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Chef's Day Off
Journal photo by David Rolfe
Jean Eubank (Miss Annie's), John Tharp (Bleu Restaurant & Bar) & Kevin Stenberg (Camel City Cafe)
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Published: November 19, 2008
Fresh, natural approach reflects rural upbringing
Jean Spence Eubank likes simple, clean flavors, such as the Caribbean food she serves at her restaurant, Miss Annie's.
Eubank and her sister, Jasmine Spence, co-own the restaurant in Healy Drive Plaza. Miss Annie's is named after their grandmother. They grew up with her in Jamaica.
Though Eubank's food reveals a backbone in classical French cooking, it often has the simplicity of the rural life she knew as a girl.
"My father was a farmer. He had cattle, goats, pigs, chickens. We hardly bought any food when I was growing up," she said. "It was the simple life."
Eubank said she didn't always appreciate that life, especially when she had to milk cows before school. But now she appreciates the wholesomeness of the food her family ate.
"My grandmother lived to be 113 years old. She must have visited a doctor only three or four times in her entire life. A lot of it was herbs and fresh foods, garden vegetables. I never took a vitamin until I moved to New York (as a teenager)."
Though Eubank isn't afraid of a little butter here and there, she likes to cook fresh food, and she likes to cook it in a way that lets the natural flavors shine through.
For Thanksgiving, she often makes a different main dish every year. "We've had wild turkey, duck, poulet rouge (French roast chicken)," she said.
For a small crowd, such as the one that she is having this year, she likes to make Cornish game hens, stuffed with sausage, apples and herbs.
As you might expect from someone who grew up on a farm, she loves vegetables.
She likes to make soup from a Caribbean pumpkin, a variety she grew up with and that she has been able to find at Whole Foods Market. "It has this hearty, robust taste," she said.
She likes sweet potatoes, cubed and simply roasted. She makes haricot verts, slender French green beans, with a little olive oil, shallots and strips of red bell pepper.
She likes Brussels sprouts -- a much-maligned vegetable -- sauteed with bacon. "They don't have that smell (that comes from boiling them)," she said. "They are wonderful this way. "
Another favorite is red cabbage with apples and raisins. "It's low in calories, and the raisins and apple cider give it a wonderful taste. And the color is very festive-looking," she said.
For dessert, she skips pumpkin pie in favor of a pear cobbler flavored with fresh ginger. "I'm not big on desserts, but that one I like," she said. "Once it starts bubbling, you will smell the ginger, and you really want to serve it warm with some ice cream running down the sides. It's wonderful and simple."
Those two words -- wonderful and simple -- crop up a lot in food conversations with Eubank.
"I cook what I call clean food," she said. "It's not a lot of complicated flavors. It's fresh ingredients."
Cornish Game Hens With Sausage, Apples, Sage & Tarragon Stuffing
Recipe from Jean Spence Eubank, the chef at Miss Annie's.
½ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup sliced scallions
½ pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
¼ teaspoon fresh sage
¼ teaspoon fresh or dried tarragon
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
4 cups fresh bread crumbs
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
½ cup chicken broth
4 whole Cornish game hens
½ cup white wine
1. Combine butter, scallions, sausage, sage, salt and pepper in a skillet. Saute for 6 to 8 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add dried bread crumbs and parsley to skillet. Stir until well combined, then cook until bread crumbs are heated through.
3. Remove from heat, stir in broth and cover. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.
4. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Stuff each bird with equal amount of stuffing. Close cavity with toothpick or skewers. (Birds also can be tied with twine to keep stuffing from falling out.)
5. Place birds in a large roasting pan and roast in oven for 15 minutes.
6. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook bird for 40 more minutes.
7. Place birds on cutting board and let rest. Meanwhile, degrease the roasting pan.
8. Add white wine. Bring to a boil and let simmer until reduced a bit.
9. Add salt and pepper to taste to birds and juices. Spoon juices over birds and serve.
Makes 4 servings.
Pear & Ginger Cobbler
Recipe from Jean Spence Eubank, the chef at Miss Annie's. Eubank likes a strong ginger flavor in the cobbler, which goes great with vanilla ice cream. For a less pronounced ginger flavor, or if not serving with ice cream, consider using only ⅓ cup grated ginger.
8 ripe pears, peeled, cored and cut into ½-inch thick slices
⅓ to ½ cup fresh grated ginger
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided use
Juice and zest of ½ lemon
2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
⅓ cup vegetable shortening
1 egg
⅓ cup milk
Vanilla ice cream
1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Butter a 9-by-13-inch or other large baking dish.
2. Combine pears, ginger, ½ cup sugar, lemon juice and zest. Toss well and spoon into baking dish.
3. Combine flour, salt and baking powder. Cut butter and shortening into flour mixture until it looks like coarse crumbs.
4. Gently beat egg and milk together and stir into crumbed mixture. Knead lightly to form a smooth dough. -Break off small pieces portions of the dough; place on top of the fruit mix, covering the entire surface with the dough pieces. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over the dough.
5. Bake until brown, 35 to 40 minutes.
6. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
The key to an enjoyable day is keeping it simple
Chef John Tharp of Bleu Restaurant & Bar will cook a Thanksgiving dinner next Wednesday for the restaurant's staff. Then he will hit the road and do it all over again on Thanksgiving Day.
Tharp grew up in Concord and still has family there. But he also has a paternal grandmother in Florence, S.C.
"I usually drive down there (to Florence) for lunch, then back to my mom's house for Thanksgiving dinner," Tharp said. "But me and my dad got to talking, and this year we're getting everybody to meet down in Florence."
Tharp's grandmother is 88, but still hasn't abandoned the kitchen to the 26-year-old chef. "She still enjoys doing the turkey and stuffing," he said. "But pretty much everything else, I take care of."
The menu will include ham as well as the turkey, and typically such side dishes as collard greens, corn-bread stuffing and corn souffle. Dessert is usually lemon-meringue and pumpkin pies.
Tharp has started to tweak tradition, adding his own personal twist, often with slightly lighter dishes.
"The general rule of Thanksgiving is everything's pretty heavy," he said.
So instead of candied yams or a sweet-potato casserole, Tharp likes a medley of roasted butternut squash, sweet potatoes and apples, with a glaze of brown sugar and holiday spices. His recipe makes enough to feed a crowd, but contains only two tablespoons of butter.
He also has become fond of his rice casserole with winter vegetables. It contains parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes and turnips and has a bread-crumb and Parmesan topping.
"These are a bit different from what everybody else has," Tharp said. "I'm making them part of my tradition."
For a professional chef, advance preparation is crucial to success. Tharp uses that strategy in his home cooking, too.
He likes the fact that he can make both of these dishes ahead of time, then just pop them in the oven on Thanksgiving.
He even has a trick for getting a head start on the turkey. His method not only eases the stress, but it also can help avoid overcooking and drying out the meat.
He roasts the turkey about halfway a day ahead of time. Then he carves the breast meat and cuts the drumsticks, thighs and wings off the carcass. "I put all of that in a baking dish and pour stock over it --just enough so it has a little liquid in the bottom of it," he said. "Then I season it with salt and pepper and cover it with foil."
He then puts the covered dish in the oven on Thanksgiving just long enough to finish cooking the turkey. "That way your turkey's not dry," he said.
Though restaurant cooking can be complicated, Tharp likes to keep things simple at home.
"Everybody spends too much time cooking on Thanksgiving Day," he said. "It's actually nice when people can sit down and talk instead of running around all day in a hot kitchen."
Rustic Winter Vegetable & Rice Casserole
Recipe from John Tharp, the chef at Bleu Restaurant & Bar.
Filling:
2 cups white rice
2 parsnips
1 carrot
1 sweet potato
1 turnip
Salt and pepper
2 sprigs thyme (picked and chopped)
Olive or other vegetable oil
Topping:
¼ pound (8 tablespoons) butter
3 cups bread crumbs
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
1. Cook rice according to package directions. Once cooked, fluff with a fork.
2. Heat oven to 500 degrees. Peel all vegetables and cut them into a medium dice.
3. Toss vegetables with salt, pepper, thyme and just enough oil to coat, about a tablespoon. Spread in a roasting or baking pan. Roast vegetables until just tender. (It's fine if vegetables get a bit brown around the edges.)
3. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. To make the topping, melt butter in microwave and combine with bread crumbs, cheese and parsley. Stir the rice and vegetables into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Add topping and bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until bread crumbs are golden brown.
Spiced Sweet Potato & Butternut Squash
Recipe from John Tharp, the chef at Bleu Restaurant & Bar.
Vegetables:
5 butternut squash
5 sweet potatoes
2 Granny Smith apples
Glaze:
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of nutmeg
½ teaspoon of ground clove
½ teaspoon of ground ginger
2 tablespoons of butter
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Peel squash and sweet potatoes but not apples. Core the apples but leave them unpeeled. Cut the squash, sweet potatoes and apples into chunks, about 1½-inches square.
2. For the glaze, combine the sugar, spices and butter and microwave until soft. Toss the vegetable mixture with the spice mixture until well coated.
3. Place mixture on a large rimmed baking sheet or large casserole dish and bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until soft. Stir them occasionally to ensure that they bake and glaze evenly.
Going from house to house, dishes in hand
Chef Kevin Stenberg of Camel City Cafe will be house-hopping on Thanksgiving. But he will arrive at each stop with dishes in hand.
"Thanksgiving is traditionally at my in-laws' during the day, then my parents' at night."
Stenberg, 36, came to the cooking profession in a roundabout way. He grew up in Winston-Salem, going to Bolton Elementary, Kimberly Park, Wiley Junior High and Parkland High School.
"My first job was at Winkler Bakery when I got my worker's permit at 15½," he said. "I've made the Moravian sugar cake, bread, all that good stuff."
But cooking wasn't his first career choice. After graduating from East Carolina University with a degree in criminal justice in 1994, Stenberg worked at the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office with parole violators through a grant program. During that time, he visited the Elk's Lodge for a fund-raiser, met chef Robert Shouse, and ended up taking on a second, part-time job there.
"I worked there 2½ years, doing large parties, 500-plus people," he said.
By that time, he had decided on a career change. "Once cooking gets in your blood, you can make a living doing something you really enjoy," he said. "It's not a job. It's a life."
He was about to head off to culinary school 10 years ago when he saw an ad for a chef at the Henry Shaffner House. He got the job. He got the job, and later moved to Camel City as a sous chef. He became the head chef last November.
For Thanksgiving, Stenberg has assigned duties for each family feast. But he also usually brings a little something extra.
"For my in-laws, I'm in charge of the turkey," he said.
Each year he usually tries making his turkey a different way. "I research my turkey and always try somebody else's turkey (recipe)," Stenberg said. "I've done organic, brined, and all kinds of stuffings. For the first time I'm going to do a deep-fried turkey this year."
At his parents' house, he'll follow his mother's lead. "My mom enjoys cooking at Thanksgiving, and she's a good cook. For that, I bring a cheesecake or some kind of dessert."
He also likes to make such sides as corn-bread stuffing, scalloped potatoes and green-bean casserole.
Stenberg has an interesting twist on cranberry sauce. He makes slowly simmered chutney with oranges, apples and port wine. "The port adds a unique richness," Stenberg said. "It blends the cranberry, orange and apple together."
Stenberg also will make his version of a classic New Orleans appetizer, oysters Bienville. This is essentially a casserole with a cream sauce, mushrooms and minced shrimp, with a cheesy bread crumb topping. Stenberg substitutes crawfish for the shrimp, and he skips the cheese.
"Using cream and butter, this is rich enough without the cheese," he said. "And to me, the crawfish have a little more flavor to them than the shrimp."
Between two feasts at two houses, Stenberg will help feed more than 20 people.
Cooking for that many is no problem; eating two big meals is.
"I want to get my in-laws and my family to combine and have one big Thanksgiving," he said. "After eating at both, you're almost comatose. It's just so much food."
Orange Cranberry and Apple Chutney
Recipe from Kevin Stenberg, the chef at Camel City Cafe.
1½ cups sugar
½ cup cider vinegar
1 cup port (wine)
½ cup orange marmalade
Pinch of salt
3 cups fresh cranberries
1 fresh orange (juice & zest)
1 fresh apple, cored and coarsely chopped
2 ounces orange liqueur (optional)
1. Place all ingredients except the liqueur in a 3-quart sauce pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until ingredients become thick, about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, and check that mixture does not stick to bottom of pan.
2. Remove pan from heat. Add orange liqueur, if using. Cool in fridge for 2 hours. Keeps refrigerated for up to 1 week.
Oysters Bienville
Recipe from Kevin Stenberg, the chef at Camel City Cafe.
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
1 shallot, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup flour
½ cup sherry
2 cups shucked oysters and reserved liquid
16 ounces (1 pint) heavy cream
Pinch salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon Texas Pete hot sauce
1 pound crawfish tail meat (optional)
Topping:
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon paprika
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan. Add mushrooms, shallot and garlic. Cook 2 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add flour. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes.
3. Add sherry, oyster liquid (but not the oysters), and heavy cream. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, Texas Pete and optional crawfish meat.
4. Make topping by stirring together bread crumbs, melted butter and paprika until combined.
5. Place oysters in 8- or 9-inch square ovenproof dish. Pour cream mixture over oysters. Top with bread-crumb mixture. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes.
6. Serve with your favorite crackers or sliced French bread.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
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