Celebrity Chefs

Bloody Mary’s For Halloween

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Halloween isn’t just for the kids. How about having a ghoulish little cocktail party while the kids are out trick or treating? Bloody Mary’s make the perfect fit for a Halloween celebration for obvious reasons, plus its always a great drink to have on your repertoire of cocktails for any day of the year.

So here are a couple of the best recipes from two celeb chefs Bobby Flay (Mesa Grill) and Emeril.
The Mesa Grill’s Bloody Mary

16 ounces tomato juice
3 ounces vodka
2 dashes hot red pepper sauce
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
2 jalapenos, sliced
Pinch celery salt
Pinch black pepper
1 lemon, juiced
Ice
Celery spears, for garnish

Combine all ingredients, except celery spears, in a small pitcher, pour into large glasses filled with ice and garnish with celery spears.
Emeril’s Bloody Mary Mix

3 cups tomato juice
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce, or to taste
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3/4 teaspoon hot sauce, or to taste (recommended: Tabasco)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Premium vodka
Small jar pickled green beans
Small jar pickled okra

In a blender combine the tomato juice, lemon juice, lime juice, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and hot sauce and process until smooth. Transfer to a nonreactive container and add salt and black pepper, to taste. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least 2 hours and up to overnight. When ready to serve, fill each glass with ice.

Add 1 ounce of vodka to each glass, then fill the glass with the bloody mary mix. Stir well, and garnish each glass with a pickled green bean and a pickled okra.

[tags]Halloween,Cocktails,Bloody Mary,Emeril,Bobby Flay[/tags]

Originally posted on October 31, 2008 @ 7:02 pm

Christmas Menus: Nigella’s Abundant Old Favourites

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With Thanksgiving barely over and leftovers still smouldering in the fridge, theres no better time to start thinking and planning for the next big day ahead – Christmas!!

Ok, call me a bit of a sadist, but unlike Thanksgiving which really only involves a singular meal (maybe you were even lucky this year and played guest and not chef) , Christmas is so much more, especially so if you have a family with little children.

You know what I’m talking about – stockings, tree, decorations, outfits, parties, pantomimes and presents – to a list which seems to get longer every year! So yes, early preparations for this particular holiday does make good sense.

And since this blog is about chefs and therefore food, I’ll be posting about some of my favourite celeb chefs’ Christmas menus. Depending on your mood, gathering and needs this year, you can decide early on what tickles your fancy most. After all, Christmas is the season for celebration, joy, and splashing out indulgently – as Nigella so rightly reminds us in her Christmas Menu below.

“I think the mistake people make most when entertaining is to get too fancy with the food. No one is ever too sophisticated for the basic pleasures of home cooking, and there is something about those old favorites that makes everyone feel a little leap of joy in the heart………The whole point of a feast is that it is unnecessarily abundant”
Nigella Lawson

Nigella’s Rustic Christmas Menu

Crab Cocktail
Seasonal Breeze
Perfect Roast Potatoes
Petits Pois � la Fran�aise
Green Bean and Lemon Casserole
Standing Rib Roast
Chestnut Cheesecake

For recipes, start HERE.

[tags]Christmas, Holidays, Christmas dinner, Nigella Lawson[/tags]

Originally posted on December 10, 2008 @ 5:19 pm

Ina Garten’s Linzer Cookies

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Christmas is definitely in the air, so what better time to start baking cookies? If you have children, this simple action can turn into a wonderful holiday tradition! These Linzer cookies from Ina Garten are festive and elegant enough to also serve at holiday get-togethers, and also make fabulous presents to give away.

Linzer Cookies

3/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup good raspberry preserves
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the butter and sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough 1/4-inch thick and cut 2 3/4-inch rounds with a plain or fluted cutter. With 1/2 of the rounds, cut a hole from the middle of each round with a heart or spade shaped cutter. Place all the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and chill for 15 minutes.

Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature. Spread raspberry preserves on the flat side of each solid cookie. Dust the top of the cut-out cookies with confectioners’ sugar and press the flat sides together, with the raspberry preserves in the middle and the confectioners’ sugar on the top.
[tags]Christmas, Holidays, Christmas recipe, linzer cookies, Ina Garten[/tags]

Originally posted on December 11, 2008 @ 10:31 am

Two Hot Tamales Do Turkey

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While watching the holiday-appropriate “Turkey Challenge” episode of Iron Chef America, in which the contestants were each given the Thanksgiving bird to get creative within the show’s time slot, I watched half-interested as to who was challenging Bobby Flay (yet again) with Alton’s semi-sarcastic drawl in the background.

When I saw that it wasn’t Mario and that it was two affable ladies – a blonde in bright pink and a diminutive brunette with funky glasses, it got my attention. I realized after a while, that it was the Two Hot Tamales, also known as Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger.

The most interesting dish of the show by far was the Hot Tamales turkey (yes, turkey) ice cream, which used the bourbon Wild Turkey, and (regretfully) turkey stock. As one of the judges aptly put it, high marks for originality, low marks for the proteiny taste. Much as I like Mary Sue and Susan, I have to say that they reached a little too much here – who on earth would eat a poultry-flavoured ice cream? I must say that the presentation was beautiful though, a chocolate ball crust in a chocolate turkey-shaped basket.

Their other dishes beat Mr.Flay’s multi-turkey breast renditions (all the same, different sauce) by a mile I thought, with things like turkey meatball soup and a scotch egg which looked absolutely scrummy. You don’t get to see of the humble scotch egg on television much, and I have to say that the last time I saw one was at a garage shop in a UK motorway.

Sadly, it was a tie (the injustice!!), and even if Alton said that that was “rare” for the show, I should really email them and say that the last time I watched it was also a tie.

But anyway, one good thing was that I got to see the Two Hot Tamales again, who I hadn’t seen in years and had actually forgotten about in the sea of the new breed of Celeb Chefs (or dare I say media whores?). Now you know who I’ll be blogging about next.

[tags]Thanksgiving, Two Hot Tamales, Iron Chef America[/tags]

Originally posted on November 23, 2008 @ 11:39 pm

Ina’s Anniversary Steak Bernaise

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Happily married to her husband Jeffrey for 38 years, this divine steak with a bernaise sauce was from the “Wedding Anniversary” episode of the Barefoot Contessa. Accompanied by rosemary roasted potatoes and string beans with shallots, this simple but heart-warming meal was also winningly combined with shrimp with cocktail sauce as its starter.

Strangely enough, this menu could very well be my husband’s idea of “the perfect meal” – so thanks to Ina, I now have our next anniversary menu mapped out, but probably with the addition of mushrooms!

For the Sauce Bernaise:

1/4 cup Champagne or white wine vinegar
1/4 cup good white wine
2 tablespoons minced shallots
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon leaves, divided
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 extra-large egg yolks*
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

6 (1-inch thick) rib eye steaks
Olive Oil
Coarsely ground black pepper

For the sauce, put the Champagne vinegar, white wine, shallots, 1 tablespoon tarragon leaves, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is reduced to a few tablespoons. Cool slightly.

Place the cooled mixture with the egg yolks and 1 teaspoon salt in the jar of a blender and blend for 30 seconds. With blender on, slowly pour the hot butter through the opening in the lid. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of tarragon leaves and blend only for a second. If the sauce is too thick, add a tablespoon of white wine to thin. Keep at room temperature until serving.

Season the steaks liberally with salt and coarsely ground black pepper on both sides. Heat a thin layer of olive oil in a large saute pan over high heat until it’s almost smoking, then sear the steaks on each side for 1 minute. Lower the heat to low and cook the steaks for about 7 to 10 minutes, turning once, until very rare in the middle. Remove to a plate, cover tightly with aluminum foil and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Serve with the bernaise sauce on the side.

Note: To make the sauce in advance, prepare an hour before serving and allow it to sit in the blender. Before serving, add 1 tablespoon of the hottest tap water and blend for a few seconds.

[tags]Ina Garten,Anniversary,Barefoot Contessa,Steak,Bernaise Sauce,Recipe[/tags]

Originally posted on October 29, 2008 @ 6:08 pm