Chef Fearing's food at The Mansion has been a legend for over 20 years, with fresh ingredients that look as good as they taste, with his use of generally local Texan ingredients.
I've dined at The Mansion years ago, and would give it a true Michelin star for the service and quality then, and would only hope it earned two Michelin stars (out of 3) today.
This cookbook is from 1987, and with it's easy to follow recipes, fairly easy to get (or substitute) ingredients, and few well chosen color pictures, I give it 5 Amazon stars today. (I like it much better than it's sequel that purports to mix Asian with Sowthwestern cuisine.)
Recipes include: Chilled avocado soup with Tangerine-lime sorbet, Lobster and apple bisque, Southwest corn chowder. More involved recipes include fried oysters stuffed with crabmeat, stir-fried shrimp with spicy peanut sauce (16 ingredients, including brown veal demi-glace) and pineapple chutney (13 ingredients).
I like the look of Oven baked chicken with maple pecan crust and pan sauce, roasted garlic potatoes, and cranberry-orange relish in sweet potato cups.
He gives delicious tricks of the trade, with information on cold smoking of meats and vegetables, to give his flair and signature to some dishes.
He gives instructions on making the brown veal stock, with pretty standard instructions that are clearly written, and his fish stock simmers for 20-25 minutes, also standard. Thus, one needn't buy prepared stock, or go to other books for recipes.
His brining is different, intended for smoking game, meat and fish. It starts with fairly standard salt, onion, celery and carrot, and adds various herbs, chillies and white wine...this is a unique restaurant technique that works well for home smoking of food. (It's easy to adapt one's charcoal or even gas grill for smoking, as one does not need a dedicated smoker ...)
Even Simon David, the upper end Dallas grocery store, is still in business for mail order of some ingredients, so do not worry if there's one choice ingredient missing.
Make some Chocolate Jack Daniel's Ice Cream or Bradley Ogden's Molasses spice cake with lemon curd sauce (don't let the curd sauce boil on it's "medium heat"), look through the recipes, and cook up some great food! |
The Mansion on Turtle Creek Cookbook Books In Print, Audio Books.