Cooking the Easter Bunny!

How to chop up, cook, and eat a whole rabbit! YUM!!



I bought a whole rabbit at Treasure Island Foods in December and chopped it up and cooked it. I took some pictures as I did the needful so I could share it all with you. First the whole rabbit before I got started.



I had a few pictures from the internet that showed a rabbit after being cut into the primals, but I'd never done it myself before. Based on those pictures, this is what I managed to come up with:



As you can see, there are the hind legs, the breasts, tenderloins, and front legs (shanks). I was really looking forward to those tenderloins! The recipe I chose was intended to accentuate the rabbit flavor, it was very simple. Some carrots and onions, a little olive oil, rosemary, and red wine. I seared the rabbit for a couple minutes before adding the vegetables back in and then the wine.





That's the finished product

Bacon Cheese Roll!

First, weave a "mat" of bacon and fry it up:

Then you put a bunch of shredded cheese on it, roll it up, and slice it... YUM YUM!!!

YUM!!!

I'm not big on Holidays

But when it comes to Thanksgiving, at the very least I like to cook a lot on a free day off.

This year I was expecting Isabelle to be working on Thursday and Friday so we planned on doing a roast chicken on Saturday ... I know this is totally inappropriate ... but we were planning to have a turducken later in the year and I have some good roast chicken recipes.

Isabelle ended up having Thursday off because the hospital had a low census (she got paid anyways) and so I had to rush to the store to find a big chicken. Nobody had chickens out, just turkeys. A couple of giant rainbow trout fillets at the meat counter caught my attention, so that's what we had.




Rainbow Trout fillet and ratatouille, with brownies and ice cream for dessert. I didn't get a photo of the finished fillet because I couldn't wait to eat it!

Shrimp Etouffee on Fried Catfish

Shrimp Etouffee on Fried Catfish, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

Shrimp Etouffee

6 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup peeled, seeded and diced tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Hot pepper sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 pounds shrimp
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped parsley

In a large, heavy saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter and whisk in flour to combine well. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until roux is a peanut butter color.

Add onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme and cook until vegetables are soft, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add stock, tomatoes, salt, red pepper, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil.



Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add shrimp, lemon juice, green onions, and parsley and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add remaining butter and stir to combine well. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.



This is normally served over white rice, but in my case I served it over fried catfish. I used Zartarain's fish fry breading, which is super easy. I have a candy / fry thermometer, so I make sure the oil is at 350 before dropping in the fish. I fried them for about 10 minutes or until they were golden yummy as they look in the photo. This tasted SOOO good, but the etouffee probably needed more roux to be thicker. I'll leave it to you to add 2 tbsp of butter and flour at the beginning.

Enjoy!

The Best Things in Life are Inherited

A Simple Salad, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

My grandfather used to make this sald pretty regularly. It's simple: black olives, pickled banana peppers, and anchovies. Drizzle a little of the anchovy oil on the salad and you've got a great snack. You can have some bread with it, but it's good all by itself.

mmmmmmm

- Andy

Duck and Andoulle Sausage Gumbo

An Emeril Lagasse Recipe



This duck and sausage gumbo recipe is from Emeril Lagasse and I got it from the Food network when I searched for "duck and andouille sausage gumbo" on their recipe finder (I have very specific tastes!) You could certainly substitute a 4-5 lbs chicken for the duck. I've actually done that before. Be sure to skim the fat off while it boils or you'll end up with something really, really chickeny and greasy!

The roux is the hardest part of this recipe... just keep the heat medium-high and DON'T STOP STIRRING. Emeril says it should turn the color we want in the time it takes to drink two beers. I don't drink that fast, it takes me ~30 minutes. If you're doing it right, your arm will be tired and it will smell like toast.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/duck-and-andouille-sausage-gumbo-recipe/

Duck and Andouille Sausage Gumbo
Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2006
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Yield: 12 servings
User Rating: 5 Stars

1 (4 to 5-pound) duck
4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups small dice onion
3/4 cup small dice celery
3/4 cup small dice green, red and/or yellow bell peppers
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 (12-ounce) bottle stout beer (recommended: Abita Turbo Dog)
6 cups dark chicken stock, or chicken stock or water
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
5 teaspoons Essence, recipe follows
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 pounds andouille sausage (or other smoked sausage), cut into 1/2-inch rounds
Steamed white rice, for serving
1 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped parsley leaves

Rinse the duck under cold running water both inside and out. Remove any excess fat at the cavity opening and at the neck. Use a sharp boning or butcher's knife to cut the back on either side of the spine. Remove the spine and reserve for stock. Cut through the breastbone of the duck to give you 2 halves. Cut the legs from each half as well as the first 2 digits of the wings. Set the legs aside, and cut the breasts in half horizontally.





Season the duck with 2 teaspoons of Essence. Place a large Dutch oven over medium heat for 2 minutes, or until hot. I actually start by browning the sausage and removing it before putting in the duck. This way the pan will be all oiled up with sausage fat. Place the seasoned duck, skin side down in the pan and sear until golden brown, about 7 to 8 minutes. Turn the duck over and sear on the second side as well for an additional 7 to 8 minutes. Remove the duck from the pan and place on a platter while you make the roux.

Add the vegetable oil to the pan as well as the flour. Using a wooden spoon, stir the roux continuously over medium heat until the color of dark chocolate, about 20 to 25 minutes. Add the onions, celery and peppers and garlic to the roux and stir, gently until the vegetables are slightly wilted, about 4 to 5 minutes. Pour the beer over the vegetables and stir to incorporate. Add the stock/water to the pan with the thyme, bay leaves, Essence, cayenne pepper and the remaining 2 teaspoons of salt. Add the sausage. Stir the pot well to ensure that the roux and the stock are well blended. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring the gumbo to a boil; then lower to a simmer. Return the seared duck pieces to the pan and cook (skimming any foam and fat that may rise to the surface), for 1 hour and 30 minutes. After an hour and a half, remove the duck pieces from the gumbo and place on a platter to cool. Once the duck is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and meat from the bones and add the meat to the gumbo. Discard the skin and bones and re-season the gumbo, if necessary.





To serve the gumbo, ladle 1 cup into a heated soup bowl with 1/4 cup white rice. Garnish with the green onions and chopped parsley.

Emeril's ESSENCE Creole Seasoning (also referred to as Bayou Blast):
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme

Combine all ingredients thoroughly.

Yield: 2/3 cup

Recipe from "New New Orleans Cooking", by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch, published by William Morrow, 1993.

- Andy

Chili

Chili, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

Cooking night (Sunday) arrived with no plans in mind, so Isabelle suggested one of my old standbys, turkey and hot Italian sausage chili! This is pretty simple, we just take some hot Italian sausage and peel off the casing, mix with ground turkey (let's say 2 lbs of each) and then cook that in a splash of olive oil until it's not pink anymore with some cajun seasoning. Add some green pepper, chili pepper, and onions and cook it until the onions are translucent. Then add garlic and cook it for a couple minutes. Then you need to add some tomatoes, I use 2 28oz cans of chopped tomatoes with all the juice... Are you with me?



Tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, that's all good... but it's not chili. So we need to add about 4 tablespoons of chili powder and another tablespoon of cumin. Now it's chili. But it's still not what I'm after... so let's go ahead and pour in 2 bottles of Harp Lager. Oh baby.



Just bring that up to a boil, then down to a simmer and stir it a lot for an hour or more... until it thickens up and you get some chili. Chop up some cilantro and shred some Monterrey Jack cheese. Put that on top of the bowl when you serve it and you've got a tasty snack! I like to eat it with those "hint of lime" chips.

- Andy

Chillin' like a Villain

San Francisco and Clearlake are just a week away! I'll be posting every day during my travels, hopefully. For now I've got something else to write about. I finally got my jeep fixed, there was a problem with the engine idle air control motor that was causing the thing to stall out and drive poorly for the last year at least. Other, lesser mechanics were unable to figure it out. Finally I took it to Ashland and Lawrence in Chicago and they sorted it out. They also replaced the ball joints, a tie rod end, did the breaks, replaced rotors in front, an exhaust gasket, an O2 sensor, crank sensor, and some other stuff... well fine... it works now, that's all I care about.

Jeep


Jeep, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

On Monday night I drove my newly functioning jeep home under cover of ominous clouds and decided to make some shrimp etouffee. Isabelle had thoughtfully (or hungrily?) chopped all the vegetables and peeled the shrimp, setting aside the shells for stock. All I had to do was cook it up. I started with the shrimp stock by putting a dash of olive oil in a pan and heating it up, then adding the shrimp shells and toasting them until they had all turned red. To that, I added the typical stock aromatic veggies and spices (celery, onions, bay leaves, black pepper corns, li'l salt, li'l thyme, oregano, parsley, tarragon) brought it to a boil, took it down to a simmer for 30 minutes and there we go.



While that's going on, I put a stick of butter in another pan and heated it up to just before it starts turning brown. Then I added some flour and stirred for 15 minutes or so until I had a light roux. Then I added celery, onions, and bell peppers to the roux and cooked that a little before adding a ton of garlic and then cooked until everything wilted a little, after that I added some chopped tomatoes.



Cook that for a little bit and add some cajun seasoning, salt, pepper, cayenne, and a couple bay leaves before adding in the shrimp stock and then Bring that cauldron to a boil and then down to a simmer for a couple hours and it will turn into etouffee!



Serve that over white rice and everyone's happy! While I was cooking in the kitchen with the window open, those ominous clouds exploded into a serious storm. Apparently there were more lightning strikes in that storm than we normally get in 6 months. The city activated its tornado sirens which was amazing and scary... Through it all, I cooked on!

On Tuesday I drove around the park to survey the damage.



- Andy