Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Catfish Allison!

U. S. Farm-Raised Catfish Allison

6 to 8 catfish fillets
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
6 Tablespoons mayonnaise
6 green onions, chopped fine
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce - (we used Tablespoon)
generous dash Tabasco pepper sauce

Place the cheese, butter, mayonnaise, onion, Worcestershire, and pepper sauce in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Adjust seasoning if desired. Butter mixture may be made 24 hours ahead and kept refrigerated.

Poach the catfish fillets in lightly simmering water for 4 to 5 minutes. Gently lift the fillets from the water and set aside to drain.

For individual servings, place the fillets in au gratin dishes and cover with 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture. Broil for 2 to 3 minutes until the cheese mixture browns.

Without individual dishes, place fillets into a lightly baking dish. Cover each fillet with the cheese mixture and brown under the broiler. Carefully lift the fillets from the dish onto the plates and spoon some of the pan juices over each serving.

(Only use U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish. If you not sure, ask your grocer.)

Serves: 6 to 8

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Lauren Farms Prawns: Now at City Grocery!


Chef John Currence, owner of the famous City Grocery restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi, was kind of enough to put Freshwater Prawns on his menu! If you are in the area, definitely stop by and try them...he tells us they are a hit!

From the chef's mouth:

"Lauren Farms offers a truly unique opportunity to chef and diner in Mississippi: to work with and taste a product that is entirely of a place and one that is a milestone in purity. From the moment we tried our first Lauren Farms prawn, it had a home on our menu."

- John Currence

Currence recently took home the Best Chef: South region award at the James Beard Foundation Awards in New York. The Beard Awards is the nation's most prestigious recognition program honoring professionals in the food and beverage industries.

We are proud and honored to have him support the freshwater prawn. Thanks, Chef!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Lauren Farms Freshwater Prawns in the News!


My friend Regina Charboneau that owns the Twin Oaks in Natchez, Mississippi recently featured Lauren Farms Prawns in an article for The Atlantic. She is such a great chef, and an wonderful writer. We are thankful for her support!

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Being an advocate of sustainable seafood, I am always looking out for people who are doing it correctly. In my constant search for sustainable ingredients I came across the most delectable farm-raised prawns from Lauren Farms in the Delta. To put it simply, taste is why they make the grade. But if taste is not enough, this is why I think we will all be hearing more about Lauren Farms: free range; all natural; low cholesterol; low in fat, iodine, calories and sodium; grown in fresh, pollutant and chemical-free water; fed wholesome grains; fresh from pond to table; environmentally friendly; sustainable aquaculture; and no by-catch.

The other plus for me? I hate going to the grocery store... and they come UPS."


Here's the recipe that she mentions (it is also photographed above):

Corn and Prawn Fritters

Makes 4 Servings (approximately 1 dozen fritters)

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 cup of 16-21 count prawns, peeled and deveined
• 1 cup fresh yellow corn kernels
• 1/4 cup minced green onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

In a mixing bowl, add flour, salt, cayenne and black peppers, and baking powder. Blend with a fork or whisk then add garlic and blend again.

16-21 count means there are approximately that many prawns to the pound. Peel and devein the uncooked prawns then cut into 1/4 inch pieces.

Separate egg yolk and white. Whip egg white until stiff but still wet.

Mix the egg yolk with the prawns, corn, green onions, and fresh basil. Do not over mix--this will bruise the corn kernels and make the batter too wet.

Mix the flour mixture and the prawn mixture with a rubber spatula.

Fold in the whipped egg white.

Use two tablespoons as tools to form one-inch fritters, and drop in heated oil. Cook evenly--the fritters should cook in two to three minutes. You can test with a wooden skewer to make sure batter is cooked through.

The fritters are good plain, or you can serve with a remoulade or jalapeno tartar sauce.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Annual Freshwater Prawn Harvest is Approaching!

It's time for the Lauren Farms ANNUAL POND BANK HARVEST! Come see us and load up your coolers with fresh, right-out-of-the-pond prawns for a great price.

2009 Dates: SEPTEMBER 26 AND OCTOBER 3, from 10 am - 4 pm.
Premium large prawns are $7/lb. Also, the best U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish fillets you have ever tasted (Lauren Farms Catfish, of course!) will be available in 2 lb. packages for $11.50.

Please
CALL AHEAD OF TIME AND BOOK YOUR ORDER. 662-390-3528. We ALWAYS sell out and usually have to turn folks away (which is never fun). So, place your order before you come. And if you are coming after 1 o'clock, let us know so we will hold your prawns.

Don't forget your coolers and ice!

On a side note, there are plenty of fun things to do around the Delta if you are from out of town. Feel free to email me (prawnfarm01@yahoo.com) or call, and I'll be glad to give you any information you need for your Leland trip and directions to Lauren Farms.


Thanks so much for your support!

Dolores and Steve


Sunday, August 23, 2009

Lobster

Clawed lobsters compose a kinsfolk (Nephropidae, sometimes also Homaridae) of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters are economically important as seafood, forming the basis of a global business that nets US$31.8 billion in change annually.

Though individual different groups of crustaceans are famous as \"lobsters,\" the armed lobsters are most often associated with the name. They are also revered for their taste. Clawed lobsters are not closely related to spiny lobsters or slipper lobsters, which have no claws (chelae), or squat lobsters. The closest relatives of armed lobsters are the reef lobster Enoplometopus and the threesome families of freshwater crayfish.

Lobsters are institute in all the oceans of the world. They springy on rocky, sandy, or turbid bottoms from the shoreline to beyond the edge of the transcontinental shelf. They generally springy singly in crevices or in burrows under rocks.

They are invertebrates, with a hard conserving exoskeleton. Like most arthropods, lobsters must molt in order to grow, leaving them undefendable during this time. During the molting process, several species haw experience a modify in color. Lobsters hit 10 legs, with the face ones adapted to claws.

As arthropods, lobsters hit not achieved the nervous grouping utilization of cepholopod molluscs, nor do they hit the advantages of extraordinary eyesight. They do however, exhibit threesome important evolutionary advances that hit led to their great success: an exoskeleton: a strong, lightweight, form-fitted outside covering and support, striated muscle: a quick, strong, lightweight form of muscle that makes rapid shitting and flight possible, and articulation: the knowledge to bend appendeges at limited points.

Lobsters typically eat live food, consisting of fish, mollusks, other crustaceans, worms, and some plant life. Occasionally, they module scavenge if necessary, and haw resort to cannibalism in captivity; however, this has not been observed in the wild. Although lobster wound has been found in the stomachs of lobsters, this is because lobsters module eat their drop wound after molting. Lobsters acquire throughout their lives and it is not unusual for a lobster to live for more than 100 years. One such 100 year older lobster was donated to the Huntsman serviceman Science Center in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. In fact, lobsters haw show \"negligible senescence\", in that they crapper effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc. They crapper thus accomplish impressive sizes. According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 20.15 kg (44.4 lb).

Although armed lobsters, same most other arthropods, are mostly bilaterally symmetrical, they often possess unequal, specialized claws, same the king crab. A freshly caught lobster module have a claw which is full and fleshy, not atrophied. The morphology of the lobster includes the cephalothorax which is the nous fused with the thorax, both of which are covered by the carapace, of chitinous composition, and the abdomen. The lobster's nous consists of antennae, antennules, mandibles, the first and ordinal maxillae, and the first, second, and ordinal maxillipeds. Because a lobster lives in a murky environment at the bottom of the ocean, its vision is poor and it mostly uses its antennae as sensors. Studies have shown that the lobster eye is bacilliform with a reflective structure atop a convex retina. In contrast, most complex eyes use refractive ray concentrators (lenses) and a cotyloid retina. The abdomen of the lobster includes swimmerets and its tail is imperturbable of uropods and the telson.

Lobsters, like snails and spiders, have blue murder cod to the proximity of haemocyanin, which contains copper. (In contrast, mammals and many another animals, have red murder cod to the proximity of haemoglobin, which contains iron.) Inside lobsters is a naif goopy center titled tomalley, which serves as the hepatopancreas, fulfilling the functions of both liver and pancreas.

In general, lobsters are 25 cm to 50 cm daylong ( 10 to 20 inches ) and move slowly by walking on the bottom of the sea floor. However, when they flee, they swim backwards quickly by curling and uncurling their abdomen. A speed of five meters per second (about 11 mph) has been recorded. This is known as the caridoid escape reaction.