Say what? Banh xeo! These irresistable Vietnamese crepes, pronounced bunn SAY-oh, are a crispy thin pancake filled with flavor. Although no one in the cooking class had ever heard of them, banh xeo was the favorite recipe in our recent crepe class. This crepe is made without the traditional ingredients of eggs, milk, or flour, but tastes delicious, especially with stuffed with shrimp and dipped into a spicy lime sauce.

Vietnamese Banh Xeo Crepes with Shrimp
For the crepe batter:
¼ cup dried, peeled yellow split mung beans
1 cup coconut milk
3 tablespoons water
1 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon salt

Place the mung beans in a bowl and cover with water and let sit for at least 30 minutes. Drain and rinse.
Place the beans in a food processor and puree with the coconut milk. (Mixture will look curdled.) Add the rice flour, sugar, turmeric, and salt and puree. Thin with water; the batter should be the consistency of heavy cream.

For the filling:
1/2 pound shrimp, peeled, deveined, and halved lengthwise
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup bean sprouts
Chopped fresh cilantro or mint leaves for garnish
Leaf lettuce leaves for wrapping the crepe
Lime wedges for garnish

In a crepe pan, heat a spot of vegetable oil on medium heat. Pour in ¼ cup of the batter and swirl the pan to coat the bottom as thinly as possible. Top the batter with shrimp, bean sprouts, green onions, cilantro. Cook until the crepe browns and pulls away from the sides and is crisp on the bottom. Fold in half and serve with lettuce wraps, dipping sauce, and limes. 

For the dipping sauce:
¼ cup fish sauce
¼ cup lime juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Thai chile pepper, minced
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup water

Mix together all of the ingredients.

“I was pleased to sample the bouillabaisse last night when I was at a cake decorating class– I would love the recipe if at all possible. It was simply delicious!!!!”

Chef-instructor Katy Colson taught an international soup class that included Vietnamese bouillabaisse. Traditionally, bouillabaisse is a French fish soup flavored with saffron, tomato, parsley, and garnished with a spicy mayonaisse called rouille. When the French ruled Vietnam, many French foods were incorporated into the local cuisine — such as baguette sandwiches and crepes. This seafood soup is flavored with the Vietnamese seasonings of fish sauce, chile paste, cilantro, and lime juice.

Katy is responsible for two of our favorite recipes: polenta with Gorgonzola cheese, spinach, and mushrooms from “Tuscany for Two” (the next open class is May 29) and the chicken enchiladas with tomatillo salsa in chile gravy from “Margarita Madness” (the next class is March 21). Don’t miss these upcoming classes taught by Katy Colson:

• “Grillers and Growlers” on April 21
• “Rustic French Bistro” on May 8
• “Under the Tuscan Stars” on May 13

Vietnamese Bouillabaisse

• 2 tablespoons olive oil 
• 2 leeks, washed and thinly sliced
• 4 shallots, peeled and chopped
• 2 ribs of celery, thinly sliced
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon chile paste
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 cup white wine
• 4 red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
• 2 quarts chicken stock
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 pound salmon, skinned and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces 
• 1/2 pound sea scallops
• 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 dozen mussels or clams, scrubbed clean

In a wide soup pot, heat the oil. Add the leeks, shallots, and celery and cook for 5 minutes, stirred occasionally. Add the garlic and chile paste and cook for a minute. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, fish sauce, and maple syrup and cook for a minute. Add the white wine and cook for several minutes to reduce. Add the saffron, oregano, and thyme. Add the stock and potatoes and bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the salmon, scallops, shrimp, and mussels. Cook until the mussels open about 4 minutes. Stir in the lime juice and cilantro and serve with rouille.

for the rouille:

• 1 russet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 egg yolks
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon chile paste
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil

In a sauce pan filled with salted water, cook the potato until tender. Drain and mash. Roasted the pepper until blackened, cover and steam until cool, then peel and chop. In a food processor, puree the pepper with the egg yolks, garlic, chile paste, and salt until smooth. Add the potato. With the machine running, add the oil.

Crepes are sunshine: round, yellow, and hot. On a dreary February day, think of the sun and eat crepes! My first taste of a crepe au Grand Marnier was taught to me by an eight-year-old French boy, who declared them to be his favorite! Crepes are street food in Paris and the kiosks always have a bottle of Grand Marnier on hand to make this delicious concoction.

Crepe pans are small (about 7-9 inches in diameter) with very low sides so that you can easily turn over the crepes. French crepe pans are made of carbon steel, which (after seasoning with oil like cast iron) are naturally nonstick. A well-seasoned pan needs no extra oil for cooking. To clean, simply wipe out the pan.

To make a thin crepe, pour a quarter-cup of batter in the pan and swirl immediately to coat the bottom of the pan. Pour out any extra batter. Cook until golden brown, turn over, and then briefly cook the other side.

Crepes au Grand Mariner

for the crepe batter:

• 3 eggs 
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted 
• Zest of one lemon 
• 1 cup milk 
• 14 tablespoons flour (1 cup less 2 tablespoons) 
• 1 tablespoon sugar 
• ½ teaspoon salt 

Mix together all of the ingredients. The batter should be the consistency of heavy cream (if not, add a little more flour or a little more milk). Let the batter rest for at least an hour (and up to overnight). In a medium-hot crepe pan, drop 3-4 tablespoons of batter and swirl the skillet to coat. When browned, turn the crepe over to the other side and cook for another minute. Cool.

For the sauce:

Melt a tablespoon of butter and add a tablespoon of sugar. Add a crepe, fold in half and then fold again. Pour in 2 tablespoons of Grand Marnier, tilt the pan to light on a gas stove, and shake the pan until the flames die down. Serve immediately.

Mardi Gras is a great excuse to indulge in favorite New Orleans dishes. Load up on fresh oysters and prepare a sumptuous dish, Oysters Rockefeller, which was named after the richest man because the dish is so rich. The fresh oysters in the shell are twice sauced: spinach-pernod and creamy cheese sauces.

The best knives for opening oysters are the sharp and stainless tools made by Rosle. Oysters should be alive when you open them and the insides plump and moist, not dry. Oysters are best eaten as soon as they are opened. Make the sauces, then open the oysters, sauce them, and bake them.

Oysters Rockefeller

For the spinach sauce: 

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 tablespoons pernod
• ¾ cup oyster liquor or fish stock
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• Dash of Worcestershire sauce
• ½ pound fresh spinach, washed and spun dry and chopped

Melt the butter, add the flour, and stir the roux over medium heat until lightly browned. Add the pernod, stock, garlic, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire, and bring to a boil. Simmer for a few minutes, then fold in the spinach and cook until wilted. Cool.

For the cheese sauce:

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup heavy cream
• Salt, pepper, and freshly-grated nutmeg to taste
• ½ cup grated gruyere cheese

Melt the butter and add the flour to combine. Do not brown. Add the milk and cream and seasonings. Stir over medium heat until thickened, about 5 minutes. Add the cheese and let cool.

To assemble:

• 20 fresh oysters, shucked
• Breadcrumbs as needed

Place a spoonful of the spinach sauce on the bottom of an oyster shell, then top with a raw oyster, then top with a spoonful of the cheese sauce. Sprinkle with a few breadcrumbs. Broil for a few minutes until browned and bubbly and serve hot.

Love oysters? Join Chef Jack MacMurray of Sage on March 31 for his best deep-fried oysters.

The “Let’s Eat” section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured an article by Shirley Corriher about pound cake, which drew a lot of attention.

She calls for baking the cake in a pullman bread pan, because the right-angle sides (most bread pans have slanted sides) produce a pretty dessert when the slices are cut on the diagonal. The pullman bread pan is traditionally used for making sandwich bread with a tight crumb structure. The pan features a lid (which she does not use for the cake recipe) which forces a yeast bread to fill in the corners so that each slice is perfectly square. Yes, you can bake pound cake without a pullman pan, but I do love the heavy-weight and stick-resistant carbon steel construction of this pan.

The recipe gets its wonderful flavor from vanilla bean paste. I have replaced vanilla extract with vanilla bean paste in all of my recipes because the intense flavor of the paste is so delicious. The paste has ground vanilla beans for a more potent extract.

Corriher’s other suggestions for making pound cake are:

• use a food processor to smoothly and effectively blend the sugar, butter, and eggs (Yes!)
• use cake flour for a softer, more delicate crumb (Yes!)
• melt the butter (not necessary; the food processor well blends the butter without breaking the butter emulsion)
• use baking powder (not traditional; pound cake should get its leavening from lots of eggs)
• toast the sliced cake (good for leftover cake, but I like the soft texture of the freshly-baked cake)

Here is my version of pound cake. Double the recipe to bake in a 10-12 cup bundt cake pan.

Pound Cake

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 3 whole eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean extract 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour

Mix together the butter and sugar in a food processor until creamy and well-blended. Add the eggs and vanilla and blend well. Mix together the salt and flour. Fold into the butter mixture. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 325 degrees until set in the middle, about 60-70 minutes. Serve with my favorite chocolate sauce.

Want to see how to bake a pound cake? Join us for cooking class on February 19 or April 14 for delicious menus that include homemade pound cake.

Simple, hearty foods can be turned into gourmet treats with one simple addition: lobster. Fold in some lobster meat to such comfort-food favorites as macaroni-and-cheese or mashed potatoes or risotto or pot pie and everyone wants to eat!

An elderly customer told me yesterday, “I bought a live lobster and while I was driving home, it broke out of the paper box and started crawling around the car. Luckily, I was close to home and so I stuck the knife into it. Killing the lobster is my favorite part!” Most lobster-eaters do not feel that way, but purchasing live and frisky lobsters mean that the lobsters are fresh.

Lobsters are sold alive because toxins develop if they die and are not cooked. To use lobster meat in a dish, do not overcook (which toughens the meat) but steam the lobster for about 3 minutes. The shells will be red, but the meat still raw. Shell the meat. I don’t use traditional lobster tools, but crack the shells with a meat pounder. Be sure to remove the vein in the lobster tail. The sweetest meat is the knuckle, which is best removed with Joyce Chen scissors. Each lobster leg has one bite of meat; to remove, roll each leg under a rolling pin and the one bite will pop out.

Smaller lobsters have more tender meat; buy 1-pound or 1 1/2-pound lobsters for the best taste.

Lobster Twice-Baked Potatoes

• one 1 1/2-pound lobster 
• 8 baking potatoes
• 8 ounces mascarpone cheese
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• 2 tablespoons minced chives
• salt and pepper

Bring an inch of water in a stock pot to a boil. Add the lobster, cover, and steam for 3 minutes. Remove and place in ice water. Shell the meat, cut in pieces, and reserve.

Bake the potatoes at 400 degrees for an hour. Cut off the top 1/4-inch piece. Scoop out the insides, leaving a 1/4-inch shell of potato. Mix the potato insides with cheese, butter, tarragon, chives, salt, and pepper. Fold in the lobster meat, stuff back into the potatoes and bake until hot, about 10 minutes.

Can’t get enough lobster? Join us for these cooking classes:

• lobster tostadas on March 12
• lobster and scallops on linguine in cream sauce on March 19
• lobster empanadas on March 26
• an all-lobster class on April 7
• lobster-mango salad with citrus-vanilla dressing on April 19
• asparagus soup with lobster on June 5

Cooking from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a joy. We just finished a four-week class, “The Best of Julia Child” (next session starts on May 6 and only a few spaces are still available) and the hands-down-most-favorite-recipe was soubise. None of the classtakers had ever heard of this fabulous side dish, but they all went home and made it. I don’t know why soubise is not better known; it is so delicious. I call it “French risotto,” but it’s much easier to make than risotto because soubise does not need minding. The moisture from the onions provides the liquid for cooking the rice and the thinly-sliced onions melt into the rice. Plus, leftover soubise is really delicious for breakfast with a poached egg on top.

Soubise

• 1/2 cup rice
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 pounds onions
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and boil the rice for exactly 5 minutes. Drain immediately. Peel the onions and thinly slice on a mandolin. Melt the butter in a stove and oven-safe casserole (such as a 4.5-quart Le Creuset dutch oven) and briefly saute the onions. Stir the rice and seasonings. Cover and bake at 300 degrees for an hour, stirring once or twice while cooking. Remove from the oven, stir in the cream and cheese, and taste and correct the seasonings.