Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2020 i Louisiana Cookin'

WHEN I’M TRAVELING outside Louisiana and I see a po’ boy on the menu, I typically wince. It might be a totally fine sandwich, but unless I’m a few hours from New Orleans, I know it won’t really be a po’ boy. What makes a legit po’ boy? That’s easy: the bread. New Orleans-style French bread is really the beginning and the end of it. More and more, we’ve seen banh mi-inspired po’ boys hit menus, and I am all for it. To me, the Vietnamese-style French bread is so close to its New Orleans counterpart that I will happily accept them as po’ boys. These versions, with their mountains of crunchy pickles and spicy jalapeños, often rank among my favorites (which you will see on page 69 in our…

AS THE WEATHER starts heating up in late spring and early summer, blue crabs start running in Louisiana’s marshes and showing up on menus and dinner tables around the state. We delight in the delicate sweetness and distinct decadence Louisiana blue crabmeat adds to any meal. Whether it’s transformed into savory beignets, stuffed into a baguette, or perched atop a slice of juicy Creole tomato and drizzled with an acidic dressing, we simply can’t get enough. Try these recipes for a delicious start to any gatherings you attend this season. CRAB BEIGNETS WITH CREOLE MUSTARD SAUCE MAKES ABOUT 32 These savory beignets were inspired by the popular appetizer from La Petite Grocery in New Orleans. 1 cup mascarpone cheese⅓ cup finely chopped shallot1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves2 teaspoons Creole…

THALIA, located on its namesake street in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, is about to celebrate its one-year anniversary, and the enthusiasm over this neighborhood gathering spot, lovingly curated by Chef Kristen Essig, is inspiring. Like Thalia, both the Greek muse of comedy and idyllic poetry as well as one of the three Graces, Kristen brings both poetry and grace to the table. For devotees of Coquette, her first restaurant with partner Michael Stoltzfus, the food at Thalia is mostly vintage Kristen, with plating that’s perhaps a bit more organic—dropping petals and salt onto a dish, for example. “My cooking is much more homey,” Kristen offers. “Michael and the Coquette team do such an amazing job with plating and presentation—Michael’s eye for layering and texture is much more…

This past December, Certified Louisiana® hosted a contest in partnership with Louisiana Cookin’ to find the best recipe prepared by students at the Louisiana Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge. At the judging ceremony, students prepared dishes for a panel of judges that included Louisiana Cookin’ editors and Louisiana chefs who are LCI grads. The judges tasted their way through the entries in each of the contest’s four categories and were impressed by the creativity and skill of the participants. Entries were required to include products from Certified Louisiana®, with bonus points awarded for using more than one Certified Louisiana® product or pairing a beverage featuring a Certified Louisiana® product. For a product to be eligible to use the logo, it must be made, grown, manufactured, processed, produced, or substantially transformed…

THIS SUMMER, 2003 Chef to Watch Jeremy Langlois of Houmas House in Darrow celebrates his 25th year in the professional kitchen, and while much has changed for him in that time, he has stayed true to his style of cooking. His first big break was with Chef John Folse at the famed Lafitte’s Landing Restaurant at Bittersweet Plantation. In 2005, Jeremy moved across the river to helm Latil’s Landing Restaurant at Houmas House and then went on to open the casual Café Burnside and eventually the Carriage House. While he’s kept up with trends throughout the years, Jeremy has spent much of his energy refining his cooking techniques to showcase the incredible flavors of the local products he sources (many from the grounds of Houmas House itself). His playful yet…

BLUE GIANT NEW ORLEANS The Lower Garden District is home to a new Chinese American restaurant, the first restaurant from Cochon alums Bill Jones and Richard Horner. The team is presenting a reimagined take on dishes they grew up eating, made with premium, local ingredients. The menu of comfort food favorites includes Pan Fried Shrimp & Pork Dumplings, Dan Dan Noodles, Scallop Egg Foo Yung, and Peking Duck. bluegiantnola.com SEED NEW ORLEANS In January, the team from District: Donuts. Sliders. Brew. launched their revamped version of Seed, a plant-based restaurant, in the Garden District. Chef Dan Causgrove’s menu offers an approachable selection of vegan dishes with New Orleans flavors. A fried kelp po’ boy, mushroom gumbo, and Carrot Fettuccine are just a few of Seed’s incredible new offerings. seedneworleans.com DRAGO’S…

ONE OF THE MOST iconic images of Louisiana—for me, at least—is a shrimp boat, trawl nets down, illuminated with the first light of day or glowing with the setting sun. It’s not only the beauty of the shrimp boats that feeds my soul but also the knowledge that luscious, delectable jewels are being mined from those Gulf waters. Louisiana is blessed with some of the wealthiest waters in the world—in our lakes, rivers, marshes, and, of course, Gulf waters. What might be special occasion food for others is daily fare for us. Historically, we have always been shrimp-loving people. Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, a French traveler who lived in Louisiana from 1718 to 1734, wrote a memoir of his travels and recorded that shrimp were being caught in the…

CAN’T-MISS BITES 1 LA BON BOUCON MAUDLINS Vacherie At his meat shop located on Louisiana’s German Coast, an area known for its sausage-making traditions, Lester Folse showcases regional specialties such as boudin noir, boudin made without rice, and maudlin, a product that is unique to Vacherie. He describes maudlin as a larger version of andouille, similar to a processed ham. According to Lester, maudlins were made during the holidays for folks who couldn’t afford hams. At La Bon Boucon, he sells whole and pre-sliced, vacuum-packed maudlins. 985.414.4410 2 MIDDENDORF’S THIN FRIED CATFISH Manchac Diners travel from far and wide to get a taste of the impossibly thin fried catfish for which Middendorf’s has become famous. Opened in 1934 by Louis and Josie Middendorf, this 86-year-old institution is located in the tiny fishing…

It’s not hard to begin talking about what makes a great po’ boy. First and foremost, it’s the bread. The crispy outside, fluffy inside New Orleans-style French bread is the beginning and the end of the po’ boy. Lacking a loaf made by Leidenheimer Baking Company, John Gendusa Bakery, Weiss Guys’ Bakery, or a precious few others, it’s just a sandwich. The po’ boy has a storied history in the Crescent City, starting with the fateful transit strike in 1929 that caused its creation. In the decades that followed, the po’ boy culture grew and flourished to a point where both incredibly inexpensive gas station versions and fancy chef-inspired po’ boys could exist on the same block. Also, as Vietnamese populations have increased throughout south Louisiana, and greater New Orleans,…

IN A STATE KNOWN for its people’s penchant for spicy foods, it can take a lot for a new pepper sauce to stand out. Since releasing the 7 Pot Primo pepper in 2005, Troy and Kara Primeaux have been building a strong niche business with their line of hot sauces and pepper jellies. The venture germinated at University of Louisiana at Lafayette and spread to their backyard test garden and eventually a small, dedicated network of farmers around Lafayette. After its introduction, Troy’s 7 Pot Primo—a gnarly cross between Trinidadian and Bangladeshi peppers—struck a chord with chile lovers because of its flavor and incredible heat. (Rated at 1.5 million Scoville units, the 7 Pot Primo is one of the spiciest peppers in the world. Jalapeños, for example, top out at…

FROM THE BRANDY CRUSTA and the Sazerac to the Vieux Carré and the Ramos gin fizz, most of the storied New Orleans cocktails have well-known recipes, and people stick to them. The Hurricane, on the other hand, does not. The story for the Hurricane goes like this: about 80 years ago, the French Quarter bar Pat O’Brien’s wanted to offer a specific whiskey and in turn had to buy a certain number of cases of rum. They needed something to help sell that rum, so one of their bartenders supposedly made the Hurricane with fassionola, a sweet passion fruit syrup, and lime and cheap rum. At the time, fassionola was sold in three different colors—red, yellow, and blue—but since the original company went out of business, bartenders today can only…

IF YOU LOADED PLATES with all the foods that comprise the south Louisiana canon, you’d need a lot of plates and a really big table. The countries and cultures represented on those plates are equally vast: indigenous, French, Spanish, African, German, Sicilian, and folks from the more than 30 nations that make up the Caribbean. That’s quite an amalgam, and much has been written about the broad influence of those people on south Louisiana. They are, in modern parlance, the original social influencers. The Caribbean nations’ impact on Louisiana food culture is difficult to articulate and pinpoint with authority, given how many cultures and people have affected the Caribbean itself. Some refer to the Caribbean as Afro-Caribbean, paying homage to the African people brought there. East Indians (indentured to Haiti),…

After about two years of concepting and renovations, Belle Époque—a cozy absinthe bar just steps off a particularly raucous part of Bourbon Street—opened its doors this past October. The lounge, which shares a building with the historic Old Absinthe House, promises to be a locals-focused respite and a place where aficionados and novices alike can deepen their appreciation for the storied emerald spirit. Bar maven Laura Bellucci—formerly of nearby SoBou—was just a newcomer when she was approached for the project back in 2018, but in the intervening years, she dove deep into the history, mythology, and many flavors of absinthe. The spirit, which was a favorite of 19th-century artists including Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Degas, was eventually banned in the United States (based mostly on misinformation) from 1912 to 2007.…

SWEET DOUGH PIES are a specialty in St. Landry Parish. These pies are made with a dough that yields a tender, melt-in-your mouth crust, and they can be filled with all types of fillings, from lemon curd to fresh fruit and chocolate to sweet potatoes. They can be found at stores and bake sales all across the region, but it’s easy to make them at home. As warmer weather ushers in a bounty of ripe berries, we’ll be noshing on these irresistible pies all summer long. BLUEBERRY SWEET DOUGH PIES MAKES 6 (5-INCH) PIES We made these pies with blueberries, but they would be equally delicious with other fresh fruit pie fillings. 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened6 tablespoons granulated sugar1 egg yolk1¼ cups all-purpose flour½ teaspoon baking powder¼ teaspoon kosher…

ELIANA DE LAS CASAS has been a culinary star on the rise since she was a young child. Her star continues to shine in her fourth cookbook, Teen Chef Cooks: 80 Scrumptious, Family-Friendly Recipes (Rodale, 2019), which offers up seasonal, vegetable-heavy recipes that she hopes inspire readers to cook fresh and seasonally at home. A native of New Orleans, Eliana’s interest in cooking began when she was 4 years old, when she asked her mom if she could help her cook. Her Cajun, Filipina, Honduran, and Cuban family heritage meant that she grew up around a dinner table filled with global cuisine, which contributed to her passion for cooking with international flair. She published three cookbooks, hosted her own weekly radio show for four years, and won season 3 of…

Appetizers Dirty South, 66 Beverages Bloody Maria, 81 Fassionola Syrup, 93 Hurricane & Table, 93 Desserts Blueberry Filling, 75 Blueberry Sweet Dough Pies, 75 Cinnamon Icing, 68 Southern Cinnamon Pecan Cake, 68 Meat, Poultry, and Game Miso-Coconut Beef Lettuce Wraps, 85 Roast Beef Po’ Boys, 49 Sweet Bacon, 66 Sauces, Seasonings, and Condiments Creolaise, 66 Creole Mustard Sauce, 25 Dashi, 66 Oyster Rockefeller Stuffing, 95 Pickled Vegetables, 28 Saffron Cream Sauce, 89 Seafood Banh Mi-Style Crab Rolls, 28 Black-Eyed Pea-Battered Shrimp, 30 Crab and Creole Tomato Salad, 28 Crab Beignets with Creole Mustard Sauce, 25 Louisiana Fried Catfish, 56 Shiitake Risotto Milanese with Seared Sea Scallops, 66 Shrimp with Creole Tomato Salsa, 23 Shrimp Creole, 47 Zapp’s Potato Chip-Crusted Fish, 89 Soups, Stews, and Gumbos Seafood Gumbo, 51 Vegetables and…