pork. The kind of slow-cooked, somewhat greasy goodness one finds at many “soul food” or “Southern style” restaurants, along with a cruet of vinegar to dilute the fat and give the greens a chance to surface. But while we are a household which indeed reveres fat, even we blanched […]

Categories: Collards, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Vegetables