Ratatouille (from the movie, Ratatouille)

Ingredients

• 1 6-oz can of tomato paste.
• 1 onion.
• 1 zucchini.
• 1 eggplant.
• 1 yellow bellpepper.
• 1 red bellpepper.
• 1 squash.
• Minced garlic.
• 5 tbsp of olive oil.
• A cup of water.
• Thyme leaves.
• Cooking wax paper
• A relatively wide and flat dish.

Directions

1. Prepare the vegetables by dicing the onion and and slicing the remaining veggies thinly.
2. Pour the tomato paste into a dish evenly and add the onion, some garlic, a tbsp of olive oil, and stir.
3. Arrange the slices of zucchini, squash, eggplant, and bellpeppers in an alternating fashion, creating rings starting at the edge of the dish.  Arrange them as if you are re-assembling the vegetables, creating a doughnut-like shape.
4. Evenly pour the remaining olive oil on top of the dish and season generously with thyme leave and optionally some salt and pepper.
5. Cover the dish completely with some wax paper and bake for around an hour or until the vegetables seem well roasted but not too soft.
6. Once done baking remove the paper and serve the dish.

Source — Family Recipe
Prepared by Alexander J. Kyle
Louisiana Anthology
April 3, 2024

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

• Fresh pigeon
• Gravy
• Puff pastry/pie dough
• A pie tin
• Shredded lean ham
• Hardboiled eggs
• Ground pepper
• Minced parsley
• Lemon Juice
• Butter
• Flour
• An oven

Directions

1. Clean and stuff the pigeon.
2. Loosen the joints with a knife and boil the pigeon in gravy for ten minutes.
3. Line a pie tin with pie dough and place in shreds of lean ham, slice hardboiled eggs.
4. Add in the pigeon, sprinkled with pepper and parsley, with lemon juice squeezed on them as well.
5. Cover the pigeon with more slices of egg and shredded ham and pour in enough gravy which the pigeon boiled in to almost fill the pie.
6. Cover the pie with a blanket of pie dough, leaving a hole in the top, and bake for an hour.

Source — The Unrivalled Cook-Book
Prepared by Alexander J. Kyle
Louisiana Anthology
April 3, 2024

King Cake

Ingredients

Dough and filling

• Four and one half cups all purpose, unbleached flour
• Two small packs of active dry yeast
• One cup lukewarm milk
• One half cup sugar
• One cup shortening, or unsalted butter, softened
• Three eggs
• One tablespoon salt
• One teaspoon lemon juice
• One teaspoon vanilla
• One teaspoon butter, melted (omit if using butter instead of shortening)
• Two 8 ounce packs of softened cream cheese & one fourth to one half cup sugar OR
• One half cup cinnamon sugar & one fourth cup melted butter

Glaze

• One cup powdered sugar
• One to two tablespoons melted butter
• One teaspoon lemon juice
• One teaspoon vanilla
• Milk
• Purple, gold and green sprinkling sugars (OR you can divide the glaze into three bowls and color them with food coloring)

Directions

1. Measure out the flour.
2. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm milk and stir in one cup of the flour.
3. This is the sponge - let it rise, covered with a cloth, in a warm place for about 30 minutes.
4. In the meantime, gather & measure your ingredients, and when sponge is almost risen begin creaming the shortening (or butter) with the sugar.
5. When nicely creamed add in the eggs one at a time, and mix well.
6. Add in the flavorings: salt, vanilla, butter & lemon juice.
7. Add the sponge to the creamed butter mixture and combine. Add in the remaining flour and mix, using a dough hook (the dough is very sticky and difficult to kneed by hand) for at least five minutes. You can add a bit more flour while the dough is mixing if it seems way too wet, but don't overdo it. This is a fairly sticky, delicate dough.
8. Put the dough in a greased bowl about twice the size of the dough ball, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about one hour.
9. Pre-heat oven to 325º. Roll the dough out on a heavily floured surface (flour the top of the dough and the pin as well) into a large rectangle.
10. If making a cream cheese filled cake, beat the softened cream cheese with about ¼ to ½ cup of sugar (add the sugar gradually and taste - you only want it lightly sweetened). Spread this mixture over the dough leaving about 1 inch uncovered around the edges. (If making cinnamon, spread the rolled dough evenly with the melted butter, leaving the edges clean, then sprinkle the butter evenly with the cinnamon sugar).
11. You can either fold the dough in half along the long end and cut into three long strips or cut the dough into three long strips and roll the strips into tubes and then braid the three strips together. Be very careful when braiding the dough. It is VERY delicate and will easily break if stretched very much.
12. Cut off the uneven ends (you can bake these as rolls) and form into an oval ring.
13. Bake for 30 minutes until done.
14. While baking make the glaze, by melting the butter in a microwave proof bowl.
15. Add the powdered sugar, mix, add the lemon juice (this helps the glaze harden a bit), mix, add vanilla, mix. Now add a little milk at a time until it is a thick glaze. Add more powdered sugar if it gets too thin.
16. When the cake is done, remove from oven and let cool about 10 minutes. Glaze the cake and quickly add the sprinkling sugars before the glaze hardens, alternating the colors around the cake.
17. Let cool and serve.

Source — Mother's home recipe.
Adapted from an old
New Orleans Times-Picayune clipping.

Prepared by Alexander Frederick
Louisiana Anthology
April 3, 2024

Peach Marmalade

Ingredients

• Peaches (as many as you wish to make into marmalade).
• A stove.
• Two pots.
• A wooden Spoon.
• Sugar (at least 12 oz per lb of peaches).
• Lemons (at least one per 3 lb of peaches).
• Small sealable jars.

Directions

1. Slice each peach in half and remove the pits, then weigh the peaches to determine the required quantity of other ingredients.
2. Add 1/4 of the peach pits to enough water to cover them and boil while following the remaining steps until needed.
3. Add the peaches to a pot and heat slowly to draw out peach juice.  Stir the bottom of the pot often with a wooden spoon.
4. After the mixture is hot and contains ample juice, quickly bring the stove to a boil, and continue stirring for 45 minutes.
5. Add sugar (12 oz per lb of fruit).
6. Boil for another five minutes, scaping off scum that develops within the mixture.
7. Add the juice on an entire lemon (one lemon per three lb of fruit) as well as the water which the peach pits were steeping in.
8. Stew the mixture for ten minutes and continue stirring.
9. Remove the mixture from head and once cool add the mixture into small jars.  Seal and cover the jars tightly and store in a cool, dark place.

Source — The Unrivalled Cook-Book
Prepared by Alexander J. Kyle
Louisiana Anthology
April 4, 2024

Stuffed Artichokes

Ingredients

• Very large artichokes
• One tablespoon of fresh meat
• One tablespoon of ham or pork
• One tablespoon of bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper
• Gravy or broth
• One nutmeg sized piece of onion

Directions

1. Reserve the very large artichokes for this recipe.
2. Boil the artichokes.
3. Take out several of the inner rows of the scales. Cut off the tender portion of these scales and chop them fine.
4. Create a stuffing with a tablespoon of fresh meat, a tablespoon of pork, a tablespoon of breadcrumbs, and the finely chopped artichoke scale flesh.
5. Season the stuffing with salt and pepper to taste. Moisten the stuffing with a little gravy.
6. Mash the onion piece up to a pulp and add it to the stuffing.
7. Fill the middles of the artichokes with this stuffing.
8. Set the artichokes in a pan with rich gravy or broth at the bottom.
9. Cover the pan well and let them stew slowly for an hour.

Source — The Unrivalled Cook-Book.
Prepared by Alexander Frederick
Louisiana Anthology
April 3, 2024

Small Beer

Ingredients

• Fifteen gallons of water
• Five gallons of molasses
• Five pounds of wheat bran
• Half a pound of hops
• One quart of good yeast [brewers yeast]

Directions

1. Boil the water, molasses, wheat bran and hops for three hours.
2. Strain the mixture into a clean cask.
3. When milkwarm, pour in a quart of brewers yeast, and shake well.
4. Stop the cask close.
5. Bottle the beer when quite clear.
6. The excellence of the beer depends upon putting in the yeast at the proper time; if too hot or too cold it will not ferment.

Source — The Unrivalled Cook-Book.
Prepared by Alexander Frederick
Louisiana Anthology
April 3, 2024

Gherkin Pickles

Ingredients

• Roughly 1 lb of small and firm gherkin.
• Quart-sized sealable glass or ceramic jar.
• Cloth (to be tied over the jar).
• 8 oz of table salt.
• Gallon of cold water.
• 8 oz of fresh vine leaves (grape leaves or similar).
• 8 oz of powdered alum.
• Quart of vinegar.
• 2 oz sugar.
• 18 whole black peppers.
• 18 whole cloves.
• 2 ounces of whole allspice.
• 3 blades of mace.
• A pot
• A steam kettle.

Directions

1. Fill the jar with gherkin in layers, covering each layer generously in salt.  Pack the top layer out of sight in salt.
2. Pour cold water into the jar until it's full and seal the jar.
3. Leave the gherkin in the jar for a month and the bottom of the jar each day.
4. After a month, pour out the brine (liquids) and any gherkin that may have turned soft.
5. Soak the remaining gherkin in cold water for twenty-four hours, then replace the water and let them sit for another twenty-four hours.
6. Line a steam kettle in fresh vine leaves and evenly lay the gherkin within the kettle.  Scatter about 2 tablespoons of alum over each layer of gherkin and cover the last layer with three layers of leaves.
7. Steam the gherkin for 5-6 hours.  You'll know they're ready when they turn a fine green.
8. Once ready, remove the leaves and place the gherkin into cold water.  They will remain soaking until needed again.
9. Prepare a quart of vinegar in a pot by adding 2 oz of sugar, 18 whole black peppers, 18 whole cloves, 2 ounces of whole allspice, and 3 blades of mace.  Boil the mixture for five minutes.
10. Place the gherkin into the jar, cover with the vinegar mixture while it is still scalding hot, and seal jar.
11. After two days remove the vinegar, heat until scalding, add the mixture back to the gherkin, and seal the jar once again.  Repeat this process three more times at intervals of two, four, and six days.
12. Make sure the jar is sealed tightly and tie a strong cloth over the lid, and set aside the jar for at least two months in a cool, dry place.  After two months they will be ready to consume.

Source — The Unrivalled Cook-Book
Prepared by Alexander J. Kyle
Louisiana Anthology
April 3, 2024