Travel Bites - New Orleans and Bucerias, Mexico

Frozen Irish coffee from Molly's on the Market

Picking up where we left off, in the deep south. New Orleans (Nawlins to the locals) is all about the creole influence, so it’s a bit of a melting pot (sometimes literally) of French, Spanish and African cusine, as well as a few others thrown in for good measure. Gumbo is a traditional choice and I had this, as well as some other local specialities when we went to Coop’s Place. This place is pretty much the definition of ‘dive’ but the food is what I imagine to be fairly accurate down-home cooking. I had the tasting plate with a cup of seafood gumbo, shrimp creole, Cajun fried rice, red beans and rice with sausage, and rabbit and sausage jambalya; and all this for US$13, you can’t really go wrong. Napoleon House is also worth a look. The building itself is 200 years old and was inhabited by Nicolas Girod, the mayor of the city in the early 1800s. In 1821 he offered his house to Napoleon as refuge during his excile. He didn't take him up on his offer, but the name endured and the walls are covered with every kind of portrait of Napoleon. I had a Pimms cup followed by a shrimp remoulade stuffed avocado - which was so creamy and delicious. The boy had the muffuletta, which sounds like some sort of couch to me, but is in fact a sandwich with salami, ham, mortadella, mozzarella, provolone and olives. It's also a local delicacy and there are any number of places around New Orleans that claim to have the best one.

Honourable mention has to go to frozen Irish coffees at Molly’s at the Market. It was in the high 30s while we were there, with very high humidity, so whilst walking around and checking out the sights, you needed something cool and refreshing to imbibe almost every few metres. You can get take-out, alcoholic drinks everywhere and at any time of day, but this has to be one of the best. A boozy, creamy coffee slushy - so good. Oh and don't miss beignets at Cafe du Monde. These crispy, fried pastries are coated in so much powdered sugar that the people who work there must just seep it out of their pores. It's always busy in there so get them at the takeaway window and eat them elsewhere - like on the bus to do a swamp tour, like we did.

Fish tacos at Chilly Willy's

 After Memphis and New Orleans we were ready for a break from all the fried foods, so Bucerias in Mexico was a welcome relief. We stayed directly across from the beach so a lot of our meals were at the many restaurants right by the water with tables in the sand. We ate a lot of fish tacos, but the best dinner was at Armando’s Place. It was a few blocks back from the beach, and in the middle of what seemed to be an entirely residential neighbourhood. We got a plate of fresh grilled mahi mahi with sides including vegetables (hooray!). It was some of the freshest fish I've had in a while, and whilst it was a bit more pricey than most of our other meals (NZ$20), it was well worth it. We spent a day in Sayulita, a small hippy beach town not far from Bucerias. After quite a bit of searching, we managed to locate Chilly Willy's a place that came highly recommended. It was essentially a road side shack, with a senora cooking out the back and no English spoken - damn they were good fish tacos. We had some agua fresca here, a drink we took a bit of a gamble on as we had no idea what it was when we ordered it. It had a sort of sweet but bitter taste and had weird lumps
in it. I looked it up later and worked out it was made from tamarind pod - not bugs as we were slightly concerned it might have been. I also had a pretty good seafood plate at a little beach spot back in Bucerias, Mar y Sol. And of course you can't go past a bueno cerveza for about NZ$4, with your toes in the sand and a beautiful ocean view.

Seafood at Mar Y Sol

Travel Bites - New York and Memphis

I interrupt your regular scheduled programme of delicious recipes to bring you the highlights of my recent trip to the US of A and, briefly, Mexico. You may have been wondering where my usual musings on delectable dinners and beautiful brunches has been for the last few weeks….or perhaps you haven’t noticed. Either way, I'm back, and thanks to jet lag, I am up early and writing this especially for you.

Travel and food have always gone hand in hand for me – wherever I go, I want to know what the local speciality is and where I can eat it. And let’s face it, eating is my favourite hobby, so I always indulge when I'm on holiday. We spent the last 4 weeks going from city to city in the States, from the east coast of the US to the west coast, with a quick stop in Mexico. A lot of snacks were consumed during this time, so I am just going to bring you a few of the highlights, in two parts. I apologise in advance for some of the not-so-great quality mobile phone photos.

Dessert at ABC Kitchen

Our first stop was New York, home of the hot dog and pizza. Whilst we sampled these of course (on the way to the Statue of Liberty and right before a Broadway show respectively, just in case you needed that titbit of information), we wanted to branch out a bit further while visiting the city that has tens of thousands of restaurants and just about every kind of food you can imagine. One of my favourite meals was at a little place near our Air BNB accommodation in the East Village, San Marzano. They had incredibly cheap pasta, by New York standards - for $9, you choose the type of pasta you like and then the sauce. I chose pappardelle with broccoli rabe and sausage – so simple yet so delicious. We also treated ourselves to­­ a nice dinner and I managed to get us a 5pm booking at ABC Restaurant, which focuses on seasonal and locally sourced food. We had some really good pretzel dusted calamari and I had the wild striped bass but the best of our meal here was probably the dessert – seasonal doughnuts and a sundae with salted caramel ice cream, candied peanuts and popcorn, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. A special shout out to Third Rail Coffee which served coffee pretty damn close to the standard we're used to – our saviours! – and The Brazen Fox who had Ace Pineapple Cider on tap – so refreshing after a hot day of sightseeing (being on holiday is hard, ok).

 

Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken - it may
not look like much, but it was the best.

Our next stop was Memphis where southern hospitality is well and truly alive and kicking. The specialities here are po’boys, catfish, fried chicken and barbecue. Oh I was all over it. Off the plane, we picked up our hire car and drove straight to Soul Fish Café where I had a catfish po’boy - boom! It was tasty, but I regretted not getting the Cajun fish instead of the battered cat fish. The next day we visited the famous Gus’s Fried Chicken for lunch, and this was probably the food highlight for me (Graceland was the best thing we did, in case you’re interested). We had to wait for a table for about half an hour but it was well worth it for the oh so crispy, slightly spicy, fresh fried chicken. Don’t even worry about the sides - more room for chicken - and definitely get a 3 piece. Central BBQ in Memphis also delivered on our last day in Memphis, with it’s sweet and sticky barbecue. I had the pork sandwich which had tender pulled pork inside a soft and slightly sweet bun and creamy coleslaw with a bit of a kick. After I finished, I could totally have done it all over again in a heart beat (beat? Maybe ‘attack’ is a better choice of word).

Pork sandwich with a side of potato salad

Tune in next time for some creole cookin' down in New Orleans and fish, fish and more fish in Bucerias, Mexico.

Macaroni Cheese

This recipe is the BOMB. If you need some winter comfort food, look no further than this creamy, cheesy, carby bad boy. For my birthday I was given two cookbooks, one of which was The Great New Zealand Cookbook. Having a flick through, I came across this recipe for macaroni cheese. This is something I've never actually made before and hadn't eaten in ages, so I thought I'd give it a try. This recipe is by Laurent Loudeac of Hippopotamus,one of the fanciest restaurants in Wellington. It made 5-6 portions for us, although the recipe says 4 but it's definitely quite rich - there's a lot of cheese in there - so smaller portions were fine for us on this particular evening.

250g macaroni

100g butter

100g plain flour

500ml milk

100g blue cheese, crumbled

100g ham, chopped - this is optional and you could easily leave it out and make it vegetarian. I used chorizo sausage, as I had some handy.

50-100g spinach

1/4 cauliflower - this wasn't in the recipe, but I had some leftover from the veggie curry

75g cheese (cheddar or Gruyere), grated - the recipe actually says 200g but I found 75g was just fine.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Cook the macaroni in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente - usually about 6 minutes. While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a small pot and add the flour, stirring until you get a paste (roux). Add the milk slowly, whisking as you go to break up any lumps. Cook until you have a nice thick white sauce (bechamel). This took me a little while and a lot of stirring to get the sauce to thicken, but without it sticking to the bottom of the pot. Season to taste and then add the blue cheese, ham - or in this case, chorizo - and spinach. I also added the cauliflower at this point. I love to add extra veggies to dishes where I can, and spinach is a good one, so I always use extra. It adds a nice bit of colour to this dish too. Drain the pasta and pour the sauce over it, in the large pot. Stir well to combine and poor into either a large oven proof dish, or small individual dishes. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top and bake for 25-30 minutes or until it's golden and crispy on top - I put the grill on for the last few minutes of cooking, just to get a really nice crust. Serve with a salad on the side - which I didn't this time, but I'd recommend it just to cut through the richness of all that cheese. Yum!

Veggie Curry with Chickpeas

I have recently rediscovered the library and I had a brainwave when I was there recently - I can get cook books out from the library! My first selection was Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals. I've made a few recipes from here before - some of them are conveniently found on the internet - and this one is probably my favourite. I've made it heaps of times over the last few years - it's easy, has loads of veggies and you can actually make it in 30 minutes...without all the other accompaniments that go with this recipe in the book, that is. It's actually called Curry Rogan Josh in the book, but you can make it any kind of curry, just choose whichever kind of paste you like.

I also made the Piri Piri Chicken and the Kind Of Sausage Cassoulet while I had this book out from the library. I didn't rate the sausage cassoulet - it was too oniony for my taste - but the piri piri chicken was really delicious, as were the lemony potatoes with feta, chilli and coriander that went with it. I forgot to take any photos when I made it however, so no blog about it....this time. Anyway, back to the curry. I usually make some adjustments to the amounts of some things in the recipe, so this is my slightly altered version, which should do two meals and two lunches the next day.

1 onion
1/2 medium butternut squash
1/2 small cauliflower
1 fresh red chilli (optional)
2 cloves of garlic (3 if they're small)
a bunch of coriander
1/4 of a 283g jar of Patak's curry paste. I usually go for korma, but this time they only had 'mild curry paste' at the supermarket
1 x 400g can of chickpeas
100g prewashed baby spinach
1 cup (ish) natural yoghurt
oil for cooking

Peel and slice the onion and put into a large pan or pot with some oil and a splash of water, on a medium heat. Use the neck half of the butternut squash, so you don't have to de-seed it. Chop it up into 1cm pieces, skin and all, and add it to the pan. The skin becomes really tender so you won't even notice it, and it saves having to chop the skin off which is really fiddly. Chop up the cauliflower into bite-sized pieces and add to the pan, along with the sliced fresh chilli. I really like cauliflower in curries as it's such a great texture with excellent absorption qualities - so add a bit more if you fancy it. Crush in the garlic and chop up about half the bunch of coriander, including the stalks, and add to the pan. Add in a couple of splashes of water, the curry paste and the can of chickpeas, including the juices. Season, stir well, put the lid on and turn the heat up to medium-high. Basically, just cook this (hard and fast, as Jamie says) for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, and adding more water if it starts to look a bit dry. Add the spinach about 5 minutes before the end and stir through. Cook the rice while the curry is cooking (see below). When it's all done, divide the rice and curry between plates and add about 1/4 cup of yoghurt onto the top of each, with some chopped coriander leaves.

As as little aside, I am rubbish at cooking rice, however I learnt the best and most simple way from this recipe. Fill a mug with rice, put it into a pot and then add two mugs of boiling water with a little olive oil, a pinch of salt and a few cloves if you have them. Put the lid on and cook on a medium heat for 7 minutes. Then take the pot off the heat and leave it, with the lid on, for another 7 minutes - this gets you nice and fluffy rice and (almost) never fails!

One-cup Pancakes

It was Mother's Day recently and instead of a pressie, I thought I'd invite Mum over to have brunch with me and just hang out. I offered her a 'menu' a few days before, with several choices, and she chose pancakes. Now I know this isn't a super fancy thing to make, and most people can probably pretty easily whip up pancakes, but this one is uber easy - and you probably have everything in your cupboard already. This recipe is another Jamie Oliver one, but I chose it because it's the simplest of simple recipes. It was a lovely sunny day, so making these in my kitchen on a Sunday morning for my mum was really nice.

1 large free-range egg (I used 2 smaller ones)
1 cup of self-raising flour
1 cup of milk
sea salt
1 tablespoon of oil

And whatever you want to put on your pancakes! I chose:
1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries
6 tablespoons of plain yoghurt
2 teaspoons of runny honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Crack the egg(s) into a large mixing bowl. Add in the flour, milk and a pinch of sea salt. Whisk it all together until it's a nice smooth batter. If you wanted to put anything in the pancakes, like blueberries, you would fold these in at this point. Put a large frying pan on a medium heat and add half the oil to the pan. Make sure the oil covers the whole pan - I usually use a pastry brush or a paper towel. Add large spoonfuls of the batter to the pan, with space between each pancake to allow them room to spread out. Cook them for 1-2 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface, and then flip them over for another couple of minutes on the other side. You need to cook them in batches, so once they are cooked, I put them on a plate in the oven on a low heat so they keep warm. Use the rest of the oil between batches if you need to.

For the accompaniments, I put the frozen berries in the microwave for about 20 seconds and then blitzed them a little with a hand blender, but not so much that they were completely puréed and smooth. I divided the pancakes between two plates, in piles, and topped with the plain yoghurt, berry sauce, drizzled the honey over and sprinkled a little cinnamon on the top.

We washed our pancakes down with some mimosas (a fancy way of saying bubbly with orange juice), even though I was a little hungover. It was a really nice way to treat my mum, but with something homemade we could enjoy together.. I'm lucky that I live in the same city as my mum, so I see her fairly regularly, but that hasn't always been the case - I spent the better part of nine years living overseas and despite the fact that I've been living back home for over two years now, she still tells me how happy she is to be able to spend time with me. I am sure everyone says this about their mum, but mine is pretty special, so it was a pleasure to make these, and enjoy them with her. Love you Mum!

Baked Lamb Meatballs with Pasta

I went to Auckland for work the other week, just for the night. My flight arrived at about 6pm the night before I had to attend the work thing, so of course I'd already researched where I wanted to get dinner from before I even got there. There was a well-recommended Japanese restaurant, Kushi, near my hotel so I ordered some takeaway - so I could eat it in my fluffy hotel  robe, in my giant hotel bed of course- and sat down to wait. I was reading an old Mindfood magazine, and came across this recipe. I was so hungry and this looked so delicious, I copied it straight down onto my boarding pass (so old school - my phone was flat, ok).

A friend was coming for dinner last week, and to watch a couple of the latest Game of Thrones episodes, and the weather was pretty crappy so I thought this would be a nice warming dish.

Baked Lamb Meatballs with Pasta

800g lamb mince
6 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon olive oil and extra to drizzle
800g chopped tomatoes in juice
3 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves - I used dried
1 lemon, rind finely zested
1 1/2 cups black olives - I used pitted kalamata olives, chopped up
200g feta cheese, sliced lengthways
300g dried orzo pasta
oregano leaves, fried, to garnish - I omitted these

Preheat the over to 180 degrees. Mix the lamb, garlic and onion together - using your hands is best - and season. Oil a deep baking dish with the olive oil and put the flour onto a plate. Make meatballs from the mixture and roll them in the flour, before putting them into the baking dish and toss them around in the oil a bit. Cook for 15-20 minutes until browned. Add tomatoes, oregano, lemon zest and olives to the baking dish. Top with the feta slices and drizzle with a little olive oil. Bake for 30 minutes or until feta is golden. I used reduced fat feta, so it didn't really brown - or perhaps I was just too hungry and impatient!

Once the meatballs are about 20 minutes in, cook the orzo in a large pot of salted boiling water for 11 minutes or until al dente. Drain, divide between plates and top with the baked meatballs and fried oregano leaves, if using.

This was pretty yummy, but I felt like it needed something else. Maybe some more veggies, or a bit of spice. When I make it again, I'll add in some chilli or harissa and some spinach. I meant to top it with some fresh parsley in the absence of the fried oregano too, but I forgot. Excellent on a cold night though, and pretty quick. I've never used orzo before, and it's a nice alternative to your regular sorts of pasta as it has the same texture as rice - I'd like to experiment with it a bit more. And you really can't go past something topped with slices of cheese. Next time, I'll throw caution to the wind and go full fat feta. Yummo!

Tomato and Chilli Chutney

I had quite a few green chillis on my plant in the garden recently and I was really hoping they would ripen at the same time so I could make some chilli chutney or relish. But they didn't - they ripened frustratingly slowly, one by one. Not helped by our cat pulling a couple off the plant before they were ready, bringing them inside and giving them a good chew. I did however pay a visit to my aunt in Martinborough - who supplied the olive oil used for the pesto a few weeks back - and she gave me an abundance of chillis from her garden. Back on track.

I love a good chutney, especially with cheese and crackers or in sandwiches, and this recipe was so easy. It was from BBC Good Food, which is another of my go-to websites. It was submitted by a reader, so I was a tiny bit sceptical, but it had some positive comments and seemed super easy so I thought I'd give it a go. I made a half batch, because I don't have a really big pot at the moment, so that's the quantities I've listed below. It made one and a half medium jars and one small jar, which was plenty for just two of us. Just double everything if you want more.

Tomato and Chilli Chutney

250g red onion, roughly chopped
500g tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves -  4 if you're doubling this recipe - roughly chopped or crushed
4-6 chillis, roughly chopped - I used 4 and it's a bit on the spicy side, so I'd recommend less if you don't like it too spicy, or removing the seeds
A thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
125g brown sugar
75ml red wine vinegar
5 cardamom seeds - I had ground cardamom in my pantry, so I used about 1/4 teaspoon of that instead
1/4 tablespoon of paprika - add a little more if you like the smoky flavour, like I do

Put all your ingredients into a pot and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally. If you're making a half recipe, like I did, you might need to add a splash of water as well - but not too much as the tomatoes have a lot of water in them. Simmer on a low heat for one hour, without a lid on. Use a hand blender to blend the ingredients, but just a little as you don't want to purée it - it should still be chunky. Bring it to a gentle boil again, and boil until it looks shiny, thick and sticky. This should only take a few minutes. Spoon into sterilized jars. I had no idea how to sterilize jars because this is the first time I've made anything that goes in jars, so I just boiled some water in a pot and put the jars in for a few minutes and took them out with tongs. Turns out the same website this recipe is from, has some handy instructions here if you need them though. Refrigerate in the jars overnight. The recipe says it will keep for 6 weeks.

Nice and spicy and sticky and excellent with cheese. I'll definitely make this again now I know it's good - and I'd make the full recipe as a few extra jars would make great gifts. I even made some cute labels, and gave the small jar to our upstairs neighbours.