Ritz Crackers: Eureka Moment or Culinary Travesty

LTH,

While I have respect for the classics, Bucatini alla Matriciana for example, I'm also a fan of quickie catch as you can pasta dishes, clams; olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper; fresh veg, nothing formal, which tends to lend itself to last minute experimentation. Which brings me to Wednesday's meat sauce Eureka moment that is sure to cause clenched tush muscles from Tri-Taylor to Tuscany.

Dinner approaches, nothing in mind, bride says how about spaghetti, after all it's Wednesday. Onion and garlic go to sweat, couple of frozen burger patties, one bison, one beef, go from freezer to pot with basil, s/p and crushed red, and when the meat is broken down a can of San Marzano is hand crushed into the mix. Simmer, Simmer, Simmer, taste, splash of red wine vinegar for brightness, 1/2-teaspoon sugar to round out the flavors. Simmer, taste, hummmmm, a touch thin and ever so slightly dull.

I'm looking around the counter thinking of ways to thicken the slightly watery sauce, aside from cooking it down for another 60-minutes as it's getting late and we are both hungry. Top with toasted bread crumbs, 'poor man's parmesan' comes to mind as does standard thickeners, corn starch, roux, beurre manié, masa in chili, then I spy a box of Ritz crackers sitting innocently on the counter. Sure, why not, what the heck, what's the worst that can happen, we eat PB & J for dinner.

Hand crushed Ritz immediately incorporate, melting into the mix like Deborah Kerr into Burt Lancaster's wave crashed arms adding density and an almost imperceptible buttery note. Eureka!

Fast forward to Thursday lunch at El Cubanito, I'm telling Steve Z, Mike Sula and Jazzfood about my eureka moment and Alan (Jazzfood), a professional chef of some note, confides Ritz are an arrow in his quiver as well, for example crab cakes and that Chicago born classic Shrimp DeJonge. Soon as the words Shrimp Dejonge were past Alan's lips I knew what was for dinner.

Mike and I headed up to Caputo's on Harlem and, after an espresso at Caffe Italia head next door to Mercato Del Pesce for shrimp. Spent a few minutes ogling octopus, skate wing and clear eyed fish then picked up nice fresh never frozen head and shell-on shrimp for the Dejonge.

While I've eaten Dejonge many a time it's not something I've made, though a quick glance through this LTHForum thread gave me a good general idea, no mention of Ritz though, even in Jazzfood's post.

Shell and devein shrimp leaving just the tail, hold in lightly salted ice water.


Melt butter with garlic, s/p, dry sherry, lemon juice add crumbled Ritz and parsley. Pat mix around shrimp, bake at 450 for 16-minutes.



Dead easy to make and really quite good, embarrassingly so for a first try. Might have been the Ritz Crackers, might just be anything with that much butter and garlic tastes good.



Anyone else have Ritz Cracker suggestions? I have most of a large box left.

Enjoy,
Gary

Caputo's Grocery
2560 N. Harlem Ave
Elmwood Park, IL
708-453-0155

Caffe Italia
2625 N Harlem Ave
Chicago, IL 60707
773-889-0455

Mercato Del Pesce Fish Market
2623 N Harlem Ave
Chicago, IL 60707
Tues & Sat 8am - 5pm
Wed-Thurs-Fri 8am - 7:30pm
Sunday 8am - 3pm

A few more secrets. First off, grind them in a food processor and seal in a jar or airtight container. They'll keep for months that way. I use them to thicken a sauce as you would breadcrumbs or nut puree. A couple tablespoons in a classic white clam sauce is a very nice addition indeed and rounds out the flavor profile nicely. Works in white gaspatcho as well but cut back on the pureed almonds if you do.

As Ritz have an identifiable flavor, they're not always interchangeable with breadcrumbs so use them wherever you feel it would make sense. I also use them as a crust for savory cheesecake. Usually with some type of bleu cheese involved and pork of some sort. Chorizo or bacon come to mind. Or sprinkle over sauteed vegetables and gratin under a broiler. You may also flavor them with herbs and spices and use to crust chicken or fish prior to saute or frying.

Go forth and give it a shot. If I tell you any more, I'll have to kill you.

Thanks for posting this - I have shrimp in the fridge and wasn't sure what I wanted to make with them. I think I'll do this, but perhaps add a little hot pepper.

Question - is the parsley mandatory? I have none. I have sage, rosemary, basil, thyme. But I could always stop at the grocery on the way home...

With the rest of the box, I would recommend the Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie.

Basically, you take Ritz crackers, put them into a mixture of sugar, water, and lemon juice, and pour the mixture into a pie shell. (A little more to it than that - see link below). Somehow the crackers soak up the mixture to create Apple-like chunks that actually taste good, or at least FAR better than you would ever expect. Why anyone would do this instead of just using apples is beyond me, but if you have the crackers sitting around, its one of the great American back-of-the-box recipies, if only for the novelty of it all, and the nagging curiosity of how anyone ever came up with such an idea.

http://www.kraftfoods.com/recipes/Cakes ... lePie.html

wak wrote:With the rest of the box, I would recommend the Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie.

Why anyone would do this instead of just using apples is beyond me, but if you have the crackers sitting around, its one of the great American back-of-the-box recipies, if only for the novelty of it all, and the nagging curiosity of how anyone ever came up with such an idea.

In answer to your musing about why anyone would use Ritz rather than real apples, I think price and availability of apples at one point in our history would probably account for this aberration. My mom made this mock-apple pie during the middle years of the Cold War; we would scurry from our fallout shelters just long enough to secure scarce provisions and prepare food with a long shelf-life.

Seriously, as I recall from those dark days, this is really one vile pastry, but if you don't have fresh apples, it will do, I guess.

David "Duck and Cover" Hammond

Several years ago, a co-worker tried to explain this Ritz cracker mock apple pie phenomenon to me citing that his mother had prepared this for their family several times, and how it's "just like" apple pie. I, of course, assumed it was some sort of practical joke. When I got to a web browser, I FULLY expected an "I GOT YOU" as soon as I hit the enter button after typing in my search parameters. Although the concept is strangely compelling (in sort of a science experiment kinda way,) I can't imagine it being anything other than completely vile.

Its got to be one of those things you have to experience to appreciate, right? I mean, who would expect Ritz crackers soaked in lemonade to end up anything like an apple pie....

Parsley is preferred, but if I had to choose, fresh basil would be what I'd suggest. It's really up to you and your tastebuds.

I can't believe I'm actually gonna admit this. When I was in New York City a few years ago, my buddy had some foie gras in the fridge. Stumbling back from painting the town red at about 3 a.m. the pizza delivery places were closed and the only thing he had to eat was some left over foie gras from the holidays (it was early January), a couple of eggs and some Ritz crakers.

He seared the foie gras in a stick of butter in a sautee pan and fried the eggs in a skillet and we had some fabulous foie gras, chopped egg and Ritz craker sandwiches

YUMMY!

Bster

[Edited to add]: What a hell of a quick fire challenge it would be on Top Chef to let the contestants out on the town and then have then come back (presumably drunk) and make a plate from the meager, if exotic, edibles available at my buddy's abode.

Cogito wrote:Its got to be one of those things you have to experience to appreciate, right? I mean, who would expect Ritz crackers soaked in lemonade to end up anything like an apple pie....

I must say, the final product "looked" a little like apple pie -- the crackers appeared to be moist yet firm and almost the color of apple.

David Hammond wrote:

Cogito wrote:Its got to be one of those things you have to experience to appreciate, right? I mean, who would expect Ritz crackers soaked in lemonade to end up anything like an apple pie....

I must say, the final product "looked" a little like apple pie -- the crackers appeared to be moist yet firm and almost the color of apple.

You mean Mock Apple Pie, don't you?

Well, Ritz is the preferred foundation for peanut butter 'round these parts, it's the primary use for it in our household.

On the Shrimp DeJonge front, I have added a bit of dijon mustard, seen in some recipes, but probably originating in trying to decipher the name of the dish. No more than a teaspoon or so in your crumb mixture, but it adds a bit of zing to the dish -- as does the red pepper mentioned above.

One note: Accept no substitutes. A "Town House" from Keebler bears no resemblance to the flavor profile of a Ritz, and the Jewel house brand perched right next door on the shelf are much inferior on taste, texture and resistance to staling in the box.

Excellent product placement for Ritz in this old Eddie Murphy routine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0x_dFMnZVI

WARNING: Adult content

Mock Apple Pie in all its glory!



Please note I once made this for a senior citizens program. They kept complimenting on the apple pie, which I kept explaining it wasn't quite. It can really be a fooler.

Regards,

God help us- that looks almost real.

That recipe has been on Ritz boxes for decades. My wife and I were always so horrified at the idea that we've never tried it.

And, even though it looks almost real... we won't.

now I have to make me some mock-Ritz pie out of apples

Ah, I wimped out and used Panko.

But it was quite good. It could have used more salt than I put in, but just a touch. I didn't have the right white wine, so I threw a glug of cognac into a pan and simmered it down, then put in the butter to melt, simmered some shallots and garlic in it, then added bread crumbs, salt, pepper, tarragon, nutmeg and mace. It didn't get nearly as brown as the one in Gary's picture.

Nonetheless, I was inspired by your dinner, and produced something quite tasty.

Ritz crackers, butter and parsley make a great topping for baked scrod. With boiled new potatoes and green beans this is a favorite quick dinner at my house.