Mouthing Off

Chickening out: Fans–and there seem to be many of them–of the former Foucher’s Cajun Creole, which kept things cooking on 17th Avenue for twelve years, will be delighted to hear that the restaurant may reappear. “I’m trying to get my dad to move back out here and start it up,” says Lloyd “Che” Foucher Jr., who’s currently running the kitchen at Cafe Evangeline (see review, previous page). “He and my mom got out of the business when they closed Foucher’s ’cause they were having health problems, and they moved to Atlanta, which is where they’re living now. They like it there, but I can tell my dad still has the itch.”

Well, so do a lot of people who tried Foucher’s fried chicken, which was the real deal. And so Che is considering opening up a food cart, maybe on the 16th Street Mall, that he’ll call Foucher’s Famous Chicken. “Just a carryout place, that’s all we need,” Che says. “I feel like we gotta do something. You wouldn’t believe the people who come in here and offer to bankroll us going national with franchises and stuff–these people who used to be regulars at Foucher’s. It’s amazing. So we’ll probably give it a go.” And, he says, maybe they can even talk his grandma, Angelina Foucher, who still lives here, into cooking again, too. “She’s 78 or 79, but she can still cook up a storm,” Che says. “When we were at Foucher’s, she made the specials, like meat pie and crawfish gumbo. That lady is just one of the best, and her gumbo–oooh man, is it good.”

Well, although I couldn’t get the recipes for the gumbo or fried chicken, I did get the formula for Cafe Evangeline’s crawfish etouffee, which can also be made with shrimp. And while the recipe calls for Louisiana Gold Pepper Sauce, I substituted a teaspoon of cayenne and it was just as good as the restaurant’s. Since I didn’t have any shrimp stock on hand, I used water, which also didn’t seem to affect the results much.

Cafe Evangeline’s Crawfish Etouffee
1/4 pound butter (1 stick)
1 cup onions, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
2 tablespoons garlic, diced
2 bay leaves
2 pounds crawfish tails, cleaned (or shrimp, peeled)
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 cup flour
3 quarts crawfish stock, shrimp stock or water
1 ounce sherry
1 cup green onions, sliced
1/2 cup parsley, minced
salt and pepper to taste
Louisiana Gold Pepper Sauce, to taste

In a two-gallon stockpot, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add onions, celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic and bay leaves and saute until vegetables are wilted, three to five minutes. Add crawfish tails or shrimp and the tomato sauce, stirring to blend well. Using a whisk, blend flour into the vegetable-seafood mixture to form a white roux. Stir long enough to get rid of floury taste, but stop before it starts to change color. Slowly add stock a little at a time until all is incorporated. Bring to a low boil, reduce to simmer and cook thirty minutes, stirring occasionally. Add sherry, green onions and parsley and cook five minutes more. Season with salt, pepper and Pepper Sauce to taste.

Taking stock: If you like the breads Cafe Evangeline is serving, stop by the source–Trompeau Bakery, a traditional boulangerie at 1727 East Evans Avenue, which is attached to the year-old Cafe Bohemia, at 1729 East Evans. French master baker Pascal Trompeau is using European equipment and techniques, and it shows: The baguettes, the boules, the croissants and the cinnamon rolls are all wonderful. And there’s nothing more evocative of a cool, misty morning along the Seine than a pain chocolat.

And now, back to chicken. I got several responses to my February 4 chicken-soup column. One came from Mark McCue, who seems to know quite a bit about food. He’s done Italy and at some point picked up the trick of adding a little tomato paste, a little red wine and the heels from grana-type cheese such as romano and parmigiano-reggiano to soup bases, including chicken. Doing all that changes the deal from chicken noodle soup, though, to minestrone (or, at least, the type that is popular in this country), because the tomato’s acidity permanently alters the chicken flavor. It does inject some vitamin C, though, which makes it more beneficial if you have a cold.

I’ve found that adding cheese leftovers to a variety of Italian dishes–soups, stew and sauces, especially the tomato-based ones–gives them a depth that can’t be obtained by any other means. So every time I come to the end of a wedge, I wrap the chunk in foil and stick it in the door of my freezer; when needed, it can be unwrapped and tossed in, no thawing necessary.

McCue also warned about using pre-cooked carcass or bones, because he says the chicken bones can sometimes impart a bitter, burned taste. I’ve been making stock from pre-cooked chicken bones–not the ones from buffalo wings or those that were covered in cream sauce, of course–for twelve years, and I’ve never noticed a bitter, burned flavor, nor has there ever been any problem with using the carcass from a Thanksgiving turkey. But if you do notice this flavor, McCue says, you should add tomato paste that’s been dissolved in lemon juice to fix it. He also mentioned the old nonna trick of thickening soups with a paste of cooked garbanzo beans mixed with olive oil, which gives the soup some body and a more lush texture.

The idea of making homemade stock at all was a new one to an e-mailer who signed only Hillhouse. “I’m so far from the Martha Stewart type that I’m off the radar,” she wrote. “I never contemplated making stock…I often need cooked chicken for the end game–enchiladas and the like, and I cooked the chicken without regard for what else I could do with what was happening in my kitchen: Make stock!” Here are a few more tips: Look at your favorite soup recipes and see how much stock is called for, then freeze in those portions.

Most of the soups I make are for four, and I find that six cups of stock is the norm; I try to have a couple of four-cup and two-cup bags, too, for other recipes. That way, you can make a quick flour-and-butter roux to help with gravy for mashed potatoes and fried chicken, or you can substitute stock for water to make more flavorful rice. Freezer Ziploc bags have a space for writing the contents and amounts, or you can just tear off a piece of masking tape and stick it on the top of a plastic container. The Ziplocs are great because they fit better into odd spaces in the freezer.

To make the simplest of simple soups for four, bring six cups of stock to a boil, add four to five cups of your favorite vegetable and gently boil until the veggies are tender. Puree in a blender or food processor, add a few herbs, salt and pepper to taste, and simmer a few minutes more. A dash of cream won’t hurt a bit.

Au revoir: Here’s a painful way to learn you no longer have a job. Bartender Liam Walsh says he showed up for work at La Coupole Cafe (2191 Arapahoe Street) two Saturdays ago and the place was locked. A sign from the landlord said the restaurant was closed.

That’s bad news for fans of the bistro, which pioneered this part of town. But it’s good news for other restaurants, since there are a dozen people now available for employment.

–Wagner