OUTHERN SLAW DRESSING
This is a creamy dressing that I like to use on a mixture of such cabbages as red, green, and Napa. The slaw is a nice bed for steamed shrimp that have been chilled, peeled, and cooked with a Cajun remoulade sauce.
Makes 3 cups
2 teaspoons freshly chopped herbs (basil, Salt and pepper to taste mint, thyme, and the like)
1. Combine all the ingredients.
2. Toss shredded or julienned cabbages in the dressing and chill for an hour before serving. (This amount will dress almost 2 quarts of julienned vegetables.)
Sometimes, you can expend more energy thinking about making sauces than you need to. The simplicity of this butter-called a compound butter-offers a nice touch of flavor without complicated preparations. You can make variations on this theme or start with a wholly fresh concept-for instance, mushroom butter, pistachio butter, ginger-mustard butter, or others.
This butter freezes without any loss of flavor. Make a batch and roll it into logs in aluminum foil or parchment paper, mark the date, and keep the logs frozen until you need the butter. It tastes good on pasta, bread, or sauteed with fresh vegetables, but I use it primarily on simply grilled fish and seafood.
5 pounds unsalted butter, slightly softened 3 tablespoons fine sea salt or kosher salt
at room temperature 2/г cup plus 1 tablespoon peeled, hand-
3 tablespoons white pepper chopped shallots
% % 1
cup mayonnaise cup sour cream cup buttermilk teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons creole mustard 5 tablespoons tomato juice
Cayenne to taste
1. Paprika to taste
% cup assorted chopped fresh herbs (a with the foods you plan to serve the
mixture of herbs such as basil, thyme, butter on)
parsley, and tarragon would be good, % cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
but it is important that they pair well 2 tablespoons Pernod
1. Put the softened butter in a large bowl. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix together as thoroughly as possible.
2. Taste and adjust seasoning. Roll into logs as described above and freeze.
UASIC WHITE BUTTER SAUCE (Beurrc Blanc)
White butter sauce is made slightly differently in most restaurants from the way you would prepare it at home because restaurants often require that a sauce be held for the number of hours of service. Classic butter sauce, an emulsion sauce held together only with butter, cannot be held for more than a short time. So cream is added if the sauce needs to be held longer. If you are serving your butter sauce almost immediately after its preparation, you can omit the cream.
Makes 2 cups
6 tablespoons white wine
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
lU cup finely chopped shallots
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
Ч2 cup heavy cream (optional) 1 pound butter, broken or cut into small bits, kept cold Salt and pepper to taste 1 teaspoon lemon juice
1. Put the white wine and white wine vinegar into a medium-sized heavy saucepan with the shallots, bay leaf, and cracked pepper and reduce over a medium heat.
2. Optional (proceed to Step 3 if not using cream): When the shallot mixture is reduced to 3 tablespoons, add the cream and reduce by half.
3. Whisk the butter in, piece by piece, until it is all incorporated. Strain sauce through a fine-mesh strainer. Add salt (optional), pepper, and lemon to taste.
1. 4. Keep warm in a double boiler.