BOOK/A TABLE - Napoleon House Muffulettas

 

Rereading a book is often a chance to revisit a time in your life when you first turned the pages; perhaps a reminder of where you were in the world and what you knew of it back then. For example, when I first read Anne Rice’s fantastically creepy The Witching Hour, I hadn’t yet been to New Orleans, San Francisco, or Marseilles as featured in her book. But she captures New Orleans so particularly well I felt I had been there even before experiencing for myself the murmuring Spanish moss under the shiver of rain, the iron-lace balconies and flickering flambeaux, as well as that sense of something quite magical in the air...

 
This sentence from The Witching Hour brought back a delicious memory: “We left Galatoire’s finally for a small, quiet Bourbon Street café and continued our conversation until well after 8:30 that evening.”

How well I got to know Bourbon Street over several visits! And how quickly I remembered a perfectly languid afternoon spent with a good friend in the enchanting back garden at Napoleon House in the French Quarter. After so many hours (witchy and otherwise!), our final bill included about a million Sazerac cocktails and a traditional muffuletta sandwich that we shared. 

Napoleon House is one of my all-time favorite places in the world that I know. I’m thrilled to share the recipe for a muffuletta here, made with simple deli meats and cheeses, olive salad, and the best bread you can find. I suggest a host of Sazeracs as an accompaniment as well, but they are entirely optional, of course.

Napoleon House Muffuletta
Yields: 2-4 servings
Ingredients
1 (9-inch-round) seeded muffuletta bun or Italian seeded bread, halved
Extra-virgin olive oil
4 slices ham
5 slices Genoa salami
2 slices pastrami
3 slices provolone cheese
3 slices Swiss cheese
⅔ cup Napoleon House Olive Salad (recipe follows)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Brush bottom and top half of bun lightly with oil. Layer ham, salami, pastrami, and cheeses on bottom half of bun. Top with Napoleon House Olive Salad, and cover with top half of bun. Wrap in foil.
Bake until thoroughly heated, about 20 minutes. Unwrap, and cut in half or quarters.

Napoleon House Olive Salad
Yields: 3 cups
Ingredients
1 cup pimiento-stuffed Spanish queen olives, chopped
½ cup canned chickpeas, drained and coarsely chopped
½ cup pickled vegetables,* drained and coarsely chopped
⅓ cup canned artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped
¼ cup cocktail onions, drained and coarsely chopped
¼ cup green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers, drained and chopped
½ teaspoon minced garlic
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions
In a large bowl, combine olives, chickpeas, pickled vegetables, artichoke hearts, onions, bell pepper, capers, and garlic. Add oil, vinegar, oregano, and pepper, stirring to combine. Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Will keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Notes
*We used giardiniera, a mixture of pickled carrot, cauliflower, celery, and green pepper.

Thanks to stripedspatula.com for the muffuletta photo!

BOOK/A TABLE - Chicken Pot Pie in a Pumpkin

Growing up in New England, a trip to Salem was part of the deal. I first visited with my cousin and aunt when I was in the fourth grade, already vividly obsessed with stories of Tituba, those fitful girls, and the riveting witch trials. Although the little town is more like an overwrought mall now, I’m still enamored with The House of the Seven Gables, that grand, mysterious edifice staring out onto the harbor (and featuring at least one hidden staircase).

As Nathaniel Hawthorne describes in his great Gothic tale, before the witchy Matthew Maule placed a curse on the Pyncheon family and that historic house with the seven gables, it was once a happier place, full of revelry and merriment...and food!

“The chimney of the new house, in short, belching forth its kitchen smoke, impregnated the whole air with the scent of meats, fowls, and fishes, spicily concocted with odoriferous herbs, had onions in abundance. The mere smell of such festivity, making its way to everybody’s nostrils, was at once an invitation and an appetite.”

Surely something as delicious as Chicken Pot Pie in a Pumpkin was also on the menu. Adapted from a recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart, I can hardly think of a better way to usher in the fall season than with this recipe guaranteed to bring the house down!

Chicken Pot Pie in a Pumpkin
Serves 6

Ingredients
6 sugar pumpkins - (about 2 lbs are the best)
5 tb butter
2 tb melted butter
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 lb pearl onions
5 tb all-purpose flour
9 oz peeled cubed potatoes
2 medium peeled sliced carrots
12 oz button mushrooms; quartered
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 c milk
4 1/2 c poached or roasted chicken
2 tb fresh thyme leaves
3 tb chopped parsley
2 tb chopped fresh sage
1 lg egg beaten with
1 tb heavy cream

Method
This recipe calls for pate brisee with thyme but spare yourself the trouble and work with a tube of Pillsbury dough instead and pound some thyme into it.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. 

Slice the tops off the pumpkins. (Placing a pumpkin on a towel will help keep it from rolling around.) 

Scoop out the seeds, and discard them. Using a pastry brush, brush insides of pumpkins with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Season insides of pumpkins with 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Place pumpkins on a baking sheet; cover tightly with foil. Bake until tender, about 30 minutes.

Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Add pearl onions, and let simmer for 15 minutes. Drain; rinse under cold running water. Peel onions, and set aside. Melt 5 tablespoons butter in a large, high-sided skillet set over medium heat. Add potatoes and onions, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes begin to turn golden.

Add mushrooms and carrots, and cook 4 to 5 minutes more. Add flour, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add reduced chicken stock and milk, and bring to a simmer. Cook until thick and bubbly, stirring constantly, 2 to 3 minutes.

Stir in chicken, parsley, thyme, sage, remaining nutmeg, remaining 1-1/2 teaspoons salt, 3/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper.

Remove from heat, and divide mixture among reserved pumpkin shells. Roll each piece of pate brisee to a thickness of 1/8 inch.

Pull center of dough upward to form a pumpkin-like stem. Place over the hollow of each filled pumpkin. Using the back of a small paring knife, mark the dough to simulate the lines of the pumpkin.

Brush top of dough with egg wash.

Bake until crust is golden, about 45 minutes.

 

BOOK/A TABLE - A Study in Scarlet...Punch?

 

In anticipation of Hallowe’en, I’ll be featuring a few frightening reads or recipes (or both!) all this month—kicking things off with a tribute to that celebrant of Gothic New England, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his novel The Scarlet Letter (which features at least one witch, in the form of Mistress Hibbins).

I have to admit the bookseller looked at me kinda funny when I asked if he carried the book.

“Hawthorne?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. Not because he was unsure of the author, but rather he seemed to be asking, “Still?”

“I know...” I nodded, trailing off. “I haven’t read The Scarlet Letter since high school.” 

But I had been thinking about it because there was a recent question on Jeopardy asking which novel has a scene featuring a falling meteor? I don’t know how I remembered this at all, but I felt there was a meteor somewhere in The Scarlet Letter, wasn’t there? 

Turns out, Hawthorne’s novel wasn’t the answer Jeopardy was looking for (I think they wanted Paradise Lost), but re-reading it, sure enough there is a scene on the scaffolding where Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne clutch each other under a shooting meteor whose trail in the celestial skies may or may not resemble the letter A.

 

Anyway...I feel Hester didn’t get a fair shake in The Scarlet Letter. So let’s shake up a cocktail in tribute to the old gal, yes?

The Spooky Spiced Scarlet cocktail (or perhaps a Prynne Punch?) is a blood-red Halloween drink that combines Bacardi Gold rum with a homemade cinnamon spice syrup, fresh pomegranate juice, and cranberry juice. Created by Rich Hunt and Alba Huerta for Jamie’s World, the recipe involves stirring these ingredients with ice and garnishing with a lime wedge for a tart contrast.

Spooky Spiced Scarlet Cocktail

Ingredients
50 ml (about 1.7 oz) of Bacardi Gold Rum (or Ritual Zero Proof alcohol-free rum)
3 tablespoons of homemade cinnamon spice syrup
50 ml (about 1.7 oz) of fresh pomegranate juice
50 ml (about 1.7 oz) of cranberry juice
Ice cubes
Lime wedge for garnish

Instructions
In a cocktail shaker, combine the Bacardi Gold rum, homemade cinnamon spice syrup, fresh pomegranate juice, and cranberry juice.

Add ice cubes to the shaker.

Stir the mixture well until it is thoroughly combined and chilled.
Strain the cocktail into a glass filled with fresh ice.
Garnish with a lime wedge to add a splash of color and serve to your best...boo.