Remoulade Sauce

Remoulade is a mayo based sauce invented in France. Versions of this sauce are used in dishes around the world. Some recipes are very extravagant but my version uses ingredients you should have on hand. This goes great with my mini crab cakes and many other seafood dishes:

Ingredients:

1/2 lite mayo

1 tablespoon Franks Hot Sauce

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon chili sauce

1 tablespoon pickle relish

2 teaspoon horseradish or 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish sauce

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl. Chill for one hour before serving.

Enjoy:

Let me know if you have any unique versions of remoulade sauce?

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Dash of old Bay Seasoning

Baked Mini Cajun Crab Cakes

A few weeks ago, I purchased a container of lump crab meat for another dish I was making but never got around to using it.

Last weekend my son was bugging me to make something with the crab. He loves crab and would have been happy to eat it out of the container. Instead, I decided to make my healthier version of crab cakes. These are baked not pan fried. I also used a low fat mayo. This is a great easy appetizer or could be converted into a main dish. I personally like the mini version better. Serve these with my homemade Remoulade Sauce recipe or as my wife says to me sometimes; keep it simple with a Remoulade purchased from the store. Nah I’d rather make it myself!

Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi with Mushroom Cream Sauce

Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi with Mushroom Cream Sauce

Time to introduce our Dinner Group. For the past thirteen years we have been getting together with three other couples, for what we call Dinner Group. Over those many years we have done just about every theme imaginable. I need to start another blog just with those themes and recipes. The way our group works is you host the dinner three times a year. When you are the host, you pick the theme, make the main dish, side dish and provide bread, wine and a theme drink. Each of the other couples supply appetizers, soup or salad and dessert respectively. We are all good cooks and have grown over the years with our culinary skills. As I said we have done just about everything. From every country imaginable, survivor night, karaoke night; complete with a stage, iron chef night; where the ingredients were supplied, Lebanese night complete with a belly dancer. Some months are very elaborate some are just a bunch of friends getting together to enjoy good food. I will go into more detail in future post.

February’s dinner was at Matt and Krista’s house. The theme was UGLY food. The trick was to make ugly food that tastes great. We had black bean soup, porcupine meatballs, and crock-pot cake. I decided to make spinach and ricotta gnocchi with a mushroom cream sauce. This is very ugly, but tasted great. It is a fairly simple recipe modified from my ricotta gnocchi recipe. Ricotta gnocchi is much lighter than traditional potato gnocchi. This can be served as an appetizer, first course or a main dish.
Enjoy the ugliness!!!

Gnocchi:

• 1 cup fresh ricotta whole milk
• 1 package frozen spinach thawed and drained completely
• 1 1/2 cup Parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 6 tbsp flour ++

Mushroom sauce:

• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 oz. prosciutto diced
• 1 lb assorted wild mushroom, stems trimmed, wiped clean, and thinly sliced
• 2 shallots finely chopped
• 1 tbsp. minced garlic
• 1 tbsp dried thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tbsp. flour
• 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 3 tbsp. Marsala wine or cream sherry
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1/2 cup Parmesan, grated

Directions

Gnocchi:

Bring 6 quarts salted water to boil.

Mix the ricotta, spinach, cheese, eggs, nutmeg and flour together. Mix on low in stand mixer.

Season with salt and pepper. Form teaspoons of mixture into short puffy cylinders.

Using floured hands, rolling dumplings into the flour to coat. Place the dumplings on a parchment lined baking sheet. Refrigerate or freeze while you make the sauce.

Mushroom cream sauce:

Saute shallots and prosciutto in the butter and olive oil. Add in mushrooms and garlic. Cook for 4-5 minutes. Stir in thyme, salt, pepper, flour and red pepper flakes. Stir and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken stock, wine and cream and reduce down until the sauce thickens. Stir in nutmeg. Salt and pepper to taste.Carefully boil dumplings for approximately 3-4 minutes,until they float to the top. Serve with sauce and top with Parmesan.

Cooks note: The Parmesan in the picture was colored brown with food coloring to add to the ugliness.