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Eggs Sardou is a Louisiana Creole cuisine dish made with poached eggs, artichoke bottoms, creamed spinach and Hollandaise sauce. It is on the menu of many Creole restaurants in New Orleans, including Antoine's, where eggs Sardou was invented, and at Brennan's. Eggs Sardou is named for Victorien Sardou, a famous French dramatist of the 19th century, who was a guest in New Orleans when the dish was invented.
Cooked fresh spinach is creamed with a bechamel sauce, a drop or two of Tabasco sauce is added, and pre-cut artichoke bottoms are warmed in a 175°F oven for five to ten minutes. The eggs Sardou are assembled by placing spoonfuls of the warm creamed spinach on a warmed plate. The artichoke bottoms are placed on top of the creamed spinach and the poached eggs are set inside the artichoke bottoms. The assembly is then covered in the Hollandaise sauce. [1] Some cooks omit nutmeg and cloves from the bechamel sauce when using it to cream spinach for eggs Sardou. Eggs Sardou can also be served with truffles, ham and anchovies.
Eggs Sardou should be served at once, while the spinach, artichokes, poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce are still warm. For this reason, a warmed plate or bowl is recommended in most recipes. The garnish, if any, should be something of a color that contrasts well with the yellow Hollandaise sauce that tops the dish. This may be anything from crumbled bacon or a small dice of ham to a simple sprinkle of paprika. If served as an appetizer course, no side dishes are needed. If served at brunch, or as an entree, the side dishes should be such that they do not overpower the muted, carefully blended flavors of the eggs, spinach, and sauce. If wine is to be served, it should be white, preferably a slightly sweet white wine.
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsa, meaning salted. Possibly the oldest recorded European sauce is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Romans, while doubanjiang, the Chinese soy bean paste is mentioned in Rites of Zhou in the 3rd century BC.
Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with corn starch or other thickeners for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt or gravy browning or ready-made cubes. Powders can be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Canned and instant gravies are also available. Gravy is commonly served with roasts, meatloaf, rice, noodles, chips (fries), mashed potatoes, or biscuits.
Louisiana Creole cuisine is a style of cooking originating in Louisiana, United States, which blends West African, French, Spanish, and Native American influences, as well as influences from the general cuisine of the Southern United States.
French toast is a dish of sliced bread soaked in beaten eggs and often milk or cream, then pan-fried. Alternative names and variants include eggy bread, Bombay toast, gypsy toast, and poor knights (of Windsor).
A soufflé is a baked egg dish originating in France in the early 18th century. Combined with various other ingredients, it can be served as a savoury main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb souffler, which means to blow, breathe, inflate or puff.
Eggs Benedict is a common American breakfast or brunch dish, consisting of two halves of an English muffin, each topped with Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce. It was popularized in New York City.
Panna cotta is an Italian dessert of sweetened cream thickened with gelatin and molded. The cream may be aromatized with coffee, vanilla, or other flavorings.
A velouté sauce is a savory sauce that is made from a roux and a light stock. It is one of the "mother sauces" of French cuisine listed by chef Auguste Escoffier in the early twentieth century, along with espagnole, tomato, béchamel, and mayonnaise or hollandaise. Velouté is French for 'velvety'.
Pastitsio is a Greek baked pasta dish with ground meat and béchamel sauce, with variations of the dish found in other countries of the Mediterranean Sea.
Parmigiana, also called parmigiana di melanzane, melanzane alla parmigiana, or eggplant parmesan, is an Italian dish made with fried, sliced eggplant layered with cheese and tomato sauce, then baked. The origin of the dish is claimed by the Southern regions of Calabria, Campania, Apulia and Sicily. Other variations found outside Italy may include chicken, veal, or another type of meat cutlet or vegetable filling.
Oysters Rockefeller consists of oysters on the half-shell that have been topped with a rich sauce of butter, parsley and other green herbs, and bread crumbs, then baked or broiled. Lemon wedges are the typical garnish.
A poached egg is an egg that has been cooked, outside the shell, by poaching, as opposed to simmering or boiling. This method of preparation can yield more delicately cooked eggs than cooking at higher temperatures such as with boiling water. Poached eggs can be served in several dishes.
Gratin is a culinary technique in which an ingredient is topped with a browned crust, often using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, egg or butter. The term may be applied to any dish made using this method. Gratin is usually prepared in a shallow dish of some kind. A gratin is baked or cooked under an overhead grill or broiler to form a golden crust on top and is often served in its baking dish.
Creamed eggs on toast is an American breakfast dish. It consists of toast or biscuits covered in a gravy made from béchamel sauce and chopped hard-boiled eggs. The gravy is often flavored with various seasonings, such as black pepper, garlic powder, celery salt, Worcestershire sauce, sherry, chopped parsley and/or chopped chives. The Joy of Cooking recommends making the bechamel with 1⁄2 cream and 1⁄2 chicken stock and adding capers or chopped pickle. As with many other dishes covered in light-colored sauce, a sprinkle of paprika or cayenne is often added as decoration.
The cuisine of New Orleans encompasses common dishes and foods in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is perhaps the most distinctively recognized regional cuisine in the United States. Some of the dishes originated in New Orleans, while others are common and popular in the city and surrounding areas, such as the Mississippi River Delta and southern Louisiana. The cuisine of New Orleans is heavily influenced by Creole cuisine, Cajun cuisine, and soul food. Later on, due to immigration, Italian cuisine and Sicilian cuisine also has some influence on the cuisine of New Orleans. Seafood also plays a prominent part in the cuisine. Dishes invented in New Orleans include po' boy and muffuletta sandwiches, oysters Rockefeller and oysters Bienville, pompano en papillote, and bananas Foster, among others.
Oreilles d'âne is a traditional recipe of the Valgaudemar and Champsaur valleys and the region around La Salette-Fallavaux in the French Alps. It's a gratin casserole of wild spinach and either lasagna or crêpes.
Florentine or à la Florentine is a term from classic French cuisine that refers to dishes that typically include a base of cooked spinach, a protein component and Mornay sauce. Chicken Florentine is the most popular version. Because Mornay sauce is a derivation of béchamel sauce which includes roux and requires time and skill to prepare correctly, many contemporary recipes use simpler cream-based sauces.