I’ve been on the South Beach Diet for approximately 6 months now and this morning I decided to stray a little bit. I’ve been wanting to fix a Louisiana speciality called “Grits & Grillades” (pronounced “gree-yahds” ) for some time now, but due to the restrictions of the diet, I kept putting it off. Since I reviewed the cookbook “Tales From A Pantry“, I’ve been seeing the recipe staring at me every morning as I ate my breakfast. It’s been taunting me for far too long! Yesterday, when buying groceries for the dinner I’m cooking tonight for my Mother’s birthday, I threw in the ingredients for grillades too. 🙂
I set the alarm an hour earlier than usual simply because I’ve never made grillades before and I didn’t know how long it would take, etc. Not only that, but to be perfectly honest, I’ve never even HAD grillades before. “But you said that grillades were a Louisiana speciality?”, you might be asking. Well, that’s true, but I’ve never been anywhere where they were served. My Mom is from Kansas, so all of her Louisiana recipes are from friends and no one we knew, knew how to make them. The only restaurant that I know of that serves them is the Court Of Two Sisters and for one reason or another, I’ve never tried them.
There are plenty of recipes that I’ve done that I’ve never tasted before, but I usually have some indication of what it will taste like. I know what steak is supposed to taste like, so when cooking a steak dinner with some new exotic sauce, I at least have some indication of how everything should come out in the end. With grillades, I had no real frame of reference. I know what veal tastes like, but it’s covered in sauce in this dish and that was where the taste came from. My only recourse was to follow the directions and let Holly’s past experiences tell me if I was on the mark, or off.