Best Family Recipes in 2008 -New Orleans Creole Cooking

The first two recipes come from Anita Dapremont. The Shrimp Creole recipe is from my mother Yvette Dapremont. Both of these wonderful ladies were fabulous New Orleans cooks and their recipes are repeated over and over by all of their children and grandchildren every year including 2008.

My grandmother was named Anita. She was my father's mother and lived to the age of 94. From my earliest childhood memories, she was always cooking good food. All the adults used to call my grandmother Nita for short. My oldest cousin will tell you that when she was just learning to talk and she her one of my grandmother's friends call her Nita. She would correct them and say no "My Ta" which became Mata and hence she was always Mata to all her grandchildren.

Mata shared a common trait with all the old New Orleans cooks and was never one to write down her recipes. I managed to badger her into telling me how to do it so I could cook like her and preserve her recipes for future Dapremonts.

I am going to give you her Grillades recipe and her Lemon icebox pie recipe. Most people serve this over pasta. The Dapremont family usually ate it with Vermicelli spaghetti, which is very thin pasta that is a little larger than angel hair pasta. I never liked pasta too much so I wouldalways have her make me some white rice and that was how I ate it.

Here are her recipes:

Bon Apetit'

GRILLADES - CHICKEN (OR PORK CHOPS) WITH TOMATO GRAVY

Fry chicken or pork chops and set aside.

2 onions, chopped fine

1 whole garlic

1 can tomatoes

1 bunch parsley

1/2 can (4 oz.) tomato paste

1 Tbsp. flour

Fry onion in small amount of fat, and then fry the tomatoes. Add garlic and parsley. After

onion in brown, add flour (will thicken gravy). Add tomato paste. Add approximately

1 cup water and let simmer. Salt and pepper to taste. Add meat and let it cook down

to taste. Serve over rice or pasta.

LEMON ICEBOX PIE

3 eggs

Juice of 1 lemon

1 can sweetened condensed milk

6 Tbsp, sugar

Vanilla wafer crust

Separate eggs and set whites aside. Add condensed milk to eggs. Add about ¼

Cup lemon juice (to taste - some like it sour). Stir mixture and pour into pie crust.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Add sugar and pour over lemon mixture. Bake in 350°

oven only until meringue is lightly browned. Keep in refrigerator.

Mrs. Anita Dapremont (Dr. Dapremont's paternal grandmother)

SHRIMP CREOLE _ Yvette Dapremont Sr.

GRANDMOTHER'S SHRIMP CREOLE (written in Grandmother's own hand in one of my cookbooks back in 1999)

4 Tbsps olive oil

2-3 lbs shrimp, peeled and de-veined

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, to taste

1 small can cream of shrimp soup

½ pound mushrooms, sliced

2 cans crabmeat, drained

3 green onions, chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

2 Tbsps minced garlic

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp dry mustard

1 tsp powdered ginger

1 small can spicy Rotel tomatoes, chopped

1 small jar artichokes, chopped

2 Tbsps cornstarch, dissolved in 1/3 cup water

Heat olive oil in heavy sauté pan. Cook seasoned shrimp until browned. Remove from oil. Brown minced garlic in

oil, over medium low heat; cook onions in drippings until tender. Add mushrooms and parsley to vegetables; cook

until tender. Add dry mustard and ginger; stir, until well coated. Stir in crabmeat to the mixture. Reduce heat to

low setting. Add soup, Rotel tomatoes and artichokes and cook over low heat for 30 - 45 minutes. Stir in

cornstarch and water at end of cooking time. Remove from heat. Serve with rice.

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