During his Navy days, John used to treat the BUDS instructors to seafood boils on the "deep dive" days. He kept his big boiling pot and burner, hotel pans, and expertise, and has thus acquired the chef position for our Jubilees. Chef John also provided Mason jars for our adult beverages.
Back by popular demand - Nina's compound butters and fresh baguettes. It was so hard to choose a favorite between Lemon-Dill, Fig-Blue Cheese, Roasted Garlic-Asiago, and Sweet Corn-Avocado-Lime. She even made her own butter!
In addition to the shellfish and andouille sausage, we like throwing in artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, corn, purple potatoes, cippolini onions, baby carrots, okra, and whole heads of garlic. I made a double batch of John Besh's Remoulade for our dipping sauce. We won't talk about the disastrous dessert I attempted - it's still too painful. Thankfully, Sandra saved us with her Cherries Jubilee.
Perfectly tender, seasoned artichokes |
Head-on Shrimp |
Mussels, Clams, and Crawfish hiding underneath |
All that goodness lurking within |
Last batch coming out of the strainer |
John and Kai about to pour our feast onto the table |
Beautiful, vivid colors |
Carmen's Cornbread |
Jubilee, a celebration of food and friends |
This is, by far, the ultimate picnic in the park or party for your backyard. You can find our ingredients and instructions for Jubilee in last year's post, here, along with recipes/links for desserts and sides, and a few more recipes/links, here. Also, search key words "John Besh" or "southern" in the blog search feature on the sidebar, and you'll likely find additional recipes!
Carmen's Cornbread
(Double if using a large cast iron skillet)
Ingredients:
2 cups Martha White self-rising cornmeal mix (Or, use Bob's Red Mill Corn Flour and add 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt - I've made it both ways and they're both a little different, but just as good)
1 cup finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup of thick European sour cream (or thick European yogurt like Brown Cow, or any combination of the two)
1 cup of frozen corn
3 green onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 jalapenos, finely chopped
1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles, drained
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
Preparation:
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients except the peanut oil. Mix until well combined.
Grease a medium-sized iron skillet with the peanut oil and heat on HIGH until the oil is hot but not smoking.
Pour the batter into the skillet. Remove from the stove, place the skillet in the oven, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. To test if it's done, stab it in the center with a wooden skewer - if it comes out clean, it's done. Remove the skillet from the oven and allow it to cool for about twenty minutes. To serve, put the whole skillet on the table or cut the bread into wedges or squares and place on a serving platter. If you're an authentic hillbilly, put a chunk of it in a glass, pour buttermilk over it, and eat it with a spoon.
What an incredible feast!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous feast! Thanks for the cornbread recipe too;-)
ReplyDeleteI went back and checked out your cookie crunch chicken, I was afraid I wouldn't like it so I passed on that recipe! Looks like you're having a lot of fun down your way and you'll get to those madeleines some day;-)