New Orleans

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Wine1.JPGPart Three of the Breakfast Travel Series

 

For a bit of a variant to the traditional Southern Breakfast, and as a means of giving a shout out to the city where most of my family lives, I did make a breakfast that conjures up fond memories of Sunday mornings in New Orleans. Now first, you have to stay out all night on Saturday, finally rolling home around dawn. This is typical N'Awlins behavior and if your neighbors complain about the loud carousing one should firmly castigate them about being so dismissive of others' cultures.

 

Ideally, you get someone who didn't spend all night out partying to make breakfast. This should result in fewer severed fingers and three-alarm house fires. The main item and a specialty of New Orleans is 'grillades and grits' (the first word, in the quasi-Brooklynese accent that marks a long time inhabitant of the Crescent City, should be pronounced gree-ahts). This is just the thing to sop up excess liquor sloshing around in one's tum.

Now this recipe for Grillades is one I got from my brother-in-law Bill. He claims he's my favoritist brother-in-law. There was some reason to doubt this assertion, but then the one who held the throne, Don who works at Microsoft... well, Vista came out, and I'm afraid that there's only room at the top for one. And Bill did give me the recipe. So here it is:

 

Beef Round Steak or Pork - enough to feed a mob

4 - 6 large Tomatoes   

4 - 6 large Onions           

3 or 4 good size garlic cloves run through a press

Flour

Beef Stock

salt, red pepper, black pepper and a little garlic powder

Optional: Chopped green pepper and celery

 

Pound out meat thinly, cut into pieces around 4 inches square and season lightly with salt, red pepper, black pepper and a little garlic powder

Pass through flour to dust

Brown in olive oil and set to drain on paper towels

Saute onions, green peppers and celery (if using), till they are soft

Add garlic for a couple minutes

Add peeled tomatoes,

Add meat back in and stir. Will start to thicken the veggie juice a little

Add broth until you get the desired amount of gravy

salt and pepper to taste

Cover and let cook for 30 minutes or so simmering

 

Serve over grits. Top with some finely sliced green onions. On the side serve some biscuits and good preserves.

 

A true New Orleans breakfast experience is not complete without a pot of Community Coffee. And ideally you need to get some New Orleans Blend, which contains chicory. This is damn near guaranteed to strip the paint off a boat hull as well as cause near instantaneous sobering up.

 

Finally, now that you're sober again it's time to have a Bloody Mary to start the new day. Ideally, use a pickled green bean as the garnish and make sure there's a healthy dash of Tabasco in there too. If you're a Northerner, you can substitute a mimosa, but be prepared to put up with some teasing. 

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This page contains a single entry by Michael Waring published on November 12, 2008 7:02 AM.

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