Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen

Anyone looking for a primer on Cajun cooking need look no farther. Chef Paul takes the reader by the hand and opens up a world that includes four kinds of roux, Jalapeno and Cheese Rolls, Shrimp Étouffée, and the to-die-for Cajun Meatloaf. Good old-fashioned Red Beans and Rice and Sweet Potato Pecan Pie are not forgotten either.

Chef Paul tested all of his recipes in a home kitchen using common culinary tools--no professional equipment needed here. These are recipes that are high in spice, so remember to have a large vat of water on hand! --Schuyler Ingle

Product Description

Here for the first time the famous food of Louisiana is presented in a cookbook written by a great creative chef who is himself world-famous. The extraordinary Cajun and Creole cooking of South Louisiana has roots going back over two hundred years, and today it is the one really vital, growing regional cuisine in America. No one is more responsible than Paul Prudhomme for preserving and expanding the Louisiana tradition, which he inherited from his own Cajun background.

Chef Prudhomme's incredibly good food has brought people from all over America and the world to his restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, in New Orleans. To set down his recipes for home cooks, however, he did not work in the restaurant. In a small test kitchen, equipped with a home-size stove and utensils normal for a home kitchen, he retested every recipe two and three times to get exactly the results he wanted. Logical though this is, it was an unprecedented way for a chef to write a cookbook. But Paul Prudhomme started cooking in his mother's kitchen when he was a youngster. To him, the difference between home and restaurant procedures is obvious and had to be taken into account.

So here, in explicit detail, are recipes for the great traditional dishes--gumbos and jambalayas, Shrimp Creole, Turtle Soup, Cajun "Popcorn," Crawfish Etouffee, Pecan Pie, and dozens more--each refined by the skill and genius of Chef Prudhomme so that they are at once authentic and modern in their methods.

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen is also full of surprises, for he is unique in the way he has enlarged the repertoire of Cajun and Creole food, creating new dishes and variations within the old traditions. Seafood Stuffed Zucchini with Seafood Cream Sauce, Panted Chicken and Fettucini, Veal and Oyster Crepes, Artichoke Prudhomme--these and many others are newly conceived recipes, but they could have been created only by a Louisiana cook. The most famous of Paul Prudhomme's original recipes is Blackened Redfish, a daringly simple dish of fiery Cajun flavor that is often singled out by food writers as an example of the best of new American regional cooking.

For Louisianians and for cooks everywhere in the country, this is the most exciting cookbook to be published in many years.

Having said that, can there be anything in this book for people who do not wish to eat a lot of fat? The answer is "yes" and here is why: Chef Prudhomme gives a very useful set of techniques to maximize the flavors that make the complex spice bouquet of real Louisiana cuisine.

As an example, I have used the Jambalaya recipe in this book many times. It is different from most recipes for this rice-sausage-and-meat cassarole. Prudhomme's version is served with a wonderful spicy tomato sauce surrounding a molded cupful of the rice mix. This is a very elegant presentation, adds moisture and flavor to the dish...and allows you to substitute ingredients and still get the sense of the genuine thing. (I use turkey Kielbasa, cut way down on the oil and use lean chicken breast for the meat.) The sauce is what makes this work so well.

Chef Prudhomme recommends "building" flavors by adding spices and herbs in stages. Some at the beginning, sauted at first, some later on near the end, to freshen the taste. He also makes a very important instruction about the miripoix mix--the onion, green bell pepper and celery base of many Cajun and Creole dishes. He says it's best to cut the vegetables, especially the bell pepper, very fine as that preserves the taste. It's true. Larger pieces of pepper taste bitter and flabby.

This kind of advice makes Prudhomme's book extremely useful. If you follow the flavor building advice, you can cut out a lot of the fat and substitute lean meats and still get good results from this book. Of course, you can't make a roux (flour and oil, cooked dark for a thickener) with no fat. So that can limit you. Or you make the recipes as written every once in a while for party occasions when the brakes are off. Either way, the techniques in this book are very useful.


another reader from New Orleans   February 22, 2000
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I absolutely love this cookbook! I just moved to New Orleans, and was eager to start cooking the local dishes. I am usually a disaster in the kitchen, but not with the recipes in this book! The best thing about it is that the instructions are so detailed, you just can't mess them up!

Everything I've tried turned out perfect, this has become my new favorite cookbook! A must for your cookbook library even if you think you don't think you like cajun/creole food.


recipes - not for the timid or diet conscious   November 25, 2000
booknblueslady (Woodland, CA United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Years ago watching Phil Dohahue, my husband and I viewed Paul Prudhomme promoting his book the Louisianna Kitchen. we were intrigued and had to have his book. Thus began our journey. We loved the illustrations and poured over them trying to decide which recipes we would do. We tried many and they have since become standards in our household.

I remember our first attempt at Crawfish enchiladas con Queso. we went over to a bait shop on the sacramento river to get the real thing. After the ordeal of immersing them in boiling water and the tedium of peeling them. we decided bay shrimp may make a good substitute and have used them ever since. It is a wonderful meal that starts me drooling just thinking about it.

Other tasty treats are Chicken big mamou (watch out for the scovil units), Cajun shepherd's pie, paneed veal and fettucini, cajun meatloaf and shrimp creole.

Over the years we have learned to cut down on the butter, without hurting the recipe and adjust heat to our taste. These recipes are not for the timid or diet conscious - but they are Deeeelicious!!