Corks & Cleaver Shows Off on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

by Jay Ducote

Chef David Dickensauge used to be a fixture in the Baton Rouge food scene, running the kitchen at Bin 77 with a creative and ever-changing menu as well as participating in numerous charity events by serving up inspired dishes to the crowds. When I got word that he'd be leaving Bin 77 to head to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I knew it would be the capital city's loss and the coast's gain. 

I recently got a chance to check out his first restaurant in Gulfport, MS, Corks & Cleaver. With only a quick glance of the menu, you can evidently see his flair and flavor profile. A friend and I decided to feast on a sampling of small plates along with a bottle of wine, after all, corks is in the name. 

Coffee Braised Veal Cheeks, Truffled Popcorn Grits, Fermented Greens, Sweet Corn Pudding, Parsnip Volutte

Tender, and packed with flavor, the coffee braised veal cheeks fell apart at the prodding of a fork. That bitterness of the coffee offset the sweetness of the corn while the dish got an acidic bite from the fermented greens. The only thing I would have liked to add to this dish would be a crunch textural element. The grits, greens, corn pudding and veal all had a soft and smooth texture and could have used a snap but the flavors were on point.

Creole Devils on Horseback: Bacon wrapped Boudin and Andouille stuffed Medjool Dates with Piquillo-Tomato Sauce

A staple of Chef Dickensauge's arsenal is the Creole Devils on Horseback. He's made these before, he'll make them again and I'll be happy to eat them every time. Boudin and andouille get stuffed in a sweet Medjool date, then all of that is wrapped in bacon and plated atop a piquillo pepper and tomato sauce. The dish is smoky, porky, sweet, spicy and tangy. I need more.

Duck Confit Beignets, Bok Choy Kimchi, Smoked Date Marmalade, Cayenne Powdered Sugar

We opted for the duck confit beignets as our final small plate, because duck. These crispy, fluffy orbs of fried dough came stuffed with savory duck confit and bok choy kimchi. It's an interesting flavor combination to be sure, but one that works on multiple levels. The tartness from kimchi is just enough to counter the richness from the duck and dough, while the cayenne powdered sugar left just the right amount of sweet and spice.

David Dickensauge's Tres Leches Cake with Blueberries and Blackberries

We had to have something for dessert and our server suggested the tres leches cake. I'm not normally a fan of tres leches as sometimes the textures just don't agree with me, but we were assured that this tres leches cake would live up to the hype.

Earlier this year I had hands down the best panna cotta of my life, and now I can also say that this year I've tried my favorite tres leches cake ever. What Chef David Dickensauge and his team really nailed is the texture. Instead of being a soggy mess, the moist cake held up to the milk and the flavors hit all the right notes.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back to Corks & Cleaver at some point. I'm also really excited about Chef David's new seafood restaurant, Brackish. Check it out if you're ever on the Mississippi Gulf Coast!

Louisiana Culinary Institute's Race to Cannes

The Louisiana Culinary Institute's Third Annual Race to Cannes cooking competition presents an opportunity for state's best culinary students to challenge each other for a trip to the Cannes Film Festival.  Their journey to France will provide them with an opportunity to work with world-famous chefs as part of the festival's culinary team.  I had the privilege of judging two of the head-to-head match ups in the second round of the single-elimination bracket.  The ingredients that the chefs had to work with were chicken livers, red lentils, and oyster mushrooms.  Let's see what the chefs created!

Rumaki served with braised lentils and oyster mushroom salad

Chef number one was Bryan Poche.  His colorful dish featured rumaki with braised lentils and an oyster mushroom salad.  Rumaki, for those wondering, is a bite-sized morsel typically consisting of a water chestnut and duck or chicken liver wrapped in bacon and marinated in soy with either ginger or brown sugar.  Bryan's rumaki had excellent texture and flavor.  I would have preferred to have a little more flavor in the salad and in the lentils, but overall this dish had plenty appeal.

Southern fried chicken liver with red lentil and oyster mushroom tomato sauce over pasta shells

Our next dish came from Taylor Johnson.  Taylor took his chicken livers and gave them a nice, crispy southern fry before placing them over some pasta shells.  These were easily my favorite fried livers of the day, but I found the rest of the dish to be a little displaced.  The lentils were hardly noticeable and plate could have used more sauce.  The oyster mushrooms were there, but they didn't add much to the dish and kind of got lost as well.  In the end, I loved the livers, but the lentils and mushrooms didn't get their share of the love.

The other judges seemed to agree with me.  While the scoring was extremely close, Bryan Poche moved on to the third round of the Race to Cannes!  I think one thing that set him apart was that he happened to be the only competitor to not deep fry his livers.  Way to do something different, Bryan!

Pan-fried chicken livers with red lentils and oyster mushrooms

The next match up began with a spectacular dish from Jeremy Campbell.  His fried livers sat on top of a bed of red lentils cooked to a point where they still retained a little texture.  He added a veal demi-glace and the cooked down oyster mushrooms to bring it all together.  I didn't want to stop eating the lentils and demi-glace at the bottom of the dish.  The livers left a little to be desired as they had lost some of their crispiness, but everything else worked so well that I ate every bit of my food.

Southern style fried chicken livers with pepper jelly sauce served with sauteed red lentils and smoked oyster mushrooms

The final plate of the evening came from Logan Alfred.  Logan delivered more delicious food, though his plate could have been a little less monotone.  Still, his smoked oyster mushrooms were absolutely my favorite mushrooms of the day.  They had just the right amount of hickory smoke flavor to make me thing I was at a KCBS competition.  Additionally, Logan used some panko bread crumbs on his fried livers and topped them off with a pepper jelly sauce.  Unfortunately, the lentils were a little bland, especially compared to flavors from the mushrooms and livers.

Both of these dishes were really amazing and it was hard to see either of them lose.  I had one point separating the two dishes.  The other judges clearly scored them fairly evenly as well.  Ultimately, the judges and I agreed that the winner was Jeremy Campbell's dish.  I think that veal demi-glace with the lentils is what really set him over the top.

I'll be excited to see how Bryan and Jeremy do moving forward in the competition.  My hat off to all of the competitors as well as everybody at the Louisiana Culinary Institute for putting on this great culinary challenge.  I can only hope to be back to judge (and eat) more! 

Cocktails and Fine Dining at Galatoire's Bistro in Baton Rouge

Not too long ago I dined at Galatoire's Bistro in Baton Rouge for a great evening with a couple buddies.  Galatoire's Bistro is another location of the legendary Bourbon Street restaurant.  After Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the owners quickly opened a venue in Baton Rouge and it has been serving great food ever since.  I had the pleasure of being joined by Chef Eusebio Gongora from Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar, and Brian Thom, bartender extraordinaire at Galatoire's.  So what happens when you put a chef, a bartender, and a food writer all at the same table to enjoy a luxurious meal?  Well, you're about to find out!

Galatoire's Bistro in Baton Rouge

Our evening began with some custom cocktails at the bar.  Brian knew a thing or two about the adult beverages at Galatoire's first hand so he pointed us in the right direction... not that there is a wrong direction.  I began with a New Orleans Belle Martini.  The fruity concoction had a pleasant taste without an overpowering sweetness.  The martini featured Absolut Vodka infused with mango and white pepper, cointreau, pomegranate, and fresh lime juice.  The Absolut with white pepper provided a nice little kick that usually isn't found in martinis.  I followed that up with a classic New Orleans cocktail: the Sazerac!  The glass came lined with Herbsaint (an anise-flavored liqueur from NOLA) and carried a mixture of bitters, simple syrup, and rye whiskey on the rocks.  Believe it or not, this was my first ever Sazerac, but it surely won't be my last.  The tasty cocktail sipped fairly easy but with a bite to let me know it wasn't playing around.  Just what I needed to get the festivities started right!

Left: New Orleans Belle Martini

Right: Classic New Orleans Sazerac

I had another beverage at the bar consisting of Crown Royal, basil, strawberries, simple syrup, and a squeeze of lime before heading to the dinner table.  Galatoire's Bistro starts all of their guests out with some fresh New Orleans French Bread.  There's a funny thing about French Bread.  Like beer, it takes on characteristics of the water used to produce it.  Small variations in the water can lead to totally different tastes in the finished product.  For that reason, Galatoire's actually brings in their French Bread from New Orleans instead of baking it in Baton Rouge.  That NOLA water really does French Bread right!  

Left: New Orleans French Bread

Right: The Prisoner 2008 Napa Valley Red from Orin Swift Cellars

Once we got to the table the three of us made a shift from cocktails to fine wines.  Our first choice came from Napa's Orin Swift Cellars.  The Prisoner, a 2008 Zinfandel blend, featured a big fruit taste with its dark red color and hints of berry and cherry.  My kind of wine for sure!  We couldn't make up our minds on an appetizer so we did what anybody should do: we ordered four!  We chose the Galatoire Gouté, Oysters Rockafeller, Sweetbreads, and the Duck Crepe.  The Galatoire's Gouté included a duo of shrimp remoulade and crawfish maison.  The maison sauce on the crawfish tails included green onions, capers, lemon, and creole mustard.  Both items were served cold with reasonably light sauce.  The beauty of the dish is that it didn't try to do to much or pretend to be anything else.  Quite simply, the dish provided great shrimp and crawfish and allowed the diner to actually taste them... and they were fantastic!  

Left: Galatoire's Goilet - Shrimp Remoulae and Crawfish Maison

Right: Oysters Rockafeller

I've had a lot of Oysters Rockafeller lately, but I don't think any have come close to matching the mollusks we consumed at Galatoire's.  The gulf oysters were huge, and the spinach topping created a creamy compliment to the salty oysters.  As Brian said, "I can't imagine a better way to have spinach."  I have to agree!  Next up were the sweetbreads.  If you aren't sure what sweetbreads are, let me begin by saying that they aren't really sweet and certainly aren't bread.  Sweetbreads is the term used to describe food that comes from an animal's pancreas or thyroid glands.  Obviously if they called them that, people wouldn't order them very often.  Once you get past the thought of eating digestive or throat organs, you'll find that these tasty parts are most certainly worth eating.  The sweetbreads were sautéed with mushrooms and a little lemon.  I actually found Galatoire's sweetbreads to be tremendously flavorful with an incredible texture that I'd love to eat again and again.

Sweetbreads at Galatoire's Bistro

Our wonderful wait staff brought out the duck crepe as our final appetizer.  Roasted duck meat filled the pastry along with boursin cheese while a port-cherry reduction and pistachios smothered the crepe.  The dish had a unique flavor combination that paired awesomely with dark fruit flavors of The Prisoner wine that we continue to indulge upon.  As if I needed it, I also had a cup of Galatoire's crawfish bisque.  The bisque revealed a darker roux than I'm accustomed to with crawfish, and there were seemingly no crawfish to be found by looking at it.  However, I soon learned that the crawfish had been pureed to give the bisque a smooth texture while still delivering the flavor of the mud bugs.  The bisque had a nice spicy kick to it and some very earthy notes with the dark roux.

Left: Galatoire's Duck Crepe

Right: A Cup of Crawfish Bisque

Finally the time had come for the main course.  I opted for a daily special that made me salivate from just hearing the words.  The dish featured a fresh, fried, soft-shell crab topped with New Orleans-style barbeque shrimp.  Yes, a soft-shell crab TOPPED with barbeque shrimp!!  My heart may have skipped a beat as the special echoed in my mind, my mouth watered, and my decision process about what to order finished without ever so much as glancing at the menu.  The combination resulted in pure glee.  The Creole butter from the barbeque, the crispy fried exterior of the crab, the meat of the shrimp... it all laid there on my plate looking beautiful, and awaiting its gastronomic demise.  Devouring this entrée didn't fill my stomach, it filled my soul.  Fortunately the crab and shrimp were huge and I had plenty to share with Brian and Eusebio, though I found it difficult to part with even the smallest morsel.  I'm a good friend!

Galatoire's Special: A Soft-Shell Crab Topped with Barbecued Shrimp

Like many fine dining spots, Galatoire's does its sides a-la-carte.  We figured it would make sense to try a couple despite having no need for extra food.  The group opted for the classic Southern grits and the equally Southern smothered okra.  Both sides were nice, though certainly not the highlight of this feast.  Brian ordered the Grilled Poisson Provencal.  I don't recall which fresh Gulf fish it had that day, but I do know it was grilled with tomatoes, onions, olives, capers, and basil.  Quite tasty!

Left: Grilled Poisson Provencal

Right: Stone Ground Grits and Smothered Okra

Eusebio ordered the Veal Liver.  The entrée boasted two sautéed veal liver medallions and came served with caramelized onions and a couple strips of bacon.  Oops!  If you want to know what iron tastes like, you only need one bite of a veal liver.  That thing would have cured anemia (not literally, I'm sure).  Still, if you like the taste, or can at least appreciate the taste of a good piece of liver, this dish is a must.  I only had a couple bites of it, but I remember them fondly.  Each taste got better and better as I acclimated myself to the liver flavor.  

Left: Veal Liver Topped with Caramelized Onions and Bacon

Right: 2005 Amizetta Complexity, Napa Valley

Before the evening ended we had also gone through another bottle of wine.  We selected another Napa Valley red, this time a 2005 Complexity from the Amizetta Winery.  Complexity is a Meritage wine featuring mostly the Cabernet Sauvignon grape with a little Merlot and Cabernet Franc mixed in.  Once again, this wine was right up my alley.

Profiteroles With Ice Cream

Naturally, no good meal is complete without dessert.  Also naturally, we wouldn't be satisfied only getting to taste one of them.  The profiteroles included three pastries that were sliced in half and stuffed with ice cream, then topped with melted chocolate.  The puffy pastries were served cold and created a rather interesting ice cream sandwich.  However, I'd have to say they were bested by our second dessert.

Crème brûlée Cheesecake

The crème brûlée cheesecake combined two of my favorite desserts into one exceptional show-stopper.  I think cheesecake crème brûlée would have been a more appropriate name, but either way, the cream cheese filling worked well as a foundation, then with a torched top layer and selection of berries, Galatoire's found a great way to end my evening.  

There have been rumors circulating about them changing their location in Baton Rouge to somewhere a little closer to town.  That could mean great things!  For right now though, you can find them on Perkins near Highland Road.  Just make sure you bring your appetite!  Thanks to Brian and Eusebio for enjoying a great evening with me!

Things To Do
Baton Rouge

Germany - The 2010 FIFA World Cup Bites and Boozes

Germany

The German side absolutely dominated England today to move on to the quarter finals of the World Cup.  Next up for Germany will be this afternoon's winner between Argentina and Mexico, but for now I'd like to give German bites and boozes their due. Germany is rich with culture, tradition, and football. Generally, with the exception of mustard for sausages, German dishes are rarely hot and spicy; the most popular herbs are traditionally parsley, thyme, laurel, chives, black pepper (used in small amounts), juniper berries and caraway.  As far as beverages go, the most common are obviously all beer, but since that is being covered on the BR Beer Scene, I'll take a look at korn.


German cuisine has often been labeled as stodgy and fatty, which can be attributed to the lack of variety in the rural German countryside until the last 200 years. But Germany has benefited from a close association with Italy and France and adopted many of their spices and cooking methods, always with a German twist.

Schnitzel is fried meat.  And it is tasty.

Korn is a German spirit that is usually made from rye, but may also be made from corn, barley, or wheat. It is usually drunk neat but is sometimes added to Berliner Weiße.  Korn differs from vodka in that it is less rigorously filtered, which leaves more of the cereal taste in the finished spirit.  Korn is very popular in Germany, especially in the northern part. In some places, a beer is often ordered together with a “Kurzen” (“short one”), i.e., with a shot of Korn. This combination is called a “Herrengedeck” (“gentlemen’s cover”) in most of Germany.  Korn is the cheapest kind of spirit available in Germany, which has given it a somewhat dubious reputation. Traditional Korn contains about 32% ABV (64 proof); Doppelkorn (double Korn) has at least 38% ABV (76 proof). A weaker variety of Korn with less than 30% ABV is sold under the name “Klarer” (“clear one”).  Some popular brands of Korn in Germany are Mackenstedter, Berentzen, Nordhäuser, Fürst Bismarck, Dornkaat, Oldesloer, and Strothmann.

Thanks and Credits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cuisine
http://germanfood.about.com/od/introtogermanfood/a/introtoger.htm
http://www.mikedoughty.com/blog/archives/schnitzel.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korn_(liquor)

Nigeria - The 2010 FIFA World Cup Bites and Boozes

Nigeria

Nigeria goes into its final group stage match with a mathematical chance of advancing in the World Cup despite having 0 points.  If Argentina defeats Greece and Nigeria can pull out a decent win against South Korea, the Super Eagles could be moving on to the round of 16.  Yes, it is a tall task and they do have to score some goals to win the tiebreaker, but they could possibly do it.  In celebration of their attempt, we will now take a look at the bites and boozes of Nigeria!

Suya  is meat kabob that is coated in ground peanuts and other delicious seasonings and local spices.  The meat on a stick, which we can always use more of, is usually cooked on a grill or pit like in American barbeque or over open flames on their skewers.  Suya can be found all over Nigeria in restaurants, homes, and from street vendors.  Most suya is made from beef, though occasionally chicken or veal is used.  This may actually be something that I try to make for myself, so let me know if you want to enjoy some Nigerian cooking one day!

Ogogoro, also known as emu and several other names, is the Nigerian version of palm wine that is very popular in Western Africa.  Ogogoro is typically brewed locally when in Nigeria it is known as the country's home brew.  The beverage is brewed from the sap and juices of the Raffia palm tree.  Incisions are made in the trunk of the tree and a day or two later the sap is collected.  The sap is the boiled with the steam being collected, then the steam is allowed to condense and be used for fermentation.  The process produces high levels of ethanol which certainly works at getting the locals drunk... sometimes too drunk.  How can I say too drunk?  Well, with an alcohol content ranging from 30-60%, depending on the home brew, it is said that hundred die every year from alcohol poisoning and over-consumption of amateur-brewed ogogoro.  Oops!

For more on Nigerian beer, visit the BR Beer Scene!

Thanks and Credits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_cuisine
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Suya-Spice
http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-372190.256.html