Patois

Whenever I travel, I do a slightly obsessive nerdy cross-referencing of sorts to make sure I have the ultimate eating experiences on my trip. Between friends’ suggestions, write-ups, locals’ thoughts and general meandering, there’s nothing more joyful than finding a little place that embodies the spirit of a geographical location or a part of the culture. Before heading to New Orleans, a friend mentioned Patois, where the food is “classic French cuisine with a patois, or local accent.” I was so sold…

Like the other resto I visited on this trip, Patois has had a James Beard nod with the chef earning a semifinalist spot for Best Chef: South for the past three years. The place is so unassuming and homey, a seamless building in a residential Uptown neighborhood, that the fact that chef Aaron Burgau is turning out deliciously modern-NOLA-Southern-French-Mediterranean food may just sneak up on you until you are stuffed and happy and think “wow, that was good.”

And it really was. All of the ingredients are, of course, locally sourced, and the menu changes often, seasonally driven. I visited Patois on the last day of my trip, the Sunday I was leaving, for a delicious lunch-brunch. Ponchatoula strawberries with creole cream cheese, beautiful potato gnocchi with crawfish, ramps, edamame and a dollop of mascarpone, and the crumbly house-made muffins were just the start of it. I’m still dreaming about the gnocchi’s buttery sauce…

We moved on to the almond crusted gulf fish, succulent grilled lamb ribs with green tomato relish and finally (my favorite!) the fried Mississippi rabbit with a biscuit, eggs, and sausage gravy…eating light in NOLA is an impossibility. I also HAD to sample the grits (as I did everywhere I ate), and these were the best of the bunch – creamy, buttery, peppery, and gorgeous corn flavor.

I did go light on dessert with a beautiful strawberry sorbet, but, seriously, there was no room after the previous feast and my diligent grits taste-testing. This is definitely the type of place I’d go back to if I’m lucky enough to travel again to New Orleans…

Cochon

So if you happen to be on my Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you know all about the trip I took a few weeks back to the Big Easy. New Orleans was hands down incredible – food, culture, fun. I planned the trip well in advance and luckily made a reservation at Cochon before it was nominated and won (!) the James Beard Award for Best Chef : South 2011! I can say after my painfully delicious meal there, that award was so well deserved…

Donald Link, who also helms Herbsaint, and Calcasieu, and Stephen Stryjewski, who officially won the JB Award, conceived Cochon and wanted to highlight Cajun-style, regional cuisine using local ingredients. The restaurant is in the warehouse district in New Orleans, and they followed it up with Cochon Butcher (also fab) next door, which has more of a sandwich / charcuterie / bar food / butcher menu with a lovely wine selection as well. Yes, a butcher that serves wine.

Cochon has an open kitchen layout with simple banquettes and tables. The focus is all food – which is homey, rich, and flavorful. The menu is an all day one, so I went for lunch my first day in New Orleans (and it was packed!).

We started with the amazing wood-fired oyster roast, drizzled with this spicy, soppable garlic butter. The fried gator with chili garlic aioli, spicy grilled pork ribs with watermelon pickle, and fried boudin with pickled peppers were also really killer. Boudin is originally a French, pork sausage. The NOLA version eschews casing the sausage in favor of rolling it into a ball and crisp, batter-frying it. I never said this was a light lunch.

For the mains (I know. can you imagine we ate this much?), we had the oven-roasted gulf fish “fisherman’s style”, smoked beef brisket with horseradish potato salad, mac and cheese, and the most buttery, black peppered grits I’ve tasted. Smoked brisket, by the way, like gumbo or etouffee, is a rite of passage down there. We were sufficiently comatosed from just how filling, perfectly seasoned, well-cooked, and all around delectable the meal was. Oh, and the fresh-baked bread hot out of the oven? Out. Of. This. World.

We obviously couldn’t leave without dessert, and the black bottomed brown butter banana cream pie was the best version of banana cream pie I’ve ever had. Hands down.

This place is a NOLA must and WILL be a stop the next time I head down there!

Filé Powder

I am headed to New Orleans this weekend to do some serious Creole cooking, so I thought it would be appropriate to end this week with an ingredient that is key to NOLA cuisine – filé powder. This spice is made from the dried, young leaves of the American sassafras tree (NOT the root bark, where root beer flavor comes from).

Filé powder is a key ingredient in that most beloved of dishes, gumbo. The flavor is distinctive and to me tastes earthy or green. Some describe it as a combo between thyme and savory, but I find it really hard to pin down.

There seems to be an argument out there – when to include the spice, when not. Gumbo has long been a debatable food, with each cook having his or her own secrets. Many believe that when okra is included, filé shouldn’t. And vice versa. Both actually go beyond adding flavor to thicken gumbo and give it that signature texture.

A few things about filé powder…(1) It should be added to gumbo at the end and not to the entire pot! If filé is boiled, it becomes super stringy, so just stir it in off the heat or to individual bowls. (2) Filé loses flavor when stored for long periods of time, so buy in small quantities…

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Patois

Cochon

Filé Powder