Monday, June 9, 2008

Regional Cuisines of the Americas - New England

New England Clambake


We've left Europe and landed in New England. Laurie gave her second presentation today with a few classics and one modern New England dish. She began by making a steamed brown bread. Baked in a coffee can type tin this bread was moist and sweet. I remember when my kids would make this in school around Thanksgiving time. They called it Indian Bread. A mixture of rye and wheat flour and cornmeal with a bit of buttermilk and molasses. Laurie reported today that basically if it is a recipe from New England it more than likely has molasses in it. Every time I took a picture of Laurie today she would shyly look down. Or maybe she was admiring how well her brown bread came out!

She also made some Boston Baked Beans (more molasses) that were creamy and sweet with a nice underlying flavor of bacon. She had started them over the weekend and finished them in class.



The last dish she did was a grilled halibut that she served over some grilled corn and grilled tomatillos. The original recipe was with heirloom tomatoes and lemon juice but since she was tomato less because of the recall she used grilled tomatillos. A nice substitute.








Bring on the lobsters. We then got down to the business of preparing Lobster Thermidor. There was no squealing when we murdered the lobsters, only cheering. Mutt and Jeff were in their element.








The thermidor was fantastic. The clambake a success. Even the lobster had fun.



Remember, this Bud's for you!



Goodnight.

4 comments:

Ginna Traina said...

Oh yeh...Now it's all coming back to me....
Beans, beans, musical fruit....hmmmmmm
The can bread does bring back memories.
Nice call on the tomatillos...It looks great.
I love lobster thermador....
Let me know when it's "bring your favorite friend day"
You guys are getting serious.

Emily said...

Yum. Everything looks delicious. :)

Bethina425 said...

emiline,
it's nice to know you are following my blog. How is that mother of yours?
I hope you are having a wonderful summer. Come up and cook with me some day.

Shannon said...

Beth this looks delicious. Beer with lobster.. sounds like summer to me!

P.s. I hear you've moved to the French portion of your schooling & that Ry has come home to many cream filled delights. Careful, you might give her more to work off in this Tri -group than she wants;)