Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen [Hardcover]

Paul Prudhomme (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1984

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There was once a time when words like étouffée, tasso, and jambalaya were hardly known outside of the Cajun and Creole communities of Louisiana. Then along came Chef Paul Prudhomme, and all of that changed. Big enough to be his own force of nature, Prudhomme all but single-handedly turned Cajun cooking into a national food trend, changing forever the way many a cook thinks about spicing food. And Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen was the book that made it happen. But guess what? It's still happening, and so is the book!

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

Review

"It is no exaggeration to say that the finest and most definitive regional cooking in America is that of Louisiana, generally known as Cajun and Creole....Paul Prudhomme is the panjandrum--the greatest authority and practitioner--of that school of cookery and his book is absolutely essential on the cookbook shelves of anyone who cares about a great aspect of American cuisine."-- Craig Claiborne"Paul Prudhomme cooks up unique and exciting combinations of flavors with unusual foods generously spiced with his Cajun humor and joy."-- Alice Waters of "Chez Panisse, " Berkeley, California"At long last, the alchemy of Cajun-Creole cooking made possible for everyone!...Paul Prudhomme is a free culinary spirit, an American original, and his delicious new cookbook is bound to be a classic."-- Jean Anderson, author of "The Grassroots Cookbook" and co-author of "The New Doubleday Cookbook""For years amateur and professional chefs alike have waited patiently for Paul Prudhomme to share in print the recipes for his wonderful Cajun and Creole dishes, and I think it's safe to say that this collection will serve for years to come as a definitive statement on America's most exciting style of regional cooking."-- James Villas

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; 1 edition (April 17, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688028470
• ISBN-13: 978-0688028473
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > U.S. Regional

More About the Author

Chef Paul Prudhomme is the owner of K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen and Magic Seasoning Blends, both in New Orleans. Chef Paul is one of America's best-known chefs, having appeared on most major TV networks. He is currently the host of three cooking series on cable television and PBS. Chef Paul is the author of seven other cookbooks and has been featured in numerous publications. He lives in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He Who Must Be Obeyed, November 12, 2004

By 

Christopher I. Lehrich (Quincy, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen (Hardcover)

This spectacular cookbook beats out even Julia Child for one special thing: no matter what he tells you, do it.

Cajun cooking is based on a number of principles not all of which are normal in the French-American styles dominant in most cookbooks, and which still aren't normal in the Asian-influenced or Italianate cookbooks that have increasingly garnered attention.

Loooong cooking times, in some cases. Very high heat. Complicated sauces. Intricate spicing. Cooking "the hell out of" some ingredients.

These things are antithetical to Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, and Spanish cooking, from which come almost everything you might think you know about cooking. The whole concept, in so many cases, is to "bring out the true flavor" of some ingredient, which prompts all that "fresh and perfect" stuff about ingredients. All of which is grand, of course, but a little arch, don't you think?

This kind of Cajun country cooking, however, often takes unwanted ingredients, or ones that are a tad old, and makes something spectacular out of them. Looks like hell, tastes like heaven: it's brown and gooey, but by god you'll get down on your knees and beg to be allowed just a little more!

Now if you're an accomplished home cook and you've never cooked this type of cuisine, you're going to find instructions that you will naturally want to ignore. The Sweet Potato Pecan Pie, for example, has you bake it for something like an hour, at high heat. So quite naturally, you assume it's a typo or something and you "correct" it in the cooking. DO NOT DO THIS. My wife did this with that pie, and it was very good. I did exactly what I was told and it was spectacular, just absolutely to die for.

Here's some examples.

Barbecue shrimp. Will kill you if you eat it too often, but it's basically shrimp just barely poached perfectly in a spicy butter sauce, and you will beg for more.

Sweet Potato Pecan Pie. My very hard-core Yankee relatives who never eat anything they don't know were faced with this thing one Thanksgiving, and finally my uncle-in-law had a piece just to be polite. Within 30 minutes the entire pie was gone: word spread, and nothing was left over.

Chicken Etouffee. Heaven on earth. Chicken cooked the way it would have wanted if it could have known how good it could be after its demise, as Garrison Keillor put it.

Chicken-Andouille Gumbo. Bet you thought gumbo was all about seafood and okra, didn't you? Nope. This is amazing.

Crawfish Magnifique. Oh my god. Will make you worship at the altar. Unbelievable. Good with shrimp, but with crawfish it'll make you pound the table in ecstasy.

Oyster-Brie Soup. Huh? Yup. Just do what he says, will you please? Serve this at an elegant dinner and watch people sit up straight, realizing this isn't just messing about but serious eating happening right here.

I have now cooked about 90% of the recipes in here, and never once had a miss. I'm no great chef, but I can follow directions, and Paul Prudhomme never ever steers you wrong. Just do exactly what he tells you and brace up for some truly fine dining.

A hint: if you don't like spicy food, decrease the spice mix total. That is, make up the spice mix as he directs, and then instead of a tablespoon put in 2 teaspoons. Don't just decrease the hot stuff; it will not be perfectly balanced.

Another hint: if you use stock from a can or box (ugh), decrease the salt in the mixes and reduce the quantities of spice mix accordingly.

Yet another hint: read his notes at the start about ingredients and especially about cooking roux. It matters. Get a cast-iron pan and a good whisk, too.

One last hint: if you're making something with chicken in it, and it's too hot just before you put in the chicken to heat up, don't worry. The sweetness of the chicken will make it balance perfectly.

The man is a genius!

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible of Cajun/Creole Cooking, October 26, 2002

By 

Colin Povey "cpovey" (Clearwater, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen (Hardcover)

I am a chef, and this book is THE Bible of Creole/Cajun, or as it's now called Southern Louisiana cooking. Wonderful book, now in about it's 80th printing! I use it all the time.

I truly consider this book one of the best cookbooks ever from the USA. It ranks up there with "The Joy of Cooking" and "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" as classics, or standards that all serious cooks need to have in their library.

Many people think that New Orleans has the best food in America, and Paul is without a doubt one of the (if not the) best New Orleans cooks. If you want to explore one of the only true American cuisines, this book is a must.

As a hint for those worried about the 'heat' levels in some of these foods, do what most professional chef's do: Simply start with 1/4 or 1/2 the amount of 'hot' ingredients when you make a recipe. You can always add more heat if you want it, but you can't take it out!

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The techniques in this book can be adapted even for low fat, March 29, 2001

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen (Hardcover)

Later on in his career, Chef Paul Prudhomme took up low fat cooking to save his life. However, this book was written before he got "religion" and is not for the fat-conscious.

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.