The Ultimate Guide to NOLA Cuisine

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO NOLA CUISINE As Bravo's Emmy Award-winning "Top Chef" heads to New Orleans this fall, here's a taste of the culinary delights of Bayou country from étouffée to Oysters Rockefeller to bananas foster. You can catch the new season on Wednesdays at 10/9c. HOW TO SAY IT Beignets (Ben-YAYS) Étouffée (eh-too-FAY) Rémoulade (rem-00-LAHD) Fried choux (SHOE) pastry, with a heavy sprinkling of powdered sugar. The light dough has a high water content so the steam puffs the pastry. Perfect pairing: café au lait (cafe-oh-lay) or chocolate milk. From the French word for "smother," this dish is a shrimp or crawfish stew Mayonnaise typically mixed with mustard, hot sauce, garlic, paprika and Cajun or Creole seasoning. over rice. Doberge (dough-bash) Filé (fi-LAY) Powder made from ground Roux (ROO) Cake consists of multiple layers of cake and pudding or custard - usually chocolate, lemon or caramel – topped with rich icing. leaves of the sassafras tree. A thickener for gumbo. Andouille (gn-DOo-ee) The base of sauces, gumbos and stews, it's made with butter, lard or oil and flour. Tip on stirring it from famed NOLA chef Emeril Lagasse: "Be careful not to produce specks of black. The roux must remain an even color throughout process." A spicy pork sausage brought by the French to Louisiana. Often mixed with seafood and rice. HISTORY Bananas Foster A chef at famed Brennan's Restaurant created this dish in 1951. Rum-soaked bananas, brown sugar, butter and liqueur are flambéed and served over ice cream. The chef named it for frequent customer Richard Foster, who served with owner Owen Brennan on the New Orleans Crime Commission. Koing Cake This ring of Danish dough braids dates to the Middle Ages. Twelve days after Christmas, Europeans marked the coming of the three wise men bearing gifts with a celebration they called the Feast of the Epiphany (also known asTwelfth Night or King's Day). Cakes are beignets Doberge Cakes decorated with Mardi Gras French settlers brought beignets as they migrated to eastern Canada, a region in Nova Scotia they called Acadia, in the 17th century. Many Acadians settled in Louisiana. According to the New York Times, this dessert was invented during the Great Depression by Beulah Levy Ledner, a local woman who started making Hungarian Dobos tortes for extra money. She adapted the filling to the Louisiana climate by using custard instead of buttercream and gave it a fancy French name. You'll see these at New Orleans bridal showers and birthdays. colors of green, purple and gold to represent faith, power and justice. Today's cakes have a plastic baby hidden inside – whoever gets the slice with the baby has to buy the next cake or host the next party. You'll find them at most celebrations from Jan. 6 through Ash Wednesday. Jambalaya Mixture of rice, sausage, seafood and spices. The story from the Dictionary of American Food and Drink goes that a traveler arrived at a New Orleans inn long after dinner had been served. A cook named Jean was told to "balayez," or "throw something together" to feed the guest. The name of the delicious results eventually morphed into jambalaya. Adding raw long-grain rice to absorb flavors from the stock sets this favorite apart. Po' boyo Sazerac Turducken Thought to be the world's first cocktail. In the 1800s, Antoine Peychaud created the drink in This French bread sandwich, A deboned chicken stuffed into a overstuffed with meat or seafood deboned duck stuffed into a deboned turkey. This legendary New Orleans Thanksgiving dish has more stories about its origin than cooks' preferences for stuffing it. Hebert's (pronounced Ay-Bears) Specialty Meats claims to cook 10,000 of the hybrids a year and sells them in stores or ships them. and smothered in gravy, has roots in the Great Depression when the French Quarter and named it for his favorite French brandy Sazerac de Forge et Fils. In 1870, American rye whiskey was substituted for brandy, and a there was a street car strike. Some former streetcar workers opened a sandwich shop and used potatoes and roast beef gravy to create this signature dish. dash of absinthe was added. Oysterə Rockefeller Oysters on the half-shell topped with capers, green herbs and parmesan, crowned with a rich (rich as John D. Rockefeller) white sauce of butter, flour and milk and broiled. According to Southern Living magazine: "A true Rockefeller is bold and strong with freshly blended ingredients including parsley, celery leaf, and fennel bulb. The addition of anise-flavored liqueur such as Pernod only enhances the green herbaceous flavor." CREOLE VS. CAJUN BUTTER These cooking styles are different, though some of the spices are the same and they both originate from FRANCE. FLOUR Creole recipes are CITY FOOD. CREOLE roux is made Cajun dishes are COUNTRY FOOD. from butter and flour. LARD CREOLE cuisine grew out of the the settling of New Orleans and Louisiana by Europeans from Spain and France. The cuisine was also influenced by African, Caribbean and Italian immigrants. CREOLE FOOD is With CAJUN CUISINE, think hearty one-pot cooking and rustic ingredients - salt pork, corn, wild game OIL classically French with rich dishes such as shrimp FLOUR CAJUN recipes come through the settling of Acadians in rural rémoulade and trout CAJUN roux is made southern Louisiana. and seafood. meunière. from lard or oil and flour. COMMON INGREDIENTS RICE BEANS OKRA CRAWFISH OYSTERS CRAB SHRIMP FISH YAMS ANDOUILLE CHICKEN ONIONS CELERY TYPICAL SPICES onion Paprika Ground cumin Black Garlic Thyme pepper powder powder Cayenne pepper Carqway seeds Dried basil Dry mustard File oregano Cardamom powder TRADITIONAL FARE Appetizers Crab cakes, oysters, styffed jalapenos, barbecued shrimp, crab claws. Soups Turtle soup, gumbo, crab and corn soup. Entrees Jambalaya, étouffée, red begns and rice, myffuletta, crab cakes, Shrimp or chicken creole, red snapper, po' boys, stewed or fricasseed rabbit. Desserts Beignets, banangs boster, pralines (call them praw-leens if you want to sound like a local), bread pudding, lemon icebox pie, snowballs (cups of finely Shqved ice with any number of syrups and creams.) THE HUFFINGTON POST SOURCES http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/cuisine/traditionalfoods/ http://www.neworleanscvb.com/restaurants/traditional/ http://www.southernliving.com/food/kitchen-assistant/oysters-rockefeller-recipe-00417000072440/ http://www.brennansneworleans.com/r_bananasfoster.html http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/how-to-roux-recipe/index.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/dining/king-cakes-abound-in-new-orleans.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Creole-Versus-Cajun http://www.nolacuisine.com/2006/07/03/homemade-file-powder/ TOP CHEF OCT 2 Wed 10/9c heat by Bravo Photo* courtesy: © Gettyimages Except Doberge cake photo courtesy: Angie Garrett