The Praline Connection - New Orleans

Past the bustling and hustling French quarter you can find a more quiet New Orleans. The Marigny neighborhood at 4pm seems lazy with locals, drinking coffee on side walks lined with old houses and flowers hanging from French balconies, or else browsing in an old bookstore filled with everything from travel companions to foreign titles. Looking up at the corner of Chartres and Frenchmen st. I see an old sign that says the Praline Connection.

Inside the staff wears crispy clean white shirts, ties and black hats. They sat me down at the window so I can look out on the empty street filled with sunlight. I should have been more adventurous with my food, I know. There are fried chicken livers for appetizers and fried pickles for side. But I was hungry and on a budget. The shrimp po-boy came first, twice the size of what i expected it to be. Lightly battered shrimps fried to a golden brown inside a loaf of French bread with lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise. It tastes a lot lot better than it sounds.

My desert came next, creamy bread pudding with a praline sauce - tooth-achingly sweet; and yet I kept eating until there was no more on the plate.

The servers walk by occasionally, winking at me, filling up my water glass and chatting with me about the restaurant, New Orleans and food. And I feel happy walking back, passed empty verandas and sleepy cats, and started waiting for the time I can come back for more.

The Praline Connection
542 Frenchmen Street
New Orleans, LA

Sergio's fresh pasta: Roasted chicken legs with fresh spinach gnocchi in pesto sauce

View Larger Map

I am an avid user of groupon, and trubates, ad livingsocial and all the sites that offer deals. Do you know that yelp has deals as well, and travelzoo has what they call local deals? Check them out because it's great way to try out new places and things.

Back to food! So we got a groupon for Sergio's pasta shop, which is located in San Mateo and boasts twenty something types of fresh pasta, ravioli, gnocchi, not to mention fresh sauces and gelato. With $20 (for which we paid $10) we had difficulty choosing what to try, and finally settled on spinach gnochi, portobello and shitake mushroom ravioli and garlic fettuccine.

The best thing about fresh pasta, besides the superb taste, is how fast they cook. The gnocchi took about 3 minutes, although you do have to drop them in the pot a couple at a time. I serve them with my super easy baked chicken legs and some boiled broccoli.

For two:
1 pound of fresh spinach gnocchi
2 tbsp of genovese pesto from Trader Joes
2 chicken legs (drumstick and thigh together)
1/ cup chicken broth

Pat the chicken legs dry and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, dry oregano and ground chilli. Rub everything in, over and under the skin. Preheat oven to 375F. Put the chicken legs in a baking dish, add half a cup of chicken broth. Put the dish in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes (depending on the size of your chicken legs), rotating the chicken half way through so they don't dry out. Pierce the legs with a fork. If the juice run clear the chicken is done.

To cook the gnocchi, boil 4 cups of water. Add the gnocchi in a couple at a time (up to 10) and fish them out when they float to the surface (about 2 minutes). Once you are done with all the gnocchi, add the pesto and toss gently.


Serve the pesto with chicken and boiled broccoli.

Cookware testing 1: Greenpan hotpot cajun shrimp boil

The greenpan hotpot is not a hotpot the way I know it.  Growing up Vietnamese, when I hear hotpot, i think of cooking at the table, throwing in meat and seafood and vegetable and slurping the tasty broth until I fall into a food coma. The greenpan hotpot won't let you do that. It is exactly what the name say it is, a pot, that keeps your food hot at the table, not boiling hot, but hot enough for you to enjoy throughout the meal.

The green part of it: the greenpan hotpot is nonstick, but uses a different techonology than the traditional non-stick cookware.  If you are concerned with the PTFE (Teflon) coating, which, supposedly, releases toxic gas when overheated and is toxic to your body if consumed (for example when the layer peels off after long use), the greenpan assures you that their non-stick coating, Thermolon, will not peel or releases toxic fumes at high temperature. Not only that, the coating is mineral based, so more environmentally friendly than the plastic based Teflon coating. Lastly the greenpan hotpot has a double-layered lid, which helps trap moisture and heat to reduce cooking time, hence you save energy while cooking.

My experience with the pot: The pot does a good job keeping the food hot. I actually put the shrimp into the pot after taking it off the heat source and they cooked properly, albeit it took 2 minutes longer than then cooking them on the stove. Aesthetically, the pot looks pretty good with the red insulating bowl, which can also be used as a salad bowl.  I also have a greenpan frying pan, and find that it heats up fast and evenly. Both the frying an and the pot clean up very easily. I did hear though, that the non-stick layer will peel with time, but have not experienced it since I just started using both items. I guess I will update this post occasionally with how the products are holding up.

Included in the set is the pot, a steamer/colander, a melamine insulating/serving bowl and a bamboo spoon and fork.

For testing I decided to make cajun shrimp boil.  The recipe is basic, the thing you see on the cover of any box of cajun seasoning.
The amount of food can be adjusted according to what you like or not.

1 pound of shrimp
1/2 pound of hot, smoke sausage
2 medium size potatoes
2 ears of corn
1 small onion
2 small tomatoes
8 cloves of garlic
1 lemon

2 tbsp of Zatarain's crab boil seasoning

optional: 1 tbsp of cayenne pepper or 1 tbsp of sriracha sauce

salt and pepper 

Add 4 cups of water to the pot and bring to a boil.  Meanwhile, cut the potatoes, onion and tomato into wedges, peel the corn and break them in half. Cut the sausage into slices. Add everything to the pot.  Squeeze the juice of the lemon into the juice and add the rest of the lemon as well. Add the Zatarain seasoning, and the pepper or hot sauce, roughly chop the garlic and add that as well. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Put the lid on and let cook for 5 - 8 minutes, or until potatoes are tender to your liking. 

Take the pot off the stove and put it in the melamine bowl.   Add the shrimp. Using a wooden spoon (included in the set) make sure the shrimps are submerged in the broth.  Put the lid back on and bring it to the table. The shrimp will be perfectly cooked after 5 minutes, so you can use the time to set the table.

Use a slotted spoon (I wish it was included in the set) or a tong to fish out whatever you want. I dip my shrimp in a concoction of chili lime salt and a squeeze of lime juice.  The broth was still pretty hot by the time we finished eating about an hour later.

If you eat a lot of soup and stews and would like to keep them hot throughout the meal, this is definitely a useful product.

Tapas Dinner

Have i told you that I LOVE tapas? If I haven't, you know it now. I had my first tapas meal at Ceviche in Tampa Florida, and until today the place remains my favorite tapas place. I guess it's matter of nostalgia. Last summer I traveled to Madrid with my boyfriend and ended up having tapas everyday. Tapas in Madrid are inexpensive, unlike in the United States. If you go to the right places (El Tigre is a popular place for American young tourists, but just look for a bar where you see lots of local people) you'll get it for free with an alcoholic beverage.
So this dinner is inspired by Madrid, because tapas in San Francisco is way too expensive. I made huevos rellenos, tortilla espanola (see the recipe in my earlier post), patatas brava and sangria.

Let's start with the sangria. This is a recipe I got from my cooking class 3 years ago at Hipcooks.
1 bottle of 2 buck Chuck (I used cabernet sauvignon)
2 cups of Trader Joes mango, pomagranate juice
1.5 oranges
1.5 limes

Cut the oranges and limes into slices and put them in a pitcher. Add the wine and the juice. Use a wooden spoon to muddle everything. Let sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving

Huevos rellenos

We had this at this at a bar (forgot the name) on Gran Via in Madrid and I love it. Think about it as a version of deviled eggs

3 hard boiled eggs
Here is my fool proof way of boiling eggs. Put the eggs in a pot and cover them with cold water. Bring to a boil. Let boil for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, put the lid on and let eggs sit in hot water for 10 minutes. Pour out the hot water, rinse under cold water to shock the eggs and peel
3 oz of canned tuna (that should be half of a small can)
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp chopped green olives
3 tbsp mayonnaise
a squeeze of lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Half the hard boiled eggs and take out the yolk. Mash the yolk,add the tuna, capers, olives. Squeeze some lemon, add the mayonnaise, add some salt, pepper and mix it all together. taste and add more salt, pepper or lemon if needed. Spoon the mixture back into the egg white. If you want, you can use a small spoon to carve out some of the egg white to make more space for the filling. I put them in a tupperware and refrigerate them for an hour before serving.

Patatas bravas

4 red potatoes
lots of oil to deep fry
chopped parsley mixed with some salt and garlic powder
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Scrub the potatoes really well and cut into wedges. Put oil into a small pot and let it heat up. I put a piece of potato in the pot with the oil and when the oil starts to bubble around the potato, I know the oil is hot enough. Have a piece of paper towel on hand to dry each pieces of potato to avoid oil popping everywhere. Keep the oil on medium heat and put in a few pieces of potatoes at a time. They should take about 3 minutes to become golden brown. Fish them out, throw them on a place lined with paper towel to absorb excess oil. Then, while they are still hot, sprinkle with some of the salt, garlic, parley concoction. repeat with the rest of the potatoes. Arrange the potatoes on a plate and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese

Brava sauce (or my interpretation of it)

1/2 cup of mayonnaise
1/3 cup of spicy ketchup
1tsp of sriracha sauce
2 tsp of finely minced garlic
1tbsp finely chopped parsley leaves

Mix everything together and add salt and pepper to taste.

Bonus picture of my tortilla espanola and how the feast came together.

Garlic noodle

We bought 5 pounds of spaghetti because it was on sale. That's a lot of dry spaghetti, and I need some diversity in what I can do with it. Ideally, something non-tomato-sauce based. So Andrea Nguyen's take on garlic noodle is just perfect. I modified it with suggestions from her comments and the result is ... divine. I am craving it right now again, even though I just had it yesterday.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound dry spaghetti
2 sausage link (I had some from Trader Joe's, but you can skip it)
4tbsp butter
5 cloves garlic: very finely minced (I use a grater), and mixed with 2 tbsp of water
2 tbsp soy sauce
a dash of fish sauce
2 tbsp each chopped green onion and cilantro
salt, pepper, parmegiano cheese

Bring water to a boil in a medium sized pot. Add some salt. When water starts boiling, cook pasta until tender (about 12 minutes). Drain the pasta, but reserve a cup of the pasta water
In a deep skillet, melt butter, then add the garlic mixture. Cook for 1 minute. If you use sausage, add it to the skillet and cook until heated, about a minute or two. Add the soy sauce, the pasta water and a dash of fish sauce. When the mixture is boiling, add the pasta and toss with a tong.  making sure the pasta is coated with the sauce. When liquid is almost fully absorbed, add green onion, cilantro. Toss. Turn off the heat, add however much parmegiano cheese you want and toss again.
Serve with some boiled veggies.

The list of the ingredient sounds really weird, I know, but in the end, everything works so well together, you'll only taste wonderful, creamy, garlicky noodle. Promise!

Vietnamese chicken salad

Another way to use my left-over garlic chicken legs, but you can also use left-over rotisserie chicken, or just roast some chicken legs or breast. The key of this dish is the fish sauce dressing. I give you my recipe, but it is subjective, so just keep tasting until you have found your perfect combination.

Ingredients (for 2 as appetizer, for 1 as entree)

1/4 medium cabbage
1/2 small sweet onion
2 garlic chicken legs
some chopped cilantro (or Vietnamese corriander - rau ram)
2 tsp crushed peanuts

for the dressing
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp sugar).
If you like it spicy, have some some thinly sliced chili pepper on hand.

Thinly slice the onion, put it in a small bowl and cover with vinegar (I use rice vinegar). Thinly slice the cabbage and put it in a big bowl (makes it easier to mix later). Add a pinch of salt and toss. Shred or cut the chicken into long pieces. Add to the cabbage. Drain the onion and add to the mixture together with the cilantro. Toss.

Mix the fish sauce with vinegar (you can re-use the vinegar that you used for the onion) and sugar. Stir to dissolve everything. Add some chili if you like it hot.

Add the dressing to the cabbage, meat and onion mixture and toss. Let it rest for 5 minutes then serve with crushed peanuts sprinkled on top.

Garlic chicken legs

Chicken legs are cheap and tasty - the perfect student food. I know it, because my student life is long, very long, in fact it still hasn't ended. So, unless you stay in dorms and eat in the dining halls, you'll find yourself buying a lot of chicken, especially when they are on sale for 99 cents/pound. What you can cook with chicken legs - a lot and a lot of things.  You can make porridge, 3 drumstick will be enough for a medium size pot, you can de-bone them and grill, or you can leave the bones on and roast, for a quick and easy meal, like with the recipe below.

Ingredients
4 chicken drumsticks (or 2 leg quarters: 2 drumsticks and 2 chicken thights)
1/2 cub of chicken broth (or whatever broth you have on hand)
4 large gloves of garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp chilli powder
1tsp oregano
if you don't have oregano, substitute it with whatever other herb you have on hand. I have made it with fresh cilantro, dried thyme. The chicken will taste slightly different depending on the herb you use, but it will taste good. Also, if you use fresh herb, increase the amount, since the flavor is less concentrated.

Now wash the chicken legs and pat them dry with paper towel.  Mince the garlic really fine then mix it with all the spices, salt and pepper. Rub the mixture onto the chicken. Push it under the skin as well as massage it onto the skin. Place the chicken legs in a baking dish. Add the broth and bake for about 40 minutes in the oven, preheated to 425F.

Serve with salad, mash potatoes, fries or rice (in a word, whatever you desire).

If you want a gravy with it: add 2 tbsp butter to the baking dish, 1 tsp of flour. Stirring, cook until the mixture turns into a brown paste, slowly add 1 cup warm broth, whisking. Let it simmer for 5 minutes or until you have the desired consistency.