Chef JD Woodward shares some Southern Secrets

This week’s episode features Chef JD Woodward of Southern Goods in Houston, TX. He has extensive experience in the restaurant industry and has spent a good majority of time finding ways to make Southern Food with a Gulf Coast twist–and Houston loves it.

He also shared a recipe for Royale with us, which is a base for a lot of things that you could make at home!

The recipe for Royale is 8 eggs to 1 quart of cream. It’s called Royale because it can be used as a base for so many things.

For French Toast:

Whisk the eggs and cream together with a cup of sugar and a vanilla bean. Dip texas toast into the mixture and cook them in a medium hot pan until browned and cooked through. You can add lavender in place of the vanilla or along with it, a couple teaspoons will do the trick, add too much and it will taste soapy.

For Creme Anglaise:

Heat the cream with any seasonings you want to use i.e. vanilla (1-2 beans), lavender (1-2 teaspoons), ground coriander (2-3 teaspoons), etc. Whisk the eggs and sugar together and then slowly add some of the hot liquid while whisking continuously. Add the egg mixture back to the pot and continue to cook until the custard thickens.

For Creme Brulee:

Follow the recipe for creme anglaise, but when you get to the part where you add the mixture back to the pot, instead of returning it to the heat, pass it through a chinoise into little custard bowls, put them in a water bath and gently bake.

For Ice Cream:

Make the creme anglaise, let it cool to room temp and put it in an ice cream maker.

From Chef JD: “The interesting thing about all of this, for me, is that you start with that base of 8 eggs 1 quart cream and you can get many different things depending what techniques you apply to them. As long as you know the techniques, the flavors become up to the whim of the cook. Less sweet, less sugar; no vanilla sub lavender or meyer lemon zest. Once you can apply the techniques you can get out of the cookbook hunting for a recipe to tell you how much of what to add and get into the kitchen and discover for yourself and according to your own tastes.”

Tune into this episode of Chefs Coast to Coast below, download it on Libsyn or subscribe on iTunes!

Connect with Chef JD and the crew at Southern Goods online at facebook, twitter and Instagram.

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