When top toques like Daniel Boulud, José Andrés, John Besh and Michael Chiarello get, erm, late night cravings, they don't go scrambling for the pots, pans and sous vide machine.
This week is National Volunteer Week and two of our employees have been Blogging For A Cause, writing about charitable causes that are near and dear to us. Julia Carcamo from Casinos, Brands and More, and Elissa Plastino from Life, Work & All Things in Between, are featuring a different organization/event every day, and today the spotlight is on HavenHouse St. Louis.
HavenHouse has an AMAZING cook, Miss Georgia, who has been with them for 36 years, and whose cooking brings smiles to the faces of medical patients and their families every single day. Georgia’s homestyle meals are comforting and families love what she prepares. So, we thought that it would be a great fit for us to showcase a recipe from her kitchen.
A favorite meal of families, staff and volunteers, is her brisket. While there isn’t an actual recipe, Miss Georgia tells us what ingredients she uses and steps she follows when making this dish. Warning: cooking brisket is an art and requires some practice so if you try this, perfection may not come on the first try but each attempt will be delicious!
Miss Georgia’s Brisket
Ingredients:
1 envelope onion soup mix
3/4 cups water
1/2 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 pounds beef brisket
Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Blend soup mix, water, ketchup, garlic powder, and pepper.
Place mixture in a 13 x 9-inch baking or roasting pan.
Add brisket, turning to coat with soup mixture.
Loosely cover with aluminum foil and roast 3 hours or until brisket is tender.
Enjoy!
By Samuel J. Voss, sous chef, Isle Casino Hotel Bettendorf
Kicking off a new menu can be very stressful as most chefs would agree. Providing a high level of service and quality can be demanding. But when we see our customers leave pleased, we all feel rewarded.
Chili Lime Glazed Shrimp
Planning a new menu can also be very time consuming. However, executing it properly and setting goals makes for an easy transition. Involving my staff and servers made for some really interesting input, but I think we made it a success. My goal was to be able to create a menu that could reach out to a larger demographic and appeal to all sorts of budgets.
As a chef, I tend to dabble into many different informational sources to keep an ‘updated’ idea on what’s happening in the culinary world. There still seems to be the same trend in every article—‘house made’. Just as micro-breweries have been popping up everywhere and becoming more and more popular, I think that restaurants that focus their efforts on exceptionally great food and service with a good value are becoming more and more of a neighborhood staple. This is exactly where I want to be so when creating the new Farraddays’ menu, a great amount of focus was turned to the ‘house made’ aspect.
Citrus Salmon Salad
It’s often times hard to source just the right products but, given the culinary knowledge of me and my staff, we were able to create just about everything. Believe me, when we were able to print ‘house made’ in just about every menu description and then see our guests enjoy it, we all feel very proud of what we do.
Where on earth can you get a prime grade, course ground steak burger with a buttery brioche bun and hand cut steak fries for $9.95? Believe me it’s hard. But we now have it at Farraddays’. We are also featuring ‘house made’ tapas-style meatballs in a Spanish-style sauce with toasted artisan bread. And something fun is our Asian Chicken Tacos with peanut glazed chicken and Asian slaw stuffed inside fried won ton shells. We feature fresh ‘house made’ soups and we always hand cut our steaks daily.
This is what cooking is all about and I’m proud that I get to share it with a great staff and loyal guests!
The new menu is now available.
For more information about Isle Casino Hotel Bettendorf, visit us online.
Chef Henry Rodriguez
Isle Casino Hotel Waterloo’s chef, Henry Rodriguez, recently competed in the annual Beers to You and Gourmet Too competition at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center in Waterloo, Iowa, and returned home with two
awards! The only chef to win more than one award, Chef Henry won the People’s Choice Award and Best Beef Item with his Latitude 48 Braised Short Ribs. Approximately 1,000 people attended this fundraiser for the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center including 28 vendors vying for various awards and honors.
The award-winning Latitude 48 Braised Short Ribs, served with asiago cheese polenta, will be available on Otis & Henry’s new menu which will premiere on April 25.
Heading our way? Let us know you’re coming — reservations are now accepted online!
Award-Winning Latitude 48 Braised Short Ribs
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
4- 10oz beef short ribs
1/8 cup olive oil
24 oz. Sam Adams Latitude 48 beer
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 large yellow onion (cut in large chunks)
1 carrot, peeled
2 stalks of celery, cut in large chunks
1/2 cup tomato paste
1 quart chicken stock
1 quart beef stock
Kosher salt & cracked black pepper
Instructions:
Season short ribs heavily with salt and pepper. In a 6-quart pan with the heat on high, add olive oil. Once the oil is hot, sear all sides of the ribs to a golden color. After the ribs are golden, deglaze the pan with beer and reduce to half. Once reduced, add garlic, onions, carrots, celery and tomato paste. Slowly stir until the paste is dissolved. Add both beef and chicken stock. Turn heat to medium /low, cover tightly, and let cook for 2 1/2 hours or until beef reaches maximum tenderness.
