Louisiana Gumbo Cookbook

A 192-page hardcover book with more than 100 recipes for the Cajun and Creole gumbo dishes that have made south Louisiana food world-famous. Special sections on the history of gumbo and filé, plus instructions for making rice and gumbo stocks.

For decades, patrons of the quaint Creole restaurant on Saint Peter Street have enjoyed the standards of New Orleans cuisine in one of its most natural settings. Around the corner from Saint Louis Cathedral, half a block from Jackson Square and within sight of the Mississippi River, the mural-walled dining room and tropical garden patio provide the backdrop for the gumbo, etouffée and jambalaya that flow from the kitchen. The word "gumbo" evokes images of black iron kettles, slowly simmering with a mélange of exotic ingredients, skillfully seasoned and crafted for pleasure. It also describes the New Orleans culture. In this book of recipes, peppered with vignettes of local lore, Gumbo Shop shares its culinary traditions for your enjoyment.

An untamed region teeming with snakes, alligators, and snapping turtles, with sausage and cracklins sold at every gas station, Cajun Country is a world unto itself. The heart of this area—the Acadiana region of Louisiana—is a tough land that funnels its spirit into the local cuisine. You can’t find more delicious, rustic, and satisfying country cooking than the dirty rice, spicy sausage, and fresh crawfish that this area is known for. It takes a homegrown guide to show us around the back roads of this particularly unique region, and in Real Cajun, James Beard Award–winning chef Donald Link shares his own rough-and-tumble stories of living, cooking, and eating in Cajun Country. Link takes us on an expedition to the swamps and smokehouses and the music festivals, funerals, and holiday celebrations, but, more important, reveals the fish fries, étouffées, and pots of Granny’s seafood gumbo that always accompany them. The food now famous at Link’s New Orleans–based restaurants, Cochon and Herbsaint, has roots in the family dishes and traditions that he shares in this book. You’ll find recipes for Seafood Gumbo, Smothered Pork Roast over Rice, Baked Oysters with Herbsaint Hollandaise, Louisiana Crawfish Boudin, quick and easy Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits with Fig-Ginger Preserves, Bourbon-Soaked Bread Pudding with White and Dark Chocolate, and Blueberry Ice Cream made with fresh summer berries. Link throws in a few lagniappes to give you an idea of life in the bayou, such as strategies for a great trip to Jazz Fest, a what-not-to-do instructional on catching turtles, and all you ever (or never) wanted to know about boudin sausage. Colorful personal essays enrich every recipe and introduce his grandfather and friends as they fish, shrimp, hunt, and dance. From the backyards where crawfish boils reign as the greatest of outdoor events to the white tablecloths of Link’s famed restaurants, Real Cajun takes you on a rollicking and inspiring tour of this wild part of America and shares the soulful recipes that capture its irrepressible spirit.

A modern instructional with 120 recipes for classic New Orleans cooking, from James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur Justin Devillier. IACP AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW With its uniquely multicultural, multigenerational, and unapologetically obsessive food culture, New Orleans has always ranked among the world's favorite cities for people who love to eat and cook. But classic New Orleans cooking is neither easily learned nor mastered. More than thirty years ago, beloved Paul Prudhomme taught the ways of Crescent City cooking but, even in tradition-steeped New Orleans, classic recipes have evolved and fans of what is arguably the most popular regional cuisine in America are ready for an updated approach. With step-by-step photos and straightforward instructions, James Beard Award-winner Justin Devillier details the fundamentals of the New Orleans cooking canon—from proper roux-making to time-honored recipes, such as Duck and Andouille Gumbo and the more casual Abita Root Beer-Braised Short Ribs. Locals, Southerners, and food tourists alike will relish Devillier's modern-day approach to classic New Orleans cooking.

“Makes you want to spend a week—immediately—in New Orleans.” —Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal A cocktail is more than a segue to dinner when it’s a Sazerac, an anise-laced drink of rye whiskey and bitters indigenous to New Orleans. For Wisconsin native Sara Roahen, a Sazerac is also a fine accompaniment to raw oysters, a looking glass into the cocktail culture of her own family—and one more way to gain a foothold in her beloved adopted city. Roahen’s stories of personal discovery introduce readers to New Orleans’ well-known signatures—gumbo, po-boys, red beans and rice—and its lesser-known gems: the pho of its Vietnamese immigrants, the braciolone of its Sicilians, and the ya-ka-mein of its street culture. By eating and cooking her way through a place as unique and unexpected as its infamous turducken, Roahen finds a home. And then Katrina. With humor, poignancy, and hope, she conjures up a city that reveled in its food traditions before the storm—and in many ways has been saved by them since.

From the critically acclaimed author of "The Africa Cookbook" come 175 vibrant recipes that redefine Creole cooking, the original fusion food. Two-color throughout. 25 photos.

It's 16 chapters of culture, history, essay and insight, and pure goodness. Besh tells us the story of his New Orleans by the season and by the dish. Archival, four-color, location photography along with ingredient information make the Big Easy easy to tackle in home kitchens. Cooks will salivate over the 200 recipes that honor and celebrate everything New Orleans. Bite by bite John Besh brings us New Orleans cooking like we've never tasted before. It's the perfect blend of contemporary French techniques with indigenous Southern Louisiana products and know-how. His amazing new offering is exclusively brought to fans and foodies everywhere by Andrews McMeel. From Mardi Gras, to the shrimp season, to the urban garden, to gumbo weather, boucherie (the season of the pig), and everything tasty in between, Besh gives a sampling of New Orleans that will have us all craving for more. The boy from the Bayou isn't just an acclaimed chef with an exceptional pallet. Besh is a chef with a heart. The ex-marine's passion for the Crescent City, its people, and its livelihood are main courses making him a leader of the city's culinary recovery and resilience after the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. What People Are Saying "John Besh is one of the best American chefs of his generation. His extensive knowledge of true Louisiana dishes and traditions adds tremendous credibility to his writing." --Paul Prudhomme, chef and owner of K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen Magic Seasoning Blends "In his definitive tome, My New Orleans, John Besh captures the true, sweet, and honest voice of a clarinet playing the jazzy song of one of our most deliciously exclusive regional American kitchens." --Mario Batali, Iron Chef, restaurateur, author "This book is an act of soul. Maestro Besh lives the life he cooks; he doesn't just tell us how to prepare Louisiana favorites, he teaches us what these dishes mean, with an emphasis on how hospitality can enrich civilization." --Wynton Marsalis, musician "John will take you into the heartland of the South, rich with traditions, stories, and of course, its amazing cuisine!" --Daniel Boulud, chef, restaurateur, and author A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Cafe Reconcile, a New Orleans-based non-profit organization dedicated to providing at-risk youth an opportunity to learn life and interpersonal skills, and operational training for successful entry into the hospitality and restaurant industries.

Named a Best New Cookbook of Spring 2020 by Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, NPR’s The Splendid Table, Eater, Epicurious, and more “Sometimes you find a restaurant cookbook that pulls you out of your cooking rut without frustrating you with miles long ingredient lists and tricky techniques. Mosquito Supper Club is one such book. . . . In a quarantine pinch, boxed broth, frozen shrimp, rice, beans, and spices will go far when cooking from this book.” —Epicurious, The 10 Restaurant Cookbooks to Buy Now “Martin shares the history, traditions, and customs surrounding Cajun cuisine and offers a tantalizing slew of classic dishes.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review For anyone who loves Cajun food or is interested in American cooking or wants to discover a distinct and engaging new female voice—or just wants to make the very best duck gumbo, shrimp jambalaya, she-crab soup, crawfish étouffée, smothered chicken, fried okra, oyster bisque, and sweet potato pie—comes Mosquito Supper Club. Named after her restaurant in New Orleans, chef Melissa M. Martin’s debut cookbook shares her inspired and reverent interpretations of the traditional Cajun recipes she grew up eating on the Louisiana bayou, with a generous helping of stories about her community and its cooking. Every hour, Louisiana loses a football field’s worth of land to the Gulf of Mexico. Too soon, Martin’s hometown of Chauvin will be gone, along with the way of life it sustained. Before it disappears, Martin wants to document and share the recipes, ingredients, and customs of the Cajun people. Illustrated throughout with dazzling color photographs of food and place, the book is divided into chapters by ingredient—from shrimp and oysters to poultry, rice, and sugarcane. Each begins with an essay explaining the ingredient and its context, including traditions like putting up blackberries each February, shrimping every August, and the many ways to make an authentic Cajun gumbo. Martin is a gifted cook who brings a female perspective to a world we’ve only heard about from men. The stories she tells come straight from her own life, and yet in this age of climate change and erasure of local cultures, they feel universal, moving, and urgent.

Recalling childhood visits to her grandmother's house in New Orleans, where she would feast on shrimp and okra gumbo, Dale Curry offers fifty recipes--for gumbos, jambalayas, and those little something extras known as lagniappe--that will put Louisiana taste and hospitality on your table. "Gumbo" calls to mind the diverse culinary traditions of Louisiana that, like gumbo itself, are simmered from elements of the many cultures circulating in the state. Drawing historically from French, African, Caribbean, Native American, Spanish, Italian, and other culinary sources, the Creole and Cajun cooking featured in Gumbo embraces the best of local shellfish, sausages, poultry, and game. The heart of Louisiana home cooking--and now showcased by of chefs across the South and beyond--gumbo, jambalaya, and lagniappe traditionally drew from the state's waterways and estuaries rich with crustaceans, swamps exploding with waterfowl and alligators, and forests full of game. From the land came rice and peppers, two leading ingredients in gumbo and jambalaya. Recipes include classic and traditional dishes, as well as specialties offered by star chefs Bart Bell, Leah Chase, Emeril Lagasse, Donald Link, and Tory McPhail. With Curry's easy-to-follow instructions at hand, home cooks will be ready to let the good times roll at every meal.