yumsugar -- To die for.

Not Your Regular Nachos: Crab Nachos

partysugar — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:41:19 -0700

What do you get when you combine crispy, salty chips with spicy, melty cheese and fresh, flaky crab? Some amazingly delicious nachos! Between the newly-picked crab, the homemade pico de gallo, and the pepper-jack bécamel, these nachos are more gourmet than ghetto — who said Mexican food can't be high end?

The recipe calls for blue corn tortilla chips, but any tortilla chip would work. I used frozen corn — make sure it's thawed, you don't want soggy nachos — because fresh isn't in season. These nachos were incredibly tasty and I'm definitely making them again. To look at the recipe,

Definition: Roux

partysugar — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:22:11 -0800

Roux (pronunciation is roo)
A mixture of fat (butter, oil) and flour gently cooked together. The time allowed for the cooking determines the color of the roux. There are three types of roux—brown, blond and white—although all are made in essentially the same way by melting butter and stirring in flour. Roux is used to thicken soups and sauces and is a staple of Cajun and Creole dishes.

Definition: Béchamel

partysugar — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:17:19 -0800

Béchamel
A basic white sauce, that is used as the base for other sauces. This basic sauce, one of the mother sauces of French cuisine, is usually made by whisking scalded milk gradually into a white flour-butter mixture. The thickness of the final sauce depends on the proportions of butter and flour to the milk.