Lundi: Recipes

So the big summer holidays are coming up: 4^th of July and Fete de Bastille ten days later.  This means a lot of family and friends, standing around the kitchen drinking beer and sweet tea (we’ll break out the bubbly later) wanting something to snack on while the potato salad chills down and the barbeque is cooking.  Sure, chips and dips are always good.  Here’s another thought though; the original cheese straw recipe of long time NOLA resident Lady Helen Hardy straight from the Times-Picayune.  According to their book Cooking Up A Storm, this was one of their most requested recipes.  Though these are traditionally a reveillon snack, any excuse for a party is as good as the next, especially if you’re a New Orleanian.

2 cups all purpose flour

1 ¼ tsps baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 ½ sticks (3/4 c) room temperature butter

15 oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated and at room temperature

5 or 6 healthy dashes of Tabasco sauce

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Lightly coat a cookie sheet with nonstick spray.

Sift flour.  Add backing powder and salt and sift again.  Set aside.

With your hands, mix the butter and cheese in a bowl.  Add Tabasco, cayenne and flour.  Mix well.

Place the dough in a cookie press and squeeze out rows the entire length of the cookie sheet about ½ inch apart.  Note that I don’t have a cookie press, but find it just as easy to use a pastry bag (or in my case a zip top bag cut at one corner to work like one).  Bake ten minutes at 300 then lower the oven temperature to 225 and bake about another 15 minutes or until golden (not brown).

Let straws stand two or three minutes, then cut them down to size (about three sections per straw) with a sharp knife.

The book notes that this recipe will yield about 120 straws but I usually get around 80 or so.  Put them all out; they’ll go fast.  Bon appetite ~

Header: Bastille Day by Claude Monet c 1879